Unfinished Wood Cabinets In The Flip House Kitchen

This was our first time working with unfinished wood cabinets in a flip house. I never thought we would get to this point. We have been working our tails off at the flip house but sometimes it felt like we weren’t making any progress. Fast forward two months and a week and a half and I can say that we are done!

It was only about two weeks past the timeline we set when we bought it so I am happy with that. Today, I wanted to talk about the unfinished wood cabinets we added to the kitchen to make it look like a new space. 

Let me remind you of what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house.

It doesn’t look like it in this picture, but it was bad. The cabinets were horrible inside and out and the entire kitchen was in major need of some love.

After we ripped out the cabinets on each side, we found some things we weren’t expecting.

The small pantry had a little infestation at one point. Nasty! We set traps, but after further inspection, the critters were long gone and this was what we left before we bought the house. If we wouldn’t have torn out the cabinets, we would have never known about this. I am so glad we were able to fix it all up for the new owners. 

Adding the unfinished wood cabinets to this kitchen meant that we took on the biggest demo we have done in our short flipping career.

The entire kitchen was demolished and thrown out. That part was a lot of fun. Chip Gaines has the best job with Demo Days!

Once we had everything cleared out and started planning the new kitchen, unfinished wood cabinets were the best option for the small budget we were working with. 

This flip house has some weird textures on all the walls and we had to come up with creative ways to get rid of them. The kitchen had a faux brick backsplash that we took out and once we had the old cabinets removed and took out the soffits near the ceilings on both sides, the kitchen was a blank slate. Getting rid of the soffits made the room seem taller and bigger and we had more room to raise the unfinished wood cabinets and put them where they looked best. 

We bought the unfinished wood cabinets at our local Menards store. Most home improvement stores have unfinished wood cabinets in stock which saves time and money. Every one of the cabinets we needed was in stock except one. We decided to wait until that one was back in stock and then we would come and get them all at once. That gave us more time to work on other things that had to get done before the cabinets were set.

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Once the cabinets came in, we were ready. We had laid the new flooring and the next step was to add the cabinets. Matt, Landen and my dad worked together to get them set. It didn’t take long and before I knew it, I had the task of painting these bad boys. 

I thought about staining the cabinets, but since I chose a dark floor for the kitchen, I didn’t want to stain the cabinets dark and wasn’t finding a lighter stain I loved so I decided to paint them white. White cabinets would make the kitchen look bigger and brighter. It was the right choice, but the work to get them there was not fun.

I started by putting BOSS from Dixie Belle Paint Company all over the cabinets. I have been using this stuff on my projects at home and love it. It lessens bleed through and blocks stains and odors. 

Once that dried, I started painting the cabinets. I chose “Cotton” from Dixie Belle Paint because it is a clean, crisp white. I am going to be very honest and tell you that we did many coats of this paint on the cabinets and the color of the unfinished wood cabinets was coming through. So, what I should have done was put a few coats of the BOSS on the cabinets before I painted. I also should have done a primer coat before I painted. 

With all of that said, I did prime the cabinets after I had a few coats of paint on it to help. Then, we went over them all with “Cotton”. After the paint dried for a few days, I went over all the cabinets with “Gator Hide” from Dixie Belle Paint for the finish coat. 

Painting cabinets is never an easy job. We painted our kitchen cabinets in our home and the kitchen cabinets in the first flip house we bought. It is not a small job, but every time we have done it, it has been worth it because of the end result. 

The unfinished wood cabinets were extra tough because they were raw. I needed to start with a few more layers of BOSS and a primer coat before the paint. But, that is how Matt and I have learned so much. Every project has taught us so much and we take that with us to the next. We love learning this stuff and wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

Doesn’t this kitchen look amazing now?! We added wainscoting to the walls around the cabinets. On the other side, I opted for more cabinets and not a pantry cabinet. I have been calling this set of cabinets the “coffee station” area. I see the coffee pot set up in this corner with coffee mugs stored inside the upper cabinet. Would be a great place for the microwave too. I chose cabinet hardware from Hickory Hardware. They have so many great options for hardware and I always can find exactly what I need for our projects. 

This kitchen is one of my favorite makeovers to date. It has come so far and we couldn’t be more proud of it. 

This kitchen will be a selling feature of this flip. It is not big, but it is so cute and ready to welcome the new owners.

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