How To Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets
Update: We have a much newer cabinet-painting post with more photos, details, and even a video for you here.
If you can paint a wall (and even if you cant) you can paint your kitchen cabinets. There are just a few tried and true rules when attempting this project, so if you follow the simple steps outlined below itll be pretty hard to screw things up. And although youve all seen our newly renovated kitchen, we actually painted our previous 50-year-old knotty pine cabinets right after we moved in (to tide us over until we had the funds to replace them altogether). Check out the dark and dingy kitchen that we inherited with the house:
And the refreshing after thanks to only a few hours of prepping and painting:
So how did we do it? Easy peasy.
Step 1: Figure out what you want. Bring home paint swatches and select the perfect palette, and if youre planning to replace your hardware, purchase some before you move on to the next step. Because most old hardware is a different size than newer hardware (the holes are further apart or closer together), its important to know if your new door and drawer bling is spaced differently than your current hardware before you begin. Then its nice to wash everything down with a little soap and water to cut the grease and the spills that have built up on the doors and drawers over the years. Nothin like a little sponge bath to get you in the mood to makeover your kitchen
Step 2: Take it off, baby. Now its time to remove all of your hardware and your hinges (regardless of whether youll be reusing it or replacing it- and it helps to store everything in a big ziplock bag so youre never short a screw). Of course by removing the hinges youll be removing all the doors, so finding a place that you can lay out a big fabric or plastic drop cloth (which are about $2 from Home Depot or Lowes) is a good idea. Once you have your drop cloth in place, lay out all your cabinet doors and drawers so you can paint them all together in one convenient spot (and have full access to the frames of the cabinets in the kitchen).
Step 3: Fill er up. Then if youre replacing your hardware with something that wont fit the existing holes in your doors and drawers, youll want to pick up some wood filler (its around $6 a tube, which is all ya need) and fill those existing hardware holes in all of the doors and drawers. There are many different colors of wood fill, but since youre painting your cabinets, matching the tone isnt really a big deal (although it cant hurt to grab the one that most closely resembles the color of your current cabinets).
Step 4: Get sandy. The sanding process isnt always necessary (for example, our cabinets werent glossy so we skipped it and went straight to priming) but for some people with super shiny cabinets (aka: lots of polyurethane) it cant hurt to run an electric sander over everything- or take a bit more time to hand sand things- with fine grit paper to rough everything up for maximum paint stickage. Not sure if yours need to be sanded? If they feel matte like a cutting board (a little absorbent) then they shouldnt need it, but if they feel shiny like a laminated piece of paper or a glossy credit card then sanding is your best bet. Note: lead paint is a serious health risk when sanding, so if you have an older home with already-painted cabinets that look decades old its worth testing for lead with a $6 lead test kit from Home Depot. Safety first!
Step 5: Its prime time. Due to all the grease and even just the wood stain that often coats kitchen cabinets, its über important to get down and dirty with oil-based primer (even if the water-based equivalent claims that it works just as well on cabinet surfaces, weve seen stains seep right through that stuff, so oil-based is the better-safe-than-sorry alternative). One coat of primer applied with a decent quality roller should do the trick (then just use a brush to get into those tigher spaces and the grooves in the doors). We prefer wool or polyester rollers (Purdys a great brand) over foam ones as weve found that they rile up the paint and cause bubbles. Oh and it doesnt matter if you can still see the wood tone underneath after one coat, the primers main job is to make your cabinets sticky and the paint will do the rest. Youll probably want to snag an extra brush just for priming since theyre usually pretty messed up afterwords (its best to toss it or save it for other priming projects and use a pristine new one for painting). And ditto with the roller. We usually dont even try washing the oil-based paint out of it- and prefer to replace it with a fresh new one before painting for a seamless result (reused rollers and brushes can often compromise the smooth finish that youre going for when it comes to your cabinets).
Step 6: Get your paint on. Youre in the home stretch, so just two coats of latex paint (in a semi gloss finish for easy wipe-ability) are next on the agenda. Youll definitely want to wait a few hours after applying primer, but I actually primed and painted my cabinets (two coats!) all in the same day. When it comes to applying the paint, a high quality wool or polyester roller makes for the sleekest application. A mini foam roller can also help since its smaller and easy to control. Youll also probably need to use a brush sparingly, just to get into those little cracks and crevices that your roller cant reach. Do yourself a favor by buying an angle-tipped brush as opposed to a flat-tipped one- they make staying in the lines a lot easier.
Note: We didnt prime or paint the inside of the doors, but our approach would be to prime/paint them first and then wait five days and turn them over and prime/paint the outside (that way if anything got a bit imperfect after being flipped face down, it would be on the inside- an therefore less noticeable).
Step 7: Wait for it. After two coats of latex paint you now have to practice patience. Most experts advise waiting at least three days to rehang or begin using your doors and drawers (especially since the rehanging process involves lots of holding and pressing and drilling which can muck up anything thats not 100% dry). We actually advise waiting five days if ya can (it beats doing the whole thing all over again and guarantees a totally seamless finish even in high humidity).
Step 8: Hang in there. Then all you have to do is rehang your doors (either using your existing hinges or new ones), slip in your drawers, and add your hardware. If the hardware is new, take time to measure twice before you drill to avoid any annoying mistakes that will make you want to putty and repaint, which never looks as good as the flawless finish that you get the first time around. John actually took his sweet time drilling all of our holes for the new hardware (to the tune of about two hours) but it was well worth the assurance that everything was perfectly centered and right where it should be. In this case slow and steady wins the race.
*Oh and it bears noting that if your cabinets are anything but solid wood (laminate, veneered, etc) you should definitely take off a door or a drawer and bring it with you to your local hardware store and ask the paint pro there what they recommend. There are some great oil-based primers and enamel paints out there so it might be possible to get a semi-durable finish (although none as long-lasting as solid wood paint jobs). The key is really roughing up the surface so its less glossy and then priming and painting with the best stuff they have (usually oil or enamel based). Oh and dont forget to let everything dry for a while so things can cure up and get super durable for the long haul.
So that about does it for our cabinet painting and refinishing tutorial. Of course Step 9 is to invite all of your friends over for celebratory margaritas or to do the happy dance every time you walk into your amazing new space. We hope this will help you completely transform your kitch on a dime and in a flash. And just in case you need a few more before & after pictures to convince you, here are two clients of ours that we helped transform their rooms with painted cabinets:
Heres Kims crazy blue kitchen that she inherited with her home:
And heres her two-tone masterpiece after a quick paint makeover (we suggested slightly different colors for her upper and lower cabinets):
And heres Carlas kitchen before she came to us for help:
And here it is after we encouraged her to paint her cabinets a crisp glossy white tone (along with her dining room chairs) while the dining table went black to mimic the backsplash:
Amazing what a little paint can do, eh? And if they can do it you can to! So if you have a spare weekend or even a few week nights youll be well on your way to a totally new room. Happy painting
In need of a furniture painting tutorial? Fret not, weve gotcha covered.
Update: We have a much newer cabinet-painting post with more photos, details, and even a video for you here.
 
   
 
 
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