Don't make these cabinet painting mistakes in your cabinet makeovers - follow our DIY cabinet painting tips for a pro finish on a budget.
Avoid these mistakes when painting cabinets and you'll paint your cabinets right the first time!
Don't make these cabinet painting mistakes in your cabinet makeovers - follow our DIY cabinet painting tips for a pro finish on a budget.
Tips for Painting Cabinets from a Pro
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Don't makes these common cabinet painting mistakes. Read on to learn how to avoid them and paint your cabinets like the pros.
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Learn how to paint cabinets that are already painted for a professional finish! Plus, avoid these common mistakes when painting cabinets. #paintedcabinets #howtopaintcabinets #paintingtips #painting
Looking for the best paint sprayer for kitchen cabinets and furniture projects? Look no further than the Critter Siphon Gun for the best finish ever.
How many of you have been thinking about giving your kitchen cabinets an update? I have a feeling that many of you have been considering this project but there's a long list of things stopping you. Too scared to mess up, I don't know how to start, I don't have time or the space, I'm afraid it will look too amateur
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Step by Step Tutorial on how to paint your kitchen cabinets without having to give up the use of your kitchen. Includes timeline and detailed explanations.
How to paint oak cabinets without sanding! I'm showing you this easy method to transform your old oak cabinets with paint!
Friends, the day is here! I’m FINALLY sharing the rest of cabinet painting projects as well as revealing how it turned out! I'm sorry that it took me awhile to get it posted but thank you for being patient with me! As I’ve vented in the past, when we bought our house I was not all that impressed by our kitchen but I knew that with a little TLC we could make it our own.We don’t have a large budget for refinishing the space, so painting the cabinets has been a GREAT way to update the kitchen without paying a high price tag or replacing all the cabinets. It might have taken quite a bit of time, but if done correctly they will save you a lot of money and should last you for years (or so I’ve been told, I’ll let you know if that is true in a year or soJ ) Let me remind you what our kitchen looked like before I started painting. Getting to just this point, certainly has been no cake walk as it’s taken us two years to get to this point. So far since moving in we have replaced all the appliances, painted the walls, got new countertops and added a breakfast bar, got a new sink and faucet, converted the can light into a pendant light over the sink, and installed new backsplash .... and now have painted the cabinets! And here they are all finished!! So here's what we did from start to finish. The way that I tackled this project was by doing all of the kitchen cabinet doors first and then once they were completely done and curing, I begun working on the cabinet bases. The reason for this is that we wanted the kitchen to stay functioning and the cabinets stocked and appliances in place for as long as possible. Lot's of people are always curious about what the timeline looks like for this type of project so here is what my timeline/process looked like. The entire project took me 4 weeks to complete (that includes a week of cure time), and I have a full-time job so I was only able to work on them at night. I also didn't work on them every weekend, so this project could definitely take you a shorter amount of time. Days 1 -3: I removed all of the cabinet doors and draw fronts, and all of the hardware and hinges and labeled them. Next I sanded both the front and back side of the cabinet doors and draw fronts and then cleaned them using my new favorite degreaser and a liquid sander. You can read more about the prepping steps here. Day 4 - 7: Priming. I spent one day priming the back of the doors and drawers, spent the next day priming the front of the doors and drawers and then gave them a complete day to dry. I ended up only doing one coat of primer on the cabinet door and drawers, but looking back I wish I would of done two coats as it could of maybe let me get away with only two coats of paint. You can read more about the priming process here. After the primer had dried I sanded them using a 220 girt sanding block and then vacuumed and used tack cloth to get rid of all of any remaining debris. Days 8 - 13: Painting the cabinet door and drawers. For paint, I chose to use Benjamin Moore's Advance paint in Simply White. I ultimately decided to go with this paint because it's specifically made for cabinets, has easy clean up, has a self-leveling mechanism, and from my research of other's who have tackled this project, it seems to be a very popular choice, as well as, it's what carpenters in my local area also use which all made me feel confident in my choice. Like I mentioned above I ended up doing three coats of paint on all the doors and drawers. I did all of the backs first, let them dry at 24 hours (per the instructions on the can) and then flipped them over and did the fronts and did that x 3. I made sure that I did the front very last so that if anything scratched while being painted by the wood block raisers, the marks would be on the back and not the front. In terms of the