The kitchen in our 1925 cottage was remodeled in the 80's and it looked like it. Within the first two months we lived here, we added a dishwasher, bought new white appliances, installed white tile floors and counter tops, painted the walls white, changed the light fixtures, and added a large white farmhouse sink with a new silver faucet. We didn't, however, do anything to the 1980's cabinets except clean them profusely with expensive anti-smoke cleaner (the previous inhabitants were heavy smokers) and add cute silver pulls. When we priced cabinets, it would have been more expensive for new (old-fashioned looking) cabinets than the entire rest of the kitchen remodel. We just couldn't afford new cabinets and were resigned to living with the completely out-of-place, 1980's ones.
Three years later, I was reading The Lettered Cottage blog and fell in love with their black cabinets. I asked my husband about painting our cabinets black, but he wasn't sure it would look good. Then we found a picture on the Lettered Cottage of their original cabinets before painting. They were the EXACT same cabinets we had! My husband was totally on board with the painting after that. We had to finish our basement remodel, build a fence and landscape our yard first. But a year after finding the Lettered Cottage cabinets, we finally had time to do our own this past weekend. My folks babysat the twins and it took us two full days and $100 to turn our cabinets from this - 
We basically added beadboard to the sides, sanded the doors and cabinets, primed them, then painted four coats of glossy black paint with brush rollers. We absolutely love them!
~Janna
PS Linking up to Between Naps on the Porch Metamorphosis Monday and the House in the Roses Show Off Your Cottage and Cottage Instincts Make it for Monday.
