Modern and Matte - replacing the cabinet pulls

Today was a day off of work, and we took full advantage of both being home at the same time today! After going out and having a fun date out of the house this afternoon, we made a run to Home Depot... and boy were we lucky. I decided I wanted to get our kitchen a little more modern to fit the new appliance upgrade and that will eventually look good when we replace the counter tops. Originally I was thinking a nice bronze with copper accents.

That's when we saw them.

Matte. Black. Cabinet. Pulls.

Or, I should say, I saw them and started obsessing, and Bob started wanting to get the heck out of there because I was being embarrassing.

A side by side comparison.

When we first moved in, the first room we painted was the kitchen. I wanted a very zen white kitchen, but realistically ended up with something that looked much bigger but still wasn't visually interesting. I thought of taking the kitchen grey, but painting the cabinets seems a little overwhelming since we plan to tile and the herringbone grey backsplash will probably give sufficient visual interest. At the same time, one of my favorite trends from this decor season has been black in kitchens, and more specifically matte black. Unfortunately, our kitchen is far too small for black cabinetry. I mean, just look at the old dishwasher look, and picture that on all the lowers. Not good. The tan paint alone made the place feel about 10 feet smaller on each side.

Not terrible, but just kinda vanilla...
and not the expensive Savory Spice vanilla either.

Also, I am really digging the pulls on the bottom and knobs on the top look. The top cabinets were a matter of unscrewing the old pulls and just popping on the new ones.

Easy peasy.
Especially because the old screws would not budge.
Side note: that is also how I figured out they painted the cabinets with the knob screws already in.

Up to this point, replacing the knobs alone is something a renter could do and is renter-friendly. You just keep the old knobs and replace them when you leave.

However, the bottoms were going to be new holes for at least some of the drawers. Unless you've got a real cool landlord, that's pretty much a non-starter for this, so I won't label it renter-friendly.

So we started measuring where the pulls should be placed. In the process, we discovered that our knobs looked so awkward because they were not centered.

Bob does the measurements, because he's better at it than I am.

After doing one drawer where the drill walked so far I think it ended up in Fort Collins, we came up with a solution. We started by using a smaller bit to do a quick spot drill, and then using a cheap dollar store frame as a drill guide.

Thank you Dollar Store.

 I wasn't able to get good pictures because it was still a two man job getting those holes drilled.

I filled in the old drill holes with some wood putty, let them dry overnight, and will sand and repaint them tomorrow.  In the meantime, here are the afters:

I really think that this adds some needed pizzazz, and makes everything much more modern.

Please excuse the mess, drilling is hungry work and that's our dinner cooking!

The finished look, all tidied up:

Final cost = about $120:

That total has an extra 2.98 because I got a new pull for the laundry closet.

That's all for this month, I'll be back next month with new ideas and projects! As always, let me know what you think!

~K