Palm Harbor Kitchen — Cherry to Two-Tone Gray and Blue

The cabinets in this Karlsburg Place kitchen were dark cherry — sound, well built, and completely at odds with the quartz counters and light backsplash they were sitting under. Nothing was wrong with them structurally. They were simply the wrong color for the rest of the room, which is the most common reason a kitchen gets painted.

What the job actually involved

46 units. Thirty-two doors, thirteen drawers, one false drawer front, and the wine rack. That count is what drives the price on a job like this — every one of those comes off, gets tagged, cleaned, sanded, primed, sprayed, cured, and goes back on. This kitchen sits above the 25-to-40 range a typical Tampa Bay kitchen falls into.

Two colors, split the usual way. Benjamin Moore Arctic Gray 1577 on the uppers, Van Deusen Blue on the lowers. Light above and dark below keeps the room feeling tall while giving the base some weight — and against a white quartz counter, the blue reads as a deliberate choice rather than an accident.

A tinted primer under the blue. This is the part worth explaining, because it is invisible in the finished photo. Going from dark cherry to a saturated blue is not simply a matter of enough coats. A standard white primer under a deep color fights the topcoat — you end up chasing coverage, and the color never fully settles. Priming in a tint close to the finish color means the blue covers properly and stays true.

Hardener in the finish. The lower cabinets take the abuse in any kitchen: feet, cleaning products, the dishwasher door, everything at knee height. We added a hardener to the finish so the film cures harder than it otherwise would.

Hardware. New handles throughout, at no cost — the existing hinges were in good condition and stayed. There is no reason to charge someone for hinges that work.

Who did the work

Alex and Steven ran this project start to finish. That is them in the after photo, standing in the kitchen they finished.

The homeowner, Susan, left us a review afterwards that singled out exactly the part of the job nobody sees: “Alex really took the time for prep to clean up to get it right.” You can read her review on Google.