Don't Replace, Repaint! Your Easy-Do-It Guide To Painted Kitchen Cabinets
Many homeowners today are discovering that instead of paying thousands of dollars to have their kitchen cabinets replaced, they can instead spend much less money and have their kitchen cabinets painted. When properly done, painting your kitchen cabinets can dramatically change the appearance of your entire kitchen. And the best thing is, it's not as hard to do as you might think!
Step One: Get Your Act Together!
The number one mistake that most homeowners make when working on any projects around the home is that they do not block off enough time to complete the project properly. The second mistake that many make is that they do not get their supplies and materials ready before hand. Painting your kitchen cabinets is not necessarily any more difficult than any other type of home project, but you must have the right supplies and materials, and not be rushed when you are doing the work.
So, before beginning to paint your kitchen cabinets, block out one or two weekends to do this work (two weekends may be better than one if you are inexperienced -- you'll be able to take your time and do the job right). Also make sure to get all the necessary materials together: paint brushes, drop cloths, sandpaper, screwdriver, primer and paint, etc. Nothing will be a bigger time waster than for you to have to rush out to the hardware store to buy extra paint or supplies right in the middle of your kitchen cabinet painting project!
Step Two: Take It off -- Take It All off
Once you have all your materials assembled, you can begin your kitchen cabinet repainting -- by NOT doing any painting. Instead, what you want to do is pull out all of your kitchen cabinet doors and detach all of your kitchen cabinet doors from your cabinetry framework. Of course, you should make sure that all items you normally keep in your kitchen cabinets are moved and stored in a safe location.
Once your drawers and kitchen cabinet doors have been detached from the cabinet frames, you should also remove all hardware and door pulls, as well as any inside magnetic door clasps and hinges. Your kitchen cabinet doors and drawers can be moved to another location -- a garage or workshop -- and they can be worked on there