how to paint kitchen cabinets

Goodness gracious this is going to be long, so let’s go!

Set your time you’re going to do it. There will never be a perfect time with nothing going on, you’ve just got to block it off the calendar and GO! We chose to do it in the spring when my husband could give me 2 full days when he had some time off for spring break.

Then, you’ve got to set up shop. Cover any surfaces you don’t want to get paint on. Most of our work was done in the garage, and we used the kitchen counter as well.

1. Remove all doors and hardware and let your handy, super strong assistant separate them into bags.

 Number all doors and drawers with numbers and leave a number back where you got them from so there is no confusion and they will hang correctly when you re-attach them.

while we were painting, we kept the number right above the door. It got hit with the sprayer, but you can still see the number, right?

We spray painted our hinges with brushed nickel spray paint, so my boys put the screws in a piece of styrofoam to get them ready for spray paint.

If you have lots of build-up on your cabinets you may have to clean first with a degreaser. The Zinsser primer we used said specifically to avoid TSP cleaner, so we skipped that and just used Fantastik spray degreaser. Sand all the doors and drawers with an electric palm sander. If you don’t have one, it is well worth the $30 investment!! Fill in any big scrapes or holes with wood filler, let it dry then sand them down nice and smooth.

For the cabinet bases, we used a liquid sandpaper to get them ready for paint:

Then the real fun begins. We had a paint sprayer we used to stain our fence, so we used it to apply the primer. We did a trial run on my daughter’s furniture~you can read more about that here. We used Zinsser’s oil based primer, and since it’s fairly thin, it worked in the sprayer like a dream mixed with some Penetrol.

We didn’t use the sprayer for the paint though because it was too thick. If you don’t have a sprayer, the small foam rollers and a quality brush (you can’t go wrong with Wooster or Purdy brand!)will work just fine.

Don’t I look HAPPY?!

Apply 2 coats of primer, then sand lightly with a super fine sanding block to get them super smooth and ready for paint.

and then wipe them down to get all of the dust off. Let dry.

Then, the real painting begins! First, I have to tell you a little back story on the paint. When we did our trial run in my daughter’s room, we used Benjamin Moore Impervo paint in white dove. I had done my research online as far as what people had used and been happy with and BM Impervo paint came highly recommended. The only problem is that it takes forever to dry(okay, when I say forever, for us it was 24 hours per coat and I’m not patient) We were on our second day, my husband had some deadlines and we were going to go out of town for the second half of spring break, so we decided to go with something that was quicker drying since we wanted to do 2 coats and be done with it. I was sick of trying to keep the kids out of the kitchen.

So, I ran to Lowes and got their kitchen & bath paint that they mixed in white dove (most stores have Benjamin Moore colors in their computers)

And it dried much faster and we finished the painting for the most part that second day. Let me say that this is not bad paint. But the areas we used the Impervo paint on, including my daughter’s furniture, is rock hard and I love the satin enamel finish the impervo settles into after a few weeks. I try to scratch it with my nail and it’s really, really hard to do. I don’t have to work too hard to scratch the Lowes paint. Looking back, I wish I would have been patient and just gone with the Impervo as much of a pain it would have been for it to dry. My advice would be to go into Benjamin Moore and tell them that you are painting your kitchen cabinets and see what they recommend. I give the Impervo two thumbs up, once it’s dried and cured. John & Sherry at Young House Love are using BM’s Advance Paint and seem to love that, so check them both out. And that is Melissa’s take on things…back to the painting process.

It works best if you can have one (or more) painting bases on the inside, while the doors and drawers are being painted in the garage.

A few more things:

We wanted to bulk the moulding at the top of the cabinets up, so we added a small piece of trim, painted over it all,

then ran some caulk along the top:

When we painted the drawers with the small foam rollers and a quality paint brush, we let them hang slightly over the counter edge and that worked well. Also a tip: even though your drawers will seem dry, they may stick when you put them back in and they sit against the cabinet bases for awhile. Apply a thin coat of vaseline where the drawer meets the base to prevent sticking and ripping off the paint. You can wipe it off after a week or so when everyone is complaining that ewwww, the inside edges of the drawers are sliiiimy!

The best part is putting the hardware back on and re-attach the doors. It looks sooo much better. It was worth it…right?? :)

(More after pictures and sources here.)

Let’s put this crazy long post into simple, to the point steps:

1. Prepare to set up shop~you’ll need lots of room to work. Protect areas you don’t want to get splattered with paint. Read a bunch of tutorials online to see what worked for them, then decide what’s best for you.

2.Remove cabinets, hardware, spray paint hinges. Number them so you can put them back in the right spot.

3. Sand everything down including bases, then wipe them down.

4. Use two coats of Zinsser oil based primer on all visible wood surfaces (we didn’t paint the inside of the cabinets, except for one where the glass doors were installed), letting them dry in between coats. Lightly sand and remove dust.

5. Use two coats of Benjmain Moore Impervo (color: white dove) letting them dry between coats.

6. Replace hardware

7. Re-hang and LOVE!

If you have any questions, ask in the comments! There have been some great questions, and I’ll follow up with one more follow up post to answer them all in one spot. I have no affiliation with any of these products or brands~thisis just our experience. Thanks for sticking with me~happy Tuesday!