How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets

Hello!  First off, thank you for all the sweet comments on Facebook and Instagram! :)  We love our cabinets SO much.  The kitchen looks so much bigger, cleaner, and lighter!  

Supplies:

180 and 220 Sandpaper
Sandpaper Holder {like this}
Lots of Rags
Cheap Brush for the Primer
Oil Based Primer {Zinsser Cover Stain}
Dixie Cups
Benjamin Moore ADVANCE {Dove White}
*Benjamin Moore Ultra {Dove White, for the inside of the cabinets}
Mini Foam Roller and Low Nap Rolls
Nice Brush {purdy -  all day, every day} 

Directions:

Day 1 {or a couple late nights}:  Empty out the entire kitchen.  We had tables and baskets where we kept everything.  Remove all the drawer and cabinet pulls.  Keep all the screws organized because they should be the correct length for your new hardware! Label all your cabinets and drawers with numbers and make a key of your kitchen.  You will have to move the numbers around as you paint.  Remove all the drawers and the tracks from the drawers.  Tall Tan Man and my Momma thought removing the tracks was overkill, but I thought it would make it look more professional.  

Day 2 {all day}:  We sanded the drawers and all the cabinet doors lightly with 180 grit sand paper.  Our cabinets hardly had any varnish left on them so we did not have to do a lot of sanding.  You really want to make sure that you rough up the surface and there is no grease left behind.  You might need to buy a de-greaser from Home Depot if you notice a lot of grease on your cabinets.

Wipe down all your cabinets to get the dust off and get ready to do some priming!

We primed the drawers and the front of all the doors at the same time.  The re-coat time on this primer is 1 hour.  We did two coats of primer. 

 

 

We were not done yet!  Yes, we had a very looong day.  We removed all the doors {and hardware} from the cabinet faces.  Next we primed the back of the cabinets doors once then rested the doors on pixie cups. 

Day 3: VERY lightly sand all the primed doors and drawers.  We sanded a little too much primer off which unfortunately allowed old stain to bleed through the paint.  It was terrible...I might of cried and cussed multiple times.   Lesson learned.  Our cabinets could not have any brown showing through for the paint to stay white. 

I am sooo thankful we had so much help on this day.  My wonderful Mother-in-law sanded the ENTIRE rest of the kitchen with 180 grit sandpaper.  She was a sanding machine!

My Momma came through after with a damp cloth to wipe off the dust.  Then painted everything with the oil based primer using same cheap brush from yesterday.  To keep our brushes fresh we wrapped them in plastic wrap and kept them in the fridge {we weren't doing any cooking anyway!}.   

Outside Tall Tan Man began painting the back of the doors and drawers with our paint sprayer.  We have {this} one, we got super lucky and found it on clearance at Lowe's!

If you do not have paint sprayer then I would recommend using a mini roller.  The Benjamin Moore paint is self leveling, aka awesome, and all roller marks will level out over time.  The only terrible part about this paint is the dry time 15 hours!  Holy cow!  This puts watching the paint dry into perspective!

Back inside after we waited the one hour for the primer to dry on the cabinet faces we sanded them down with 220 VERY LIGHTLY.  I was a LITTLE paranoid at this point about sanding.  Next we painted the inside with the BM Ultra and the outside of the cabinets with the BM Advance.  The mini paint roller made this go super quick!

Day 4: Now that the 15 hour dry time is done we lightly sanded everything {doors, drawers, and cabinet faces} down with 220.  You are mainly checking for bumps or drips in the paint. 

Tall Tan Man sprayed the front of the doors & drawers outside.  The drawers were DONE! Make sure you check them for drips! I did the second and final coat on the cabinet faces.  I also painted the inside of the cabinets again! 

Day 5:  We did our last light sanding of all the cabinet door fronts and Tall Tan Man did the second and final coat of paint.  I also put our things back into the kitchen, because the inside of the cabinet paint was the "cheaper" paint. It was really nice to be able to organize everything without the doors on.  :)

Day 6: Let the paint cure!

Day 7: Let the paint cure!!

Day 8: Let the paint cure!!!

Day 9: Let the paint cure!!!!

Day 10: Let the paint cure!!!!!

Day 11: Let the paint cure!!!!!!

Day 12: Put the hardware back on your drawers and doors.  We found ours at Target! Now using your handy dandy key put the doors/drawers back where they belong. 

So. Much. Better.  

Take a nice look at those counter tops...they will be hopefully gone the next time you see this kitchen. :)

{Leslie}

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