technique I used to paint them, I used the same approach as seen in this video here on the blogpost by Sherry from Young House Love and I've used it before in other projects and it's worked well so I kept with it here. Basically I used a 2 inch brush to apply the paint around the inside edge trim, and then followed up with a mini foam roller to roll the middle inset panel of the cabinet, then the rail and stile portion of the cabinets and then the edges of the cabinets. The edges were the trickiest part for me on both the cabinets and the drawers as ours our slightly rounded which seemed to make dripping more prone. Basically all you want to make sure of is that nothing is puddling together or drip marks, because those will pretty much ruin the "perfect" white cabinets that you have envisioned in your mind. After I was done painting, I let them cure in basement for 7 days. The reason curing is so important is that hardens the paint, making it much harder to chip and also keeps the cabinet doors and bases from sticking together. Day 14: Once the cabinets were put in our basement to start curing I begun on the kitchen bases. I put the cabinet doors into the basement so that they didn't get sawdust debris all over them while sanding. To begin with the kitchen bases, I first cleared out all of the kitchen cabinets. Actually, I shouldn't say I, because this is where my husband stepped in and gave me some much appreciated help that I desperately needed. One of my followers told me before I started my kitchen cabinets that sometime during this project I would question my insanity, and sure enough that happened and it so happened specifically at this halfway mark because the cabinets were so labor intensive and I couldn't believe I was only half done at this point. Luckily though, it turned out that the cabinet bases weren't as awful or time consuming so what seemed like the halfway mark was really more like the 70% mark. Once the cabinets were cleared, we moved the appliances and started prepping the space for me to sand. We covered everything with plastic drop cloths, including our dining table light fixture and faucet and closed off both entrances to our kitchen also with plastic drop cloths. Next I sanded the cabinet bases using my Ryobi finish sander beginning with 60 grit and then going back over it with 220 grit. Unlike the cabinet doors, the base frames sanded up so quickly and I was able to get the bases down to basically bare wood (except for the crown molding), which I was excited about because bare wood means better adhesion to the primer and paint which ultimately means less likely for the paint to chip. Wahoo!!! Days 15 - 16: Priming the bases. After everything was sanded, vacuumed and wiped down with a tack cloth I began priming the bases of the cabinets. This time, I did two coats of primer on all of the cabinet bases. The way I tackled the cabinet bases is from starting at the top and working downwards. That said I would start at the crown molding, then at the top rail (horizontal piece) then the stiles (the vertical pieces) and then the additional rails. Days 17-20: Painting. Once the priming was finished and dry it was FINALLY time to paint the frames. At this point it felt like the light at the end of the tunnel because we were 90% finished. I did two coats of paint on the cabinet frames and only did the exterior of the frames. You could paint inside the cabinets, but that just meant more work for me. I thought about doing it, but that meant that cabinet shelves would be more prone to chipping, and plus only I see inside the cabinets and I didn't care at all. So that said, I didn't do them. Days 20 - 27 : Curing. Once painting the bases were completed, it was time to let them cure! Days 20 - 27: During this time, once the cabinet doors had cured for a week I began putting the hinges back on the cabinet doors and drawer in our basement. I also added new pads to the corner of the cabinet doors and drawers to help with keeping things from rubbing together and chipping. I also added the hardware back on which we just installed soon before beginning this project. We did that so that we didn't have to drill the holes into freshly painted cabinets and risk things from chipping. After the cabinet bases had cured, I prepped everything to install the cabinet doors back on. In some places, some paint had gotten on the inside of the cabinets so I used nail polish remover to get rid of it. Once all the cabinet doors was put back on here is how it turned out!!! What do you think?? Let's just say I'm in love! If you have any specific questions about this project that I didn't answer please feel free to ask in the comments below!! I still have more changes to be made with the rest of the kitchen which I will share later this week, but I'm SOOO happy with how it's looking so far!! Stay Tuned and thanks for stopping by:)
The best choices for cabinet paints
