Distressed Kitchen Cabinets

I have had a few people ask me how I got my kitchen cabinets to look distressed. So here's the how-to for everyone who's interested.

The finished result (for those of you lacking in the patience department):

Forgive my lighting. Hubs like the blue "daylight" bulbs. Me, not as much...

When Derek and I moved into our house in 2007, the kitchen was lacking, to say the least. This was our starting point:

Builder's grade, sun bleached, honey colored cabinets. They drove me crazy.

So I decided to do something about it.  I started by painting the cabinets white: a coat (or two) of primer and then a few coats of white paint.

They were a bit sterile, so I decided I'd like to distress them. I took some 80 grit sand paper and sanded the corners and areas that would have naturally had the most wear (as in, would have worn the paint off).

Then, I took an antiquing glaze (http://www.valspar.com/products/product/Antiquing_Glaze.html) and used a 3 rag system. My system included one to apply the glaze initially. one to wipe the freshly applied glaze off (immediately... act like you didn't mean to put it on there in the first place) and one with a little bit of soapy water on it to get rid of the places that still have too much glaze. The glaze is awesome because it's really workable and it only costs $8. And because it goes a LONG way. I didn’t even use ½ of the one I purchased.


The key places I found to get the glaze is in the corners and the little nooks and creases. That looks the most antique. I did end up putting a light amount of the glaze over the entire cabinet, but I ended up wiping most of it off. You have up to 15 minutes to work with the glaze before it dries which is awesome because you can really manipulate it however you want. It’s pretty amazing.

The asphaltium glaze says to use with a crackling glaze and/or a metal glaze… but I didn’t do that. I only used the antiquing glaze. And I didn't even put anything else over top of it to seal it. I don't know... maybe I should have, but so far, no problems.

Here are some photos of the finished product:

During the backsplash/ countertop demo, but good detail of the cabinets.

You may be tempted to get a glaze that is more brown, but DON’T DO IT. Your cabinets will turn out with a nasty red dirt color. I made that mistake…

Painting the cabinets white took a while, but the distressing part took me a total of 5 hours. Pretty small price for the difference it made if you ask me.

Happy painting!

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