Make Your Kitchen Look Amazing by Painting the Cabinets

Cabinets cover a major part of kitchen walls and hence often impact the looks of a kitchen depending upon how shabby, old or neat they are. They also have an upside that you can change the look of your kitchen without spending a lot of money, just by painting the cabinets and giving them a new look.

You can always call in professional cabinet painters; however, knowing the entire process of painting kitchen cabinets step-by-step and knowing the dos and don’ts is beneficial to get the best end results.

Protect Countertops and Other Surfaces

While your kitchen cabinets will look brand new with a shiny paint finish, the paint blots on your countertops and floor can spoil the look. Painting the cabinets may cause a lot of mess. You can easily protect other surfaces in the kitchen by covering them with inexpensive rosin or brown builder’s paper.

35” x 140’ is a common roll size. After your cabinet painting job is over, you’ll have plenty of paper left which you can use for your future painting jobs.

Take Out Doors, Drawer Fronts and Hardware

You might have seen painting projects ended with paint marks on hinges and hardware and even paint slopped over drawer interiors. It’s easy to be tempted to leave the doors in place while beginning the painting of cabinets. But remember that if you want your kitchen to look more beautiful than before, you will have to avoid those spills and for that you’ll have to remove doors, drawer fronts and even hardware.

Many modern cabinets have the facility to remove drawer fronts from the drawer by backing out a few screws. But if your drawers have no such facility and you can’t remove the drawer fronts as they are part of the drawer, use masking tape to cover the drawer sides and bottom if you don’t want to paint them.

Label Doors

Make a quick sketch that will show you the doors and drawers and number them in whatever way you want. Then label the doors and drawers with the corresponding number when you remove them. You can label under the hinges that won’t be visible. Then you can even cover the numbers with masking tape to protect them from the paint.

Get Rid of the Grease

Even if you choose the best paint, it won’t stick to your cabinets if they are greasy. So, your first job will be to clean your cabinets with a grease-cutting solution. You may consider dishwashing liquid, but professional cabinet painters will use a dedicated grease remover. They will mix it according to the instructions and scrub the cabinets, then will rinse them with clear water and wipe them dry with a clean rag.

Don’t Overplay with Sanding

It’s essential to sand cabinets before painting them to give the new paint a good surface to grip. However, you don’t have to sand to bare wood.

If your cabinets have a factory finish, sand lightly with 120-grit sandpaper or a sanding sponge. If the surface is rough due to previous paint job or poor varnishing job, use a coarser 100-grit paper to remove bumps. Then again sand with 120-grit to remove any sanding marks.

Speed up the Project with a Fast-drying Primer

If you are eager to see your renewed and beautified kitchen cabinets and so, want to finish the project as early as possible, choose a fast-drying primer for the first coat. Read the label to get information on recoating time and to ensure the primer is compatible with the paint you’ll be using.

There’s a lot of evolution in water-based paints and some premium acrylic alkyd hybrids even rival oil-based paint. Still, many professional cabinet painters prefer oil-based paint, particularly for priming.

Oil-based paints dry slowly and level well. Due to this, you get more working time and fewer brush marks.

How about Filling Open Grain?

Some kinds of wood have grain with several open pores. Oak is a good example of this. These pores show through finishes and are particularly visible under paint. It’s fine to leave the grain showing. However, if you want a smooth grain-free look, you’ll need to fill the pores before painting.

You can do this by using a few methods. You can apply many coats of a high-build primer, sanding between coats until the pores are filled. Or you can fill the pores with spackling. This is difficult if your cabinets have a lot of curves and molded edges. When the filler dries, you or the professional can finish the job by sanding and priming as usual.

Vacuum, Then Use Tack Cloth

To make sure your paint job is smooth and adhesion is good, it’s essential to remove all the sanding dust from the doors, drawer fronts and cabinet frames. Vacuum everything using a soft bristle brush attachment. This will remove loose dust. But still, you’ll have to remove the rest.

For this, professional painters use tack cloths. You should completely unfold the tack cloth and bunch it up again loosely. Then wipe it over the surface gently to pick up dust. Shake it out periodically and re-create the bunch to use it again. When the cloth loses its dust-collecting ability, throw it away and use a new one.

Create Standoffs to Support Doors

You can either buy plastic painter’s pyramids, which are perfect for supporting doors while painting them. Or you can create your own standoffs by driving 2-inch screws through 3-inch square scraps of plywood. If you are fine with a few hardly visible dimples on the back of your doors, you can paint both sides of a door in one sitting using standoffs.

In short, paint the back of the cabinets first, leaving the edges unpainted, so, you’ll get a spot to rest your fingers on when you turn the door over. Then paint the back and then flip the door over and rest it on the screw tips.

Then you can paint the door edges and front and then let the door dry. If you look keenly, tiny indentations are visible, where the screws touch the wet paint, but they’re unnoticeable.

If all this seems too tough for you, you have the option of calling professional cabinet painters always open. All in all, you’ll soon be getting your kitchen cabinets shining with a new paint!