Is this a busy time of year or what?!?! I feel like the two weeks before the kids get out of school, seems to be the craziest time. Your running around Christmas shopping, there are tons of school parties, and events. wrapping presents, cookie baking...the list goes on and on. I do love the hustle and bustle of it, though I wish it were a bit colder here, so it felt like the holidays. 72 degrees is a little warm for December! But that's Texas for ya. Today I wanted to share with you a How-To for glazing cabinets. I've talked about posting this for some time, just hadn't gotten around to getting the pictures taken. It takes twice as long to do a job like this, with a camera in your hand the whole time. So I hope this is helpful. And hey, what better season to give it a try...when the whole family is in town, all the kids are home tearing up the house, your baking cookies and giant meals!! Well, maybe not...Pin it and save it for later instead :) If you don't already know me, or follow my blog....I am a Faux Painter, I paint murals, faux finishes, and cabinets...lots of cabinets! So the work I show you on here, isn't something I just tried out and show you the steps... this is how I do it on a daily basis! Here are a few before and afters, so you can see what a difference it makes. These cabinets were already painted before I came in. They were just a stark basic white, and the walls around were a glazed stucco plaster look. The cabinets just stuck out like a sore thumb. This glazing technique, helps tone them down, and warm up the space. This process doesn't take a long time (even though it looks like it), and doesn't look super heavy, so it's good in most spaces. You can start with any color of base painted cabinets really. Just tweak the glaze to go with your space. Most pre-painted white cabinets are sprayed on, and that works well with the technique. But if you looking to start from scratch with yours, you can check out these blog posts on How-To Paint Cabinets Like A Pro, or How-To: Painting Laminated Cabinets. So to start, lets talk about what kind of glaze to use. If your cabinets are an oil base paint, you have to use and oil based glaze. Latex will not adhere to an oil based surface. If your unsure, always use an oil based glaze. Oil sticks to latex, but latex does not stick to oil!! If your cabinets are a builder grade laminate material, you can still do this technique just stick to the oil based glaze. I know alot of you up north unfortunately, can not get oil based paints...or you may just hate the smell of oil products, and turpentine. You can use latex here, but make sure you are putting it over a latex surface, if you are unsure, a fresh coat of oil primer, and a new coat of latex white will prep the surface for you. I use Sherwin Williams Oil-Based Faux Finish Glazing Liquid. They did stop carrying this for awhile, and it was very hard to come by, ( I bought a stock pile) but you should be able to find it in at least a quart size now. The material is pretty thick, so some paint thinner, or turpentine will help the flow of this glaze. As far as color goes, I just buy tint by the ounce from Sherwin Williams. If you are using the oil based glaze, make SURE you ask for the tints that work with oil. They carry two kinds. For this color I used some raw umber, and a hint of yellow and red. A TINY drop goes a long way. So start slow, and keep trying your color on a sample piece. For my brush, I used the cheapy $1 chip brushes. You don't want to have to go to the hassle of cleaning this out later. Chucking it the trash is much easier!! I work with one door at a time. Start at the top, so you don't brush up against wet cabinets. Try picking your smallest door to start with. I cover the whole front of the surface, don't worry or mess with the edges yet. The product can dry fast depending on the type of glaze, and your rooms conditions. So you will want to work fast here. Next I take a dry rag, and follow the pattern below, wiping most of the product back off. The more you wipe, the lighter the glaze will be. I start on the inside edges (1), and go all the way around. I usually take off more in this area, to give the appearance, that the crevasses is a deeper looking color. Next I wipe the center (2), of the door. Then, the top and bottom pieces (3), in the direction of the grain. And lastly, the sides (4), going all the way from top to bottom. Afterwards I run my rag all the way around the edges of the door, to clean of any heavy goop. It should look similar to the last picture when done. This pattern stays with the natural grain of how the cabinet is built, and will make your faux, look not so faux. Next, I take a very soft brush, (a Purdy is what I used here) and brush it softly out, in the same patterned you just wiped in. Don't worry about the unpainted cabinets next to you, they will wipe down easily later. Once the product starts to dry, you don't want to touch it again with the brush, it will pull off the paint. So make sure each area is as you want it before moving on the the next portion. The softer you press here, the less streaks you will have. You are going for a sort of grain direction in the pattern. If you are looking for a very light glaze, taking off most of the paint, and softening afterward should give you no streaks. Be sure when your getting the sides, you also run the brush around the outside edges as well. Once the door is done, clean up any areas that may have gotten painted in the process. The door on the left, is the only one painted here. You can see the difference in color. After each door is done, I prop it open, so not to get paint on it from a nearby door. If you are doing the back as well, this is the time to do it. Just remember to hold the door from the top (for upper cabinets), or from the bottom (on lower cabinets) when painting. I cant tell you how many times Iv'e made a whole painted hand-print on the front of a door I just painted by grabbing it. When working