Painting the Built-in cabinets

The built-in cabinets and shelves in the dining room had, for lack of a better term, a scalloped header. On Christmas day, because it was raining and we could not move forward on our fence project, The Mister cut the scallops away to leave behind a straight lined header. He kept the ends curved because he thought they added interest. He likes it, but I'm still not sure. The built-ins stayed that way for nearly two months. (Pretty typical of our projects to simply drag on and on. :) )


This was taken soon after we completed the crown molding. The scallops can be seen on the built-in's header. 

When The Mister installed crown molding and baseboards in the dining area, I primed and painted them white. The contrast between the off-white existing built-in cabinets and shelves and the bright white crown molding and baseboards really began to bug me after living with off-white cabinets for nearly a year.

Close-up of the color difference and the removed scallop

In February of 2013, I took off the doors to the built-in cabinets and sanded and caulked the shelves. The Mister helped me prime and paint since painting around the picture window was tedious.

Primed cabinets

Priming cabinets in our painting room (living room)

I can't seem to get a picture of this space without it looking completely blown out because of too much light or yellowed because of not enough light, but believe me, the white trim meeting white cabinets has made a huge difference. When I walk into the space now, I don't twitch when I see white trim meets off-white cabinets. Maybe we will be able to tackle the yellow kitchen cabinets next year. I have dreams of turning those cabinets white as well.