Painting kitchen cabinets can be tiring and you can easily hire a pro to do the job, but if you’re up for the challenge and want to save money, try to do it yourself. Follow the steps we have outlined below to learn the best way to paint your kitchen cabinets.
Choose the right paint and primer :
Choose the right paint and primer to give your kitchen cabinets a high-quality finish—without breaking your budget. This Old House painting expert Mauro Henrique shows host Kevin O’Connor the proper way to paint cabinets for a new, updated look.
What kind of paint do you use on kitchen cabinets?
As with other areas in your home, the type of paint you choose matters. Many brands, including Benjamin Moore, Behr, and more, have special formulations made just for doors, cabinetry and trim, which are easy to apply and provide a bit of self-leveling, providing a nice, smooth finish. But any high-quality paint—latex paint or enamel-based paint—should work well and will be durable enough for the daily wear and tear as well as routine kitchen cleaning. Keep in mind that a gloss or semi-gloss is likely to stand up better to cleaning and scratches and will provide the most durable finish.
Clean Cabinet Doors :-
All you need for this step is a good degreaser, such as Krud Kutter, and a clean rag. If you can’t find Krud Kutter in your cleaning aisle, look at the hardware store. It’s a heavy duty, but non-toxic cleaner that will remove any grease buildup that can get in the way of your paint.
Clean, Prime, and Paint Frames :-
Once your doors are out of the way, you’ll repeat the same cleaning, priming, and painting process as above, just on the frames this time.The frames don’t take up much space, so they won’t take you long to finish. Just make sure you tape off any edges first, to make your life easier.
Regular and faux finish :-
If you’re open to spicing up your kitchen’s look, incorporating a faux finish can transform its style into shabby chic, rustic, provincial, or modern. Crackling glaze, which is available at paint stores, can, with very little effort, give your cabinets a weathered look. Just apply the glaze over a dry base coat, brushing in only one direction (thick for large cracks, thin for fine cracks), and let it dry. Finish with a flat topcoat of the base color brushed on perpendicular to the glaze. The paint will start to form cracks as it dries, a process that takes about an hour.
Another rustic style is the distressed look, which doesn’t require a special paint. This finish is made up of layered colors and spattered dark paint. When the paint is dry, to reveal the colors underneath, distress the finish by hitting it with a chain and lightly sanding in the spots where the cabinets get the most use.
Similarly, the antiqued, slowly aged look can be achieved with some paint magic. Simply dip the tip of a paintbrush in a color lighter than the cabinets and dab the excess onto a cloth until the brush is almost dry, then lightly graze the surface of the detail trim, corners, and seams.
Prep, prime, and paint the doors, drawers, and shelves :-
The strategy for prepping, priming, and painting doors, drawers, and shelves is the same as for the cabinets, except that all the work is done on a table to reduce the chance of drips, runs, and sags.
When painting paneled doors, start with the area around the panel.
Then, do the main field of the panel, and finish with the stiles and rails around the edges.
As you go along, wipe up any paint that ends up on adjacent dry surfaces to eliminate the chance of lap marks.
Tip: To speed up the drying time for doors, you can twist two screw hooks into holes drilled in an inconspicuous door edge (the lower edge for bottom cabinets, the upper edge for top cabinets). Paint the door’s outside face and let it dry for an hour while resting flat, then tilt the door up onto its hooks and put a drywall screw into an existing hardware hole. Hold the tilted door up by the screw and paint the door’s back side.
