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You may have seen my recent kitchen cabinet makeover. This desperately needed paint job took my cabinets up a notch visually, but when using them, they still felt like the same old cabinets. You know, when you close the door and hear, “bang, bounce, boom, boom”?
After going through the trouble to make them look new, I wanted them to feel new too. So I began searching for the best and most cost effective way to turn my old, loud doors into soft close doors.
I considered changing the hinges, but quickly realized that would be a total pain in the tush and quite pricy. A two pack of soft close hinges are around $10+ each. Times that by the gazillion I needed and the price was quite high. After a some more research I came across these Blumotion Soft Close Hinge Adapters.
With hundreds of positive reviews, and an average cost of around $3.50 per door, I decided to give them a try. When they arrived, I put them up in just 20 minutes – yes the WHOLE kitchen! It was SO simple! The only additional cost was a small power drill, as most regular sized power drills are too large to get into the small space needed to install these. This little Black and Decker Drill did the trick, and didn’t break the bank at $27. (And how cute is it?!)
If you’re unsure if you can do this, I made a video to show you just how stinkin’ easy it it.
Now my cabinets not only look brand new, they feel new too. As excited as I was to see the results of painting the cabinets, I was equally excited to have quiet, soft closing cabinets! I highly recommend this quick, easy and cheap upgrade!
PS – They’ve been in action for a few years now and I’ve had no problems with them!
This link partied over at:
Hi, I just came across your blog to paint our stairs, and linked over to the soft door closures. How are they holding up and have you found a hack for soft drawer closures?
Hi – The soft close hardware have literally been life changing! No more slamming cabinets and they just feel so much more modern when you close them. I have not had an issue with any of them, and I’ve installed them in my entire kitchen and two bathrooms. Go for it! Unfortunately without replacing all of the drawer hardware, I’ve come up short on a soft drawer closure hack. Hope this helps!
Your kitchen and hinge makeover is finally giving me the courage to do this project – down with the oak cabinets! This may be an obvious question, but you only used 1 hinge adapter per cabinet door, correct?
Glad to be of anti-oak inspiration! Yes, one per door. I can’t say enough good things about these adapters, truly transformed my kitchen! Good luck!
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this detailed post. It is great! My kitchen looks a lot like your before pics. I love the way your’s looks now. It’s beautiful! I will be using all your instructions to paint mine in the next couple months.
You’re very welcome – and thanks for the kitchen compliments! Good luck with your kitchen!
what hinges did you used for the cabinet doors? thank you! your makeover kitchen is beautiful!
Thanks so much! The hinges are the original. I think they’re 1/2″ overlay standard hinges. The only thing that needed to be added to make them soft close are the adapters I have linked above. 🙂
Do these work on drawers as well or only doors?
Thanks for the great share!
You’re welcome! Unfortunately, they only work on doors. I’ve been looking into drawer options, but it appears they all require new tracks… no quick fix there, but I’ll report back if I find one!
Thanks!
Hi–what a great post, thanks so much for sharing all your efforts. The kitchen looks fantastic and encourages me that white can be done over old oak cabinets. I’ve been worried about the “grain” of the oak and had started to think that I should do a dark finish instead of white, since somehow the grain doesn’t seem to look as bad when it’s done in a dark finish as opposed to the white finish.
In any case, I just wanted to say thanks for sharing and also had a question about the last step you did in your cabinets…why did you choose to do a polyurethane topcoat on top of the enamel paint in satin? I thought that the enamel based paint would be enough of a topcoat–I’m sure you did your research so please share what your thoughts are on this. Is the topcoat something you would do over again or is the 2nd coat of the enamel enough in your opinion? I’m having professional painters do the job on our behalf and two of the bids are using the same paint (SW Pro Classic) but neither of them included an additional coat of polyurethane topcoat in their bid. LMK if you think I should have them add this to the scope of their project. They will be spraying the cabinets & drawers offsite and then rolling on the cabinet faceframes . Thanks again,
claudia at homeprojects.mail@gmail.com
Hi Claudia – Thanks for the kind words!
If you’re worried about the grain, light or dark you will still see it at certain angles/up close if you don’t fill it with wood filler. It’s a labor intensive process, so if you’re having someone do it, it could get quite pricy. Mine still shows through (scroll through the other comments on my cabinet painting post, I posted a picture), but I really don’t mind it as much as I thought I was going to.
As far as a top coat, they may not be doing one if they are using the ProClassic Alkyd Enamel. I used the ProClassic Latex Enamel. The Alkyd Enamel yields a stronger finish from what I’ve read. Either way, I think a top coat is important. Paint alone just won’t hold up over time. Cabinets get slammed, dinked, banged, hit, wet, dirty, oily, etc. You want your cabinets to be durable, you shouldn’t have to worry about chips and scratches. That’s why I did quite a few coats of the best poly I could find. I would definitely ask them to do a coat (or two) of poly!
Good luck with your project!