Painting kitchen cabinets is no easy job, but when there's no professionals available and you've already dismantled your kitchen, you gotta get it done yourself.
Ok...boom, so last year my husband, kids and I moved into a new house. The kitchen was a little dated so we decided to paint our kitchen cabinets. They were old-looking and brown and because the second floor, where the kitchen is located has an open floor plan, it would really give the area what it needs to give...like a silk press, honey. Anyway, we knew how much time and work painting cabinets entails, so we decided we would have a professional painter do them, but the Lord said, aht aht!
“You get what you pay for.” - every Mom and Dad ever.
Sometimes you gotta learn this lesson the hard way. Long story short, we ended up painting them ourselves. Chile, this is a story for another day. Right now let's get into our painting project.
Research is Thine Friend.
Before we started, we attended Youtube University, majoring in painting cabinets 101. There were so many different ways of painting that we decided we would have to just pick one and hope for the best. We followed the degreasing, sanding, primer, paint process. Here's what the cabinets looked like before:
Step 1: Prep
Prepping for painting cabinets is like painting anything else. Here's what we did:
Emptied the cabinets, cleared the counters, and removed counter appliances. Extra tip: Remove any furniture you have in the kitchen as well.
Taped plastic drop cloths all over the countertops and floors, and, to protect the rest of the house from dust, we taped plastic sheeting around the kitchen and interior doorways.
We taped the walls around the cabinets.
In the basement, we set up a worktable for painting the cabinet doors and drawers.
Step 2: Removing the Doors
For our cabinets, we only painted the outside of the cabinets, the interior frames, and the doors. This follows that process. If you plan to paint the shelves and/or inside the cabinets, you'll need to remove the shelves as well.
Mark each drawer front and door with a marker so that you don't mix up the doors. Working from left to right, top to bottom, label each one with a numbered piece of tape. Also, number the edges of cabinet shelves and the bottoms of drawers. We used painter's tape to write the matching numbers on the inside of the cabinets and drawers to the correct cabinets and drawers. For example, we would write a 1 on the tape and put it inside the first cabinet and then write another 1 and put it on the door of that cabinet.
Unscrew the screws from the cabinets and remove the doors.
Keep up with the screws so that you can reattach the doors.
Step 3: Clean and Sand the Surfaces
Kitchens are greasy. Over time, the oils from frying and cooking can land on your cabinets. If you think about it, when do you ever wipe down the cabinets? Counters yes, cabinets - who got time for that? Anyway, you can't just use soap and water if you want to do this right. We used a product called M-1 Paint Deglosser and Pre-Paint Cleaner and that removed the grease so that we would have a smooth surface.
We used a foam sanding block to scuff the surfaces of the cabinet, drawers, and doors. This is a light sanding meant to give the primer something to adhere to, so don't go crazy with sanding. Dust the surfaces off when you're done.
Step 4: Prime Time
Prime time baby! We opted for an100% percent acrylic latex primer and it worked just fine. Also we used small foam rollers. They were perfect and glided over the cabinet surfaces. You'll also need a brush for corners and hard to reach spaces. If you have dark cabinets, you may need to do more than one coat of primer. We only need one and it covered up nicely. We primed the cabinets, drawer covers and cabinet doors.
Step 5: Paint
Then we were finally ready to paint. Hallelu-yer! For us, two coats did the job, but if you're painting over a dark finish with a light color, it could require up to three coats for full coverage. For the cabinet interior, use the same kind of foam roller.
In between coats we covered the brush and roller with plastic bags to prevent them from getting hard and dry while we waited for the first coat to dry.
Then we applied a second coat to the cabinet. This coat provided a consistent finish without any thin or light areas where wood might show through.
The paint needs to cure for a while so don't hang the doors up too soon. We left our doors off for about a week to let the paint dry and cure and also so that the doors won't stick to the cabinet frames.
Viola! We were done baby and I was in love. It took us about a week to degrease, sand, prime and paint and then one more week to dry. We've gotten so many compliments.
I say all this to say, you can do it yourself, its hella work, but it can be done.
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