Friday, March 29, 2013

Kitchen Makeover: Cabinet Toekicks

The toekicks of the kitchen cabinets had originally been covered with blue cove base. (Cove base is the vinyl "baseboard" typically found in office buildings and pubic restrooms.) Removing it shredded the toekicks and left tons of adhesive.

To hide the damage, I made new facades for the toekicks. I cut pieces of MDF to size and covered them with beadboard wallpaper painted black like the cabinets. I attached the facades with a little construction adhesive.

I wanted to dress the cabinets up further by adding feet. While poking around the architectural salvage yard one day, I came across these nine balusters. I saw the nice carved shape and thought, "I can make feet from these!"
Very dirty balusters from an outdoor staircase. Gonna need the Krud Kutter cleaner!

Sure enough, by cutting them into five pieces...
I chopity chop chopped on the chop saw.

I created feet! One section (number 4 above) gave me nine feet for the cabinets. I also got four feet for another project from section 2.
Lots of feet! The nine on the right are for the cabinets.

After thoroughly cleaning the feet, I painted them black. Then I attached them to the cabinets with a drop of construction adhesive.

Total cost of this project was $4.50. I paid 50 cents each for the balusters. The MDF, wallpaper and paint were all leftovers from previous projects.

17 comments:

  1. Those cabinets look so elegant now! I love it how you tell how you get the inspiration to do things and how you make your ideas happen. :D

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    1. Thank you! I like to write about the process in the hope that others will find the information useful. That's really my main goal with the blog - to help and encourage people to pursue their own projects. :)

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  2. Fantastic bane! Love it and it was so inexpensive to do!

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    1. Thank you! I was very excited to find the 50-cent balusters. :D

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  3. What a brilliant finishing touch. Very clever upcycling too! I love your kitchen.

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  4. What a lovely idea! I never thought of giving wall cabinets feet! I am sure they appreciate it, I just hope they won't run around while you are asleep!:P

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    1. Thanks! I gave them a stern warning that if they walk out while I'm sleeping, they'd better return filled with groceries. ;)

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  5. As usual, I am completely in awe of the transformation. Well done!

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  6. You're so good at seeing the DIY potential in things! I would have been like: Oh, need cabinet feet, hm, these pieces of wood are too long. *Spends hours coveting carved feet online*

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    1. I stubbornly refuse to accept that there's only one right way to use an item. ;) I did spend some time looking at carved feet online. Those little guys are expensive!

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  7. I am in AWE of your "new" kitchen!!

    I never would have thought of 'feet' for those, either, but they look totally elegant. Just goes to show, the little things can make a BIG difference!

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    1. Thanks so much! I'm not sure where I first saw feet added to cabinets - might have been a Better Homes & Gardens book. I think the idea is that feet make the cabinets look more like furniture and less like a row of wood boxes.

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  8. Those feet are brilliant! Such a small detail but they really make a huge difference.

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    1. Thank you! Loving Victorian style decorative wood trim but living in a bland 70's ranch means I'm always looking to add more carved wood to the house. :)

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  9. very nice

    what kind of paint do you use

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    1. Thanks! I used Behr latex paint from Home Depot.

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