on the lower cabinets, I start with the doors, and the finish up with the drawers. I like to take them out completely when working on them, though it isn't always possible, like around sinks. The pattern here is similar. I start with the top and bottom (1), then the sides (2), then the front (3). The doors, and drawer on the left are finished. The ones on the right have not been painted yet. We were going for a bit of a heavier look here. But again, the more you take off, the lighter it will be. Here is how I prop the doors when finished. There is no need to remove doors for this process. It is actually much easier to work with them hanging. If you dont plan on painting the backs, it is much easier to wipe down the back side as well.. The next step I do, is darkening the creases. Not all doors or drawers will have these spaces. But If yours does, this is a super important step. It just accentuates the shape of the door. Make sure when you do this the door is dry, at least 24 hours. I've tried to rush it, and it isnt a pretty site...the words that come out of your mouth will not be pretty either! So just be patient! I just deepen the glaze I have already used, with a hint more brown, and a TINY bit of black. With a small brush, I run along the inside crease with a good amount of paint. Be liberal. Then with a dry rag, around one finger....and at a slight angle, I follow the raised edges, touching the flat surface with my nail. You don't need to press really hard, you just don't want to pull your finger to close to the inside crease, as this will take away too much of the paint. You will end up with a faded line, that is heavier on the inside, and fades out. The last part of the glazing technique is lining the edges. This may not seem like it is necessary, but this really makes the shape of the cabinet pop. Why go to all the trouble, and still loose the cabinet into the next. I use the same color from the crevasses. Coating both sides of the smaller chip brush, I scrap it all back off. You don't want any excess globbed on the brush. Just some of the color covering the base of the brush. Then I lightly, run it along the high edges of the each door. Use the middle, to the base of the brush here. The tip of the brush tends to fan out, and can leave little brush streaks on the door. I do the same thing to the outside of the door as well. Here, the door on the left has the edging in the middle only, and the door on the right has no edging. You can see what a difference it makes to the shape of each door, And here is the area complete. On any open shelving, or trim pieces...I follow the same steps, making any deep corners or crevasses darker with glaze. The final coat here is the sealer. Make sure that you have let the base glaze sit at least 24-48 hours before applying this. Do a test spot somewhere inconspicuous, as it can wipe off all of your hard work if it isn't dry enough. I usually do this step on the same day as the glazing of corners, and edging. It usually is dry enough, but try it out first. If you have the time....wait another day!! I use an oil base satin sealer when using oil based glaze, Minwax Wipe-On Poly. You can use this same brand but the latex version in satin if you are using a latex glaze (comes in a silver can just like this one). It's only about $10, and it goes pretty far. depending on what finish, and how many coats you want. I have tried TONS, of sealers. And this really is all I use. Now it can tend to yellow a bit over time, but on a glazed cabinet you should notice it. On top of a white based cabinet, you will see the yellowing! Don't brush this product on, infact don't use any kind of brushed sealer. It leaves streaks, and drips, and is always shinier than when you wipe it on. It's also loads easier to wipe on. I dump a good bit into a bucket, wad up a rag, and dip it in. You want it wet, just not dripping. WEAR GLOVES!!!! The blue nitrile gloves are the only kind you can use with this sealer!!!! Regular latex gloves will disintegrate in about 1 minute. I've used them, when it was all I had on hand, and the finger tips always fall off and get stuck to the door. This stuff is terrible to get of your hands, once it dries. With the saturated rag, you will basically just wipe it on. Make sure you follow the direction of the grain, or the same direction you brushed the glaze in. If you look at the piece your sealing from an angle, you will see the sheen, and will be able to see any areas you missed....they will look dry still. Two coats of this is really best, but you can do 3 for more durability. With the first coat, it can tend to look a bit spotty, or dryer in areas. With two coats you are sure to get an even looking surface. This will give you a nice satin, furniture looking finish So there you have it, just a few steps to beautifully glazed cabinets. I know it seems like alot, but after a door or two, you get the hang of it, and will blow right through the rest. Don't forget to Pin it, and save it for later! And as always, I'm happy to answer any questions!
This is a sponsored post brought to you by FrogTape. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience. The kitchen continues. The trim is painted. The cabinets are primed. And now it comes time to paint. We have found that our numero uno tip for painting any type of furniture and getting that ... Read More about My Kitchen Magician
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