Nicole saved some cash on her dream kitchen renovation by buying new builder grade cabinets and painting them herself, instead of paying for pre-painted dark grey kitchen cabinets. This full kitchen renovation is so inspiring, with some great tips for renovating on a budget, we know you’ll love it!
Painting kitchen cabinets is a big job, so you’ll want to choose a classic cabinet color. Nicole chose a beautiful dark grey kitchen cabinet paint and paired it with white subway tile, white solid surface countertops, and nickel and stainless steel hardware and appliances for an amazing full kitchen renovation before and after!
Full Kitchen Renovation with Dark Grey Kitchen Cabinets
Submitted by Nicole from This Little Momma
When we moved into our house, by far the kitchen was my favorite room in the entire house! I created that kitchen to how I wanted my kitchen to be. It looked like this before we replaced the cabinets with painted dark grey kitchen cabinets:
Related: 5 Must-Read Tips BEFORE Remodeling Your Kitchen
We completely gutted the kitchen, replaced the electrical and then built it to our needs.
I painted the kitchen cabinets a dark grey (Sherwin-Williams Peppercorn) which is a nice charcoal gray paint color. We just used builder grade cabinets. We added molding to the top of the cabinets to create the look of custom built cabinets.
Related: How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets (so you only have to do it once)
I chose white subway tile as the backsplash. All the stainless steel appliances were new but purchased in the scratch and dent department of the appliance store.
Luke really wanted to put a breakfast bar separating the kitchen and the dining room. Ultimately we decided that doing that would not be a very space savvy plan so instead we built a 30 inch long wall to center the entryway of the kitchen & dining room.
Renovating a kitchen? See more examples of popular kitchen layouts here.
And FINALLY!! The pictures only 2 pictures I have of my finished kitchen (hey I had a newborn, pictures were the last thing on my mind).
Our dark grey kitchen cabinets, painted from basic builder grade cabinets:
Well what do you think of our dark grey kitchen cabinets? We loved it! And now we miss it since we’ve moved.
Related: Best Grey Kitchen Cabinet Paint Colors
Sources: Dark Charcoal Grey Kitchen Cabinets + Subway Tile
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- Kitchen Cabinets: The cheap-o builders grade cabinets from Home Depot– we sanded, primed, and painted them dark grey: Sherwin-Williams Peppercorn.
- Hardware- Home Depot – similar brushed nickel cup pulls here and brushed nickel cabinet knobs here.
- Faucet– Home Depot (similar here)
- Light over sink- IKEA (similar here)
- White Subway Tile Backsplash- Home Depot cheap stuff again (similar here)
- Appliances: We bought all of our appliances from scratch and dent. Our dishwasher was from Home Depot and our microwave, stove, and fridge were from the local Sears Scratch and Dent store (all together under $1500!! The fridge was originally $2500ish and had one small dent on the back and a very very small scratch on the front- I think we paid $800 for it)
- The sink came free with our purchase of the solid surface countertop
- The hanging shelf under the cabinets is from IKEA
- Counter tops are Corian with gray specks in them from Home Depot. (I think this was it Silver Birch — closest currently available is probably Antarctica)
- Ceramic Tile flooring– once again the cheapest stuff we could find. Those babies were $1/sq ft. We matched them up to the expensive stuff we really liked and they were the same thickness so it was a no brainer to save as much $ as we could! We like how it turned out!
More grey kitchen cabinets you’ll love:
Update March 2019: Nicole has stopped blogging and her site is no longer available, so the links to her former blog have been removed.
Originally published 12.26.11 // Last updated 02.25.20
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