How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets

Project ideas have been humming in our household lately.  There has been a lot of talk about things that we need to take care of, like yesterday, but have been dragging our feet.  Life, as we, you all of us know it, is crazy.  Every weekend, which was once designated for projects, has been jam packed with lots of other little goodies, and sadly, there is no sign of slowing down with the holidays fast approaching.  Ugh.  I mean yay.

At 2:00 on Sunday I made the decision to finally get around to "re-finishing" our cabinets.  My Pinterest board will be so excited.

Our cabinets, although tolerable, were looking a little drab with the oak stain and sheen coming off of them.  Plus, let's face it, I dislike oak colored stain very much.

The grain and texture of our cabinets wasn't worth my time in stripping, sanding for a million hours, and re-staining.  What they did have going for them was a timeless design.  A win for the split house.

From start to finish this process took me about 15 or so hours of actual work, and about 48 hours of waiting.  If you want it done right the first time, don't half-ass it.

First thing I did was remove all cabinet doors.  A lot of people may have removed the cabinet in it's entirety, but not me.  Those things were staying.  We already had to take them down twice- one to level them-- because the person putting them up before was on crack.  The second, to lower the cabinets to a "more ideal" height after we found it was problematic for the old hubster.  I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller... am I right?

After all cabinet doors were removed, I took off the hardware and placed them in plastic bags- indicating which knob went where.  The hinges had to go too.

Next, I sanded the doors and cabinets with 240 medium grit sandpaper.  The sawdust debris is going to fly, so make sure to cover up and/or remove anything from the kitchen that you don't want to get dusty.  Make sure to give your cabinets a good wipe down.  ***If you have holey cabinets, make sure to patch any holes you aren't interested in having any longer with a wood putty, THEN sand.

The first step is priming your cabinets.  When we first started these mini home improvement projects, there were a few cardinal rules that we were afraid to go against.  One is that you should never mix latex paint with oil based primer.  Where I heard this, I'm not sure, but it's all lies!  LIES!

Here is what you should know:  Latex primer is for the walls.  Oil based primer is great for wood, plaster, iron, and steel.  You run the risk of your project chipping if you use latex based primer.  From here on out, I will only be using oil based primer for my wood painting needs.

Food for thought:  When it comes to using oil based anything, clean up is always a bitch.  No matter how hard you try, water will not do.  Repeat after me... You NEED mineral spirits.

This is da shit right der, mang.

Moving on, there were a few tools I would highly recommend for any cabinet/trim work/furniture painting.

In no particular order, these foam rollers were a dream come true for this project.  Everything went on real smooth-like.  Plus I only needed one roller for the whole project.  Yesssss.  You can purchase these cheap-o rollers for $2.50 from Home Depot.  **Bonus, it comes with a small painting tray!

The Wooster Shortcut is probably the best paintbrush ever.  It is small and flexible.  I used this brush to get into any tricky grooves, and smoothed it out with the roller while the paint was still wet. 

Here is a couple snap shots of my priming job.  Keep in mind that globs of primer will show through- so make sure you brush it on evenly.  If there are darker areas, it's otay.  Just as long as you applied an even coat-- with the grain of the wood mind you-- it will be allllll good.  

At this point my kitchen seemed huge with the amount of painting I had to endure, even though in reality it's pretty damn small.  The cabinet doors had to be primed on one side, dry, then continued on the other side.  Once the primer was dry, it was time to add my paint color.  I used a new line of Behr products from Home Depot called Marquee.  It comes in two fabulous sheen's.  I just so happened to use the semi-gloss (an ideal candidate for kitchen cabinets because of its cleaning ability).  Another awesome perk is that this paint also has a built in primer, meaning extra durability for you!  Very nice.

Park Avenue by Behr

I also picked this specific color because I thought it would still disguise any dirt/dog hair, as opposed to white cabinets that show any type of fingerprint or surface stain.  Plus at this moment in time, our counters and floors are white, therefore, I wanted the space to still look larger and a bit cleaner, while still breaking up the whiteness.  The color turned out to be a lot lighter than I expected.  I'm not complaining... much.  It is still really pretty and elegant, but let's face it, G-dogs hair isn't disguised at all, which means more cleaning for mom.

When it came to applying the actual color, like I mentioned above, paint with the grain of the wood.  Also, anytime you use a brush, make sure you go over it with a foam roller to smooth out the surface while the paint is still wet.  

Once the paint is applied, it was time to put the hardware back on, and attach the NEW stainless steel hinges.  If you purchased new hinges, like us, the holes may not line up with your old hinges.  Ours certainly didn't, but make lemonade out of lemons, right?  Make sure you pre-drill your holes before screwing in your hinges.  For added help- try and use a comfortable screwdriver first to get the screws started.  This will prevent the screws from getting stripped via a drill.  Once the screws are secure, you can tighten them using your drill.

Out with the old.  Goodbye.

In with the new!

The best part about this whole project is that the total cost was just under what you would pay for one kitchen cabinet- roughly $110.00 bucks.  Follow these steps, and you are guaranteed the perfect cabinet finish.  Happy painting everyone!