Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

May 10, 2018 30 By EngineerMommy

This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are mine alone.

I know it has been several days since I posted. Life has been busy. Between yard work (yes, I get out there and mow, trim & edge alongside my hubby) and interior renovations (hello kitchen remodel), I have been quite busy. The good news, folks, is that today I have a good one for you. I will be sharing how we painted our kitchen cabinets and gave our kitchen a completely new look. To say I am in love with the final result is a complete understatement! Yes, it’s downright gorgeous now!

Ever since we moved into our current home, we had issues with our kitchen. It was a bit smaller than we would have liked. It was a bit more closed off than we would like. Unfortunately, painting the cabinets doesn’t really address either of those concerns… although it does make the room seem much bigger!

We never liked the antique maple finish of the cabinets. (We also didn’t like the maple brown ceramic tiles on the floor – we replaced the flooring with vinyl plank last week & I’ll share a post on that soon.) We were delaying tackling this project of painting the cabinets for a while. We assumed it would be a LOT of work – and it was! It was a lot of time & effort, but luckily, it was all worth it. Let’s get right to the details now, shall we?

First gather the supplies you’ll need for this project:

  • white latex paint… use a semi-gloss or high-gloss for better chip protection – or you could use something like this
  • brush
  • roller brush (smooth to semi-smooth surface)
  • tack cloth
  • sandpaper (100 grit)- a set like this make sense and will serve you well for a long time

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Here’s a Before picture of our kitchen.
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Here’s the view from a different angle. You can see how the dark cabinets would make the room feel smaller, right?!
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Here’s a close-up of the finish of the original cabinets.
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


First, remove all the cabinet doors.
*TIP: Unless you like unscrewing dozens & dozens of times, use an eletric screwdriver. This will speed up the process significantly.
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Use the sandpaper to roughen up the surface of the cabinet frames & cabinet doors.
*TIP: This is a mandatory step. If your cabinets have a shiny finish, they need to be sanded so the paint will have better adhesion. Make sure not to forget all those nooks & crannies.
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Use the tack cloth to wipe away dust & debris. Use the brush to paint the crevices & nooks of the cabinet doors.
*TIP: We used a spray bottle & rag to wipe away the majority of the dust first. Then we used the tack cloth to grab all those tiny pieces we missed on the first pass.
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Use the roller to add paint to the flat surfaces of the doors.
*TIP: Definitely use a roller to get a nice smooth finish on the flat part of the doors. The brush tends to leave a less-smooth finish.
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Use the brush & roller to paint the frames. You could paint all the way inside the cabinets too, but we were lazy … we decided not to! 😉
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Let the first coat of paint dry for at least 6 hours Apply a second coat of paint. Don’t worry – the paint will look worse before it looks better. Don’t touch the doors until they are dry.
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Once the doors are fully dry, attach them back to the cabinet frames. Here’s the After shot!
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


Here’s the view from another angle. Everyone that walks intoo the kitchen says it looks twice as big! I still can’t get over the improvement!
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


And because no transformation post is complete without a Before & After shot, here’s the dramatic transformation! Pretty good, right?
Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned


By the way, we redid the flooring in this room. We used Lifeproof vinyl plank flooring. I will share our experience with it within the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

And if you enjoyed this post, be sure to share it on Pinterest!

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned Along the Way

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets: Lessons Learned Along the Way


GET NEW POSTS BY E-MAIL

Ever wanted to learn Arabic online? Check out Arabic Road & learn Arabic on your own terms.

Disclosure: Engineer Mommy is a participant in the Amazon Services, LLC Associates Program, which is an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For additional details, please see our full Disclosure Policy. Any link may be an affiliate link. All opinions are exclusively my own.
CategoryDIY Projects Home Improvement
Tagscabinets kitchen painting

30 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *