Jeny's Ideas: Painting Kitchen Cabinets

When we bought the house I was really worried about the kitchen. There is no where to expand to make it bigger. There is no space to really change the layout. We were stuck with the U-shape kitchen. The space was really dark. There is only the one little window over the sink and all other natural light comes from the bay window in the dining area. I knew I had my work cut out for me which is scary when you are deciding to buy a home. But I knew I could transform the room and took on the challenge. One of the most important choices for the room was paint color.

Benjamin Moore's White Dove has always been one of my favorite whites. I went back and forth between doing all white and painting the base cabinets a different color. Obviously any update and any paint color was going to make a dramatic difference, but I wanted something that was going to be timeless and classic. I decided on all white. I wanted the space to feel as big as possible and I can't help it....I love white.

I prepped by sanding and filling any dents, scratches and holes. Then I sanded some more. Since the cabinets had such an orangey glow I used a shellac based primer to prevent bleed through to my white paint and it is strong. My favorite primer is Zinsser. This stuff is great!

I used Benjamin Moore Waterborne Satin Impervo...a mouthful of a name, I know. This stuff is a latex paint but acts like an alkyd based enamel. I am not going to go into detail about what all this means but in short it means strong and durable. With a paint like this, you do not need to clear coat so one less step!

If you don't know, I spray all my pieces. I am an anti brush mark person. I know not everyone has a paint sprayer and that's ok. This paint is self leveling which means that even if you use a brush, the bristle strokes will level out and look fairly smooth. You can add some Floetral to help with leveling as well.

A few tips.

Please sand. So many people are trying to find ways around it by using deglossers, chalk paint, or other short cuts, but to get the best looking, smooth finish, you must sand. There is no way around it. The only way to get the little bits out of the old clear coat and the filth that has built up over the years, is to sand. Also, sand with 320 or 400 grit between coats. I promise it is worth it.

Number your doors. Make a chart of your kitchen. Number the cabinets in the chart and number the corresponding door when you take it off the hinges. We had several different door sizes so to prevent wasting time on solving the door puzzle, I numbered them. On the top doors, I numbered them on the top, inside lip and on the bottom doors, I numbered the bottom, inside lip. This keeps the numbers out of sight.

Here are photos of the painting process.

Before

I hung a plastic barrier to keep overspray and dust under control. I joked that it felt like Elliot's house after they found out about E.T. :) I taped off and put paper over my floors.