Homegoods Cabinet Re-Do

There was a long chain of events leading to me buying a brand new cabinet to re-do from Home Goods…

psst… the cabinets pictured above are available here and here and here

…long story short:  I loved the style & size of this black cabinet, but not the color; and it worked great for our purposes.

I had considered a few others.  Maybe this grey one wouldn’t need to be re-finished?  But not enough storage.

Too long, too transitional.

Too bedroom.

Too modern.  Would have looked great in our old house.

So after way too many trips to Home Goods, it finally came home with me one day.  Tried it on and it fit perfectly.  But I really am not into black furniture.  I couldn’t get the silver and white finishes available on my dream cabinet out of my head.  While planning on what will replace the buffet we stole from the living room, we decided that silver would work great in there.  So, white it was.

It’s small enough that I wanted to spray paint it to avoid brush marks.  I’m probably a little nutty when it comes to brush marks.  I insist that things be sprayed whenever possible.  From a distance, you may not notice that the trim in a house was painted with a brush, but I see it and I know.  And it drives me crazy.  The painter who got the job to paint our entire house (100% trim & walls) got the job because he also can’t stand brush marks and apologized that he could save me a ton of money by brushing one or two little areas.

So I got myself some spray paint and a drop cloth and got to work.

First, I took off the doors and set about removing the mirrors so I could paint both sides of the trim.  The mirror would show the black paint on the back side of the door design.  No bueno.  It came off with a small flathead screw driver & a little pressure, just not all in one piece.  In fact, it came off in many, many pieces.  It was very brittle and a lazy way of installing glass/mirror in a cabinet door.  I had to use pliers to pull out little nails, but they came out easily for the most part.

Then it was time to start painting!  I started with the back and the bottom so that any adjustments in the way I was spraying could be made on an area that wouldn’t show.

I used painter’s pyramids which are well worth the less than $10 investment.  I use them frequently and they make spray paint jobs turn out so much better.  You can see the cabinet doors sitting on them here.  I always start with the back of each piece and save the front for last.  When you’re painting something flat, you can put a lot of paint on without worrying about drips to get a great finish.  On the back of the mirrors there was a thin board so I painted the side of those that shows as well.

After everything was good and white, I sprayed everything with a coat of clear satin finish to give it a nice look.  More on the paints I used shortly.

Then I re-installed the mirrors in the doors, but I did it right this time.  I put a bead of clear silicone caulking around the edges of where the mirrors sit, pressed the mirrors down, covered with the backing boards, and used some glazing points to hold the backing boards in and as extra protection from door slamming kiddos.

I could have left well enough alone at this point, but I’m an over-the-top sort of person who had fallen in love with this beautiful buffet.  Clearly it was the paint fumes that said “let’s just quick hand-paint some silver accents, it will be easy”.  It wasn’t easy and this is proof that I should not be a surgeon, but from a distance it looks great anyway.

I also used 2 clear glass knobs that I had on hand from changing out hardware on a previous project from D Lawless Hardware (use code “remodelicious” for 10% off).

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll paint around the doors and other straight edges like was done in my inspiration piece.  I’m not sure it will have the same effect on the thicker borders.  Either way, I’m really happy with the finish and how this turned out!

The cabinet felt unfinished until I put the clear satin top coat on.  I highly recommend taking the time for this step.

And, of course, we met our ultimate goal of having a pretty spot that’s not too big, not too small to fit this little spot at the back of our family room where the girls can store their toys.

The Chevron containers were a random Lowe’s find earlier this year.

I used Rust-Oleum High Performance Enamel in flat white because I’ve used it before with great success.  It goes on thick so you don’t need to do a ton of tiny coats and holds up great.  I actually use it on the metal frames of my real estate signs and it holds up outdoors for years.  It took nearly 6 whole cans to paint this small piece which surprised me.  Over than, I used a top coat of Valspar clear sealer in satin.  It took about 1.5 cans to coat everything but the bottom and back.  The Liquid Leaf in Silver was something I had on hand from a project forever ago.  After trying a couple other silver options, this was the thickest and easiest to use in a single coat.

Love the finished project and this is just warm-up for some other paint projects on deck.