Difficulty: Beginner
So you’re ready to paint your kitchen cabinets. Before you jump right in make sure you read about my first failed attempt at painting my cabinets here and how to properly prep your cabinets for paint here. You want to make sure that you are well aware of the work involved and that sometimes there is no short cut for good old elbow grease.
Primer
Buy a good primer. If you are unsure what brand or type to get ask at your local home improvement store. The people that work in each department are knowledgeable about the products, tools and techniques to make your project a success. Give them as much information as you can and take a sample picture or an actual cabinet door with you. They should be able to tell you exactly which primer is best for your project.
What if you are painting laminate cabinets? Don’t worry there is a primer for that too. Make sure you tell the paint department employee that you are painting laminate cabinets and they’ll get you the right primer. I painted laminate cabinets at our first house and the Home Depot employee that helped me suggested a primer that worked very well. Those cabinets only needed a small amount of touch up when we put our house on the market 3 years later.
What is the point of primer? Primer does several things. It covers stains and imperfections. Depending on the type of primer it can cover wood grain and even some small knots. The primer also creates a surface that paint will easily stick to. Primer adheres very well. It is much more difficult to wash primer out of a paint brush and off of your hands, so paint neatly.
Paint
Choose an interior latex paint in a semi-gloss finish. You can certainly go with high-gloss if you like the super shiny look and if you prefer more of a matte look you could use satin, but don’t go any more matte than satin. Satin finish is still wipe-able which is important in a kitchen. I use satin finish on my kitchen walls, but semi-gloss for the cabinets. It gives a bit of contrast, but not too much.
Choose a good quality paint. Don’t go with cheap unless you are doing a quick spruce up to your kitchen before you put your house on the market. If you will have sold your house within a year of painting you probably won’t have to do any touch up yourself, but the people that buy your house will probably need to touch up, so be sure to leave them any leftover paint or at least the paint chip and finish, so that can buy more for touch up.
A lot of paints come as paint and primer in one, but you should still buy a separate primer. The primer in the paint is basically a bonus layer of security. If you are unsure of how much paint you will need give the paint department employee the dimensions of your cabinets. At the very least show them a picture of all of the cabinets or tell them the number of cabinets.
Paint can’t be returned after it has been mixed. Don’t buy extra thinking you can return any unopened cans. If you don’t want a lot left over you could buy a quart and then get more if you run out, but then you may have to stop mid project to run out and get more paint. Also the cost of 2 quarts of paint is about the same price as a gallon in the same quality and finish, so it may make more sense to just buy a gallon and use the leftovers for other projects.
Tools
A good brush makes a huge difference. All paint brushes are not created equal. Don’t grab the cheapest brush off the shelf thinking it will be good enough. I find the cheap brushes are better for craft projects, or for creating a dry brushed effect on a piece of furniture. We also use the cheap brushes when our kids are helping with painting projects. The brushes aren’t usually salvageable after they paint, so throwing out a cheap brush doesn’t hurt.
Purdy is the brand we prefer. We have two Purdy angled brushes a 1 ½” and a 1” brush. They are great for cutting in when painting and worked really well on the cabinet trim. When buying a better quality brush commit to taking care of it. If you take care of a good brush it will last for many more projects.
A mini foam roller is great for minimizing brush strokes and reducing the painting time. I didn’t use a roller this time. I used my Purdy brush to prime and paint all of my surfaces. I have visible wood grain on my cabinets, so it wasn’t necessary for me to try to hide the brush strokes since they would blend in with the wood grain.
I did, however, use a mini foam roller when I painted my laminate cabinets, because there wasn’t any trim or wood grain, so the roller was necessary. It definitely does make the project go faster, so it’s really a matter of the cabinet style and personal preference. I prefer to use a brush, so I used one for the whole project.
Get some drop cloths. Either plastic or canvas to protect your other surfaces in the kitchen. Truth be told I usually don’t use drop cloths when I paint. I’m very neat when I paint, so it’s usually not much of an issue. I actually used garbage bags as drop cloths this time and used them to keep the dust off of everything when I was sanding, but I removed the ones on my counters during painting.
If you are a neat painter be bold and go without the drop cloth. You know yourself better than anyone, so you know whether you need to cover every surface or not.
Painters tape is a must if you don’t have a steady hand. Frog tape and Scotch Blue tape are both good products that are gentle on many surfaces, are easily removed and block paint. Tape around the cabinets to protect the surrounding walls and appliances.
I only do a small amount of taping, usually in hard to reach, awkward places where neatly cutting in would be difficult. My Purdy brush is usually all I need, but the tape is an extra measure of security.
Time to Paint
Now that your cabinets have been prepped and you have all the necessary supplies in hand it’s time to start painting. The next post in the series will be all about priming and painting your cabinets to get a good result that you can be proud of. Check back soon for Part 3.