Kitchen Transformed From Relic to Refreshed

In Her Own Words: Des Moines radio personality Heather Burnside gives a tour of her Refreshed kitchen

By Heather Burnside

In early 2022, I was doing a broadcast from a home show when I met Joe Bach from Kitchen Refresh. The first things that caught my eye were the beautiful cabinet doors he had on display. And what really caught my attention? A new look for our kitchen for a LOT less, and there was no need to gut and start over. We could save our beautiful quartz countertops and backsplash, while getting rid of the poorly painted cabinet doors and drawers that were falling apart.

First, let me introduce you to our old kitchen:

BEFORE: The white paint over the 1990’s cabinets was gummy, uneven, and hard to clean.

Painted Doors Were Gummy, Uneven, And Didn’t Clean Well

Yes, it photographs well, and that was the probably the whole point when we first saw the real estate pictures and looked at buying the home. "What a nice, updated kitchen,” we said, or so we thought. But after we moved in we noticed the white paint over the 1990's cabinets was gummy, uneven, and didn't clean well.

Also, nothing was soft close, and several drawers were falling apart. I dreamed of getting new cabinets, but thought a kitchen remodel would be years down the road.

Enter Kitchen Refresh, who explained we could keep our current cabinets, have JUST the boxes professionally painted (see below), then have them install all NEW doors and drawer fronts, with an updated style, concealed, soft-close hinges, and all new handles. The entire process would only take a few days, and after they left for the day as they were completing the project, we could still use our kitchen.

Sign us up!

Step 1: With the Kitchen Refresh process, we first remove all of your doors and drawer fronts, and then ONLY your cabinet boxes are painted! Note that with our approach, all of your items remain in your cabinets - think of the time savings - no pulling and packing of your entire cupboard contents!! Only the items in your drawers need to be removed.

We opted to have all our drawer boxes replaced, too, which came with soft-close slides. Kitchen Refresh then installed new cabinet box pull outs (see gallery below, left photo) for pots and pans, a new Lazy Susan, and a new trash rollout with two bins - one for regular trash and one for recycling (see gallery below, center photo), which was much more functional than the old one (also, gallery below, right photo).

We also chose to do the lower cabinets in a light gray that matched the color in the quartz countertops, while keeping the upper cabinets white.

STEP 2: After the cabinet boxes are painted, then Kitchen Refresh installs all of the NEW, custom manufactured, doors and drawer fronts (and drawer boxes, if ordered), along with any new cabinet storage items, such as trash rollouts, Lazy Susans and cabinet box pullouts.

And now, we have a "new" kitchen! It was done in only three days, and Kitchen Refresh worked about 4 hours each day.

AND, DONE! Here is the finished Kitchen Refresh project.

The 3-Day Breakout

Day one, they pulled all the old doors and drawers, and started cabinet box prep, priming and painting.

Day two, they finished painting and touched up.

Day three, they installed all of our NEW cabinet doors, drawer fronts, and drawer boxes. There were only a few pieces that didn't fit quite right (they are all custom manufactured), and Kitchen Refresh came back about a week later to put on the finishing touches.

We love our new kitchen, and you’ll love yours too!

It's a FREE consultation to see what Kitchen Refresh can do for your kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, or bar. Thanks for taking a tour of our kitchen!