DIY White Farmhouse Kitchen Renovation

One of the most important spaces in a home is the kitchen. The kitchen is where you spend much of your time in here gathering as a family whether it be for meals, entertaining, or just because. Our kitchen was far from functional when we bought our home. It was small and outdated and because of the honey oak cabinets and black tile counters it was way too dark. To brighten and expand this space for our family we decided to tackle our kitchen renovation ourselves and completely DIY everything. This meant we would need to knock out cabinets, paint honey oak cabinets white, put in a subway tile backsplash, and make the space an open and inviting focal point of our home. Take a look at how we transformed our old, outdated honey oak kitchen into the bright and modern white farmhouse kitchen of our dreams!

Before Photos

The photo on the left is how the house looked when we moved in. The photo on the right is after we remodeled the rest of the house and updated the refrigerator and faucet.

Step 1 – Demo Pantry Cabinet & Rework the Layout

For our kitchen we had to take out the pantry (far right cabinet box) and cut down the cabinet to counter height and order a new door in order to open up the space for a larger counter top. You will need to take any layout changes into consideration for your own kitchen project.

We knew we wanted the counters to extend as far as we could towards the breakfast nook area, and that once we reconfigured the cabinet we could use other areas as the pantry (this cabinet space was largely wasted by big items we can easily store in the garage and very little actual food items that were hard to get to anyways).

We measured the exact height the cabinet would need to fit under the extended counters and easily made a few cuts in the garage and then put it back in its exact position. We ordered a new door from the builders which luckily were just a few miles from our home. We found the information on the back of the cabinet after we removed it. The door took about two weeks to be made and cost $65.

Step 2 – Build Open Shelving

We wanted open shelving for the dishes in the space where the pantry cabinet had been. The shelves are fairly straight forward. You need three sections (fitted to whatever length necessary for your space) of 2″ x 12″ wood, stained with dark walnut, mounted on 12″ long by 3/4″ thick black iron pipe threaded into black iron flanges, and then capped off with pipe caps. Spray paint all the piping matte black first.

Also, you will NEED to install the gas piping into studs. We were very lucky to find two studs in the area, because otherwise we would have had to open the wall and reinforce it before installing the shelves. The wood and piping are VERY heavy and will not be safe mounted into drywall. Our shelves are spaced apart 11″. We also painted the wall to match the grey in the house where the cabinet was previously covering the wall.

Step 3 – Demo Old Counters & Order New Counter Tops

We chose IKEA quartz based on price and availability. It was cheaper than anywhere else, available in the color we wanted, and easy to order. You simply place your order at IKEA, pay upfront 100% (the 20% off deal IKEA runs every year!) and then wait for a call in about 2-3 days to set up the template appointment and installation appointment. At the templating appointment you have to have your counters demoed in order for perfect measuring to occur.

You must also have the sink on site if you are doing an undermount sink, which we did. This is the sink we purchased, which we are very happy with. The appointment took about an hour, and then they took our sink with them. Two weeks later the sink and the counters were installed.

During that two weeks is when we painted the cabinets. Demo was relatively easy, though the granite tile was heavy, we were able to remove it without damaging the walls or cabinets too badly. We did have to replace a chunk of drywall from the first area where we removed the counter top and it ripped too much of the drywall off the wall behind the backsplash. You can see the damage in this photo.

Step 4 – Prep the Cabinets for Paint

Prepare your cabinets for paint. You need to use a heavy deglosser and clean and clean and clean the cabinets. We didn’t want to sand the cabinets so this method is necessary in having your paint stay on well. After they cabinets were clean, we removed all the doors and drawers to spray them in the garage. We then plastic and paper wrapped the kitchen completely so that no overspray would get anywhere we didn’t want it to go.

I will warn you, we did get a light mist all over the house somehow anyways. It was easy enough to wipe up and vacuum up, but I do recommend you wrap the kitchen as much as possible to keep the spray enclosed in the kitchen.

Step 5 – Paint the Cabinets White

We purchased an inexpensive sprayer from the hardware store and sprayed 3-4 light coats of KILLZ primer. After the primer was dry we sprayed 3-4 light coats of the finish paint. We sprayed the doors and drawers in the garage and sprayed the boxes in place. We choose Benjamin Moore Advance in Dove White. From my research I found it to be the most durable, self-leveling type of paint (meant for cabinets) available.

First, paint several light coats of primer, then several light coats of finish paint. The painting occurred in the evenings and on the weekends practically everyday for two weeks. We wanted to do it slowly and carefully and have lots of light coats so that the paint adhered correctly and had a durable finish. We had to roll and brush several areas including the inside of the corner cabinet, and above and below many areas of the cabinets.

Step 6 – Add Hardware to the Cabinets

The hardware was easily installed with a drill and screw gun. You can purchase a guide to help you install each knob and pull in the same place on each cabinet. I ended up just measuring the knob holes because there wasn’t a good hole in the guide for that spot, but the guide was handy for the pulls since you have to make two holes per pull. We went with a matte black finish because we felt that it matched with the black iron piping and other black iron items we had (including the pot rack and dinning nook light fixture).

Step 7 – Install New Counters and Fixtures

You have to wait 24 hours to use the plumbing and sink so the silicone in the undermount sink can set. The installers were here for about 30 minutes only. They drilled a hole in the counter top on site for our faucet. You can have it placed pretty much anywhere. We had it centered.

Step 7 – Tile and Grout the Backsplash

This step was another first for us, and there were some hiccups and its by no means perfect, but it is doable as a DIY! We rented a tile cutter from the hardware store for $25 for one day. You need to cut tile around the electrical outlets, and cut the ends so that the tile fits together as you can see in the photo of the corner (below). We used 1/8″ spacers so we could see a good amount of the grout (any smaller and the tile practically touches). The grout color is delorean grey, which is like a silver grey, and matched with our grey wall color perfectly. Many people go for darker grout as a pop, but I wanted the kitchen to feel as light and airy as possible.

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Check out the final reveal of our bright and modern DIY white farmhouse kitchen here!

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Project Notes

The entire project took us about 3 weeks, from demo to grouting the tile. Our kitchen was pretty much unusable for much of it, especially when we removed the counters. But it was completely worth it, having such a dream kitchen after it was complete!

It has been two months since we completed the renovation as I write this, so I can say that the paint is very durable. We only have one or two tiny pint chips in areas we think we missed the extra layers of paint (when your painting that much it can be hard to see how much paint has actually been sprayed on each spot). Those areas have been very easy to touch up with a brush, and because of the self-leveling properties of the advance paint, you cannot easily notice the touch up spots at all. The cabinets are also very easy to wipe clean and nothing so far has stained the paint.

The counters have proven a bit more touchy, we already have a small spot from a crayola metallic marker stain that would NOT come out no matter what method I tried. Its very faint, but now permanent. We try to be very careful and wipe clean any colorful spills, though so far red wine, red fruit juices, and colored frosting have all wiped clean without leaving a stain. I have also been able to get out other marks left by tools and dishes that have left water marks or marked the counter.

Project Materials

• Counters: IKEA Quartz Frosty Carrina 50sf at $77/sf before discount, $3,800 total cost (after 20% discount, 9.5% sales tax, and undermount sink cutout fee)
• Cabinet Paint: Benjamin Moore Advance Dove White $60/gallon (we used one gallon for the whole kitchen with a sprayer)
• Cabinet Hardware: Style Selections Matte Black mushroom cabinet knobs and arched cabinet pulls Approx $100 total cost
• Grout: Polyblend Delorean Gray non-sanded grout $10
• Mortar: Mapei premium mortar $25
• Subway tile: White ceramic subway tile Approx $100 total cost
• Crown liquid deglosser $7
• Painyt Sprayer Approx $100 total cost
• Open shelving:
• 2″x12″ wood (cut into desired length) x3
• 3/4″ x 12″ black iron piping x6
• black iron piping caps x6
• black iron flanges (for wall mounting) x6

Check out the final reveal of our bright and modern DIY white farmhouse kitchen here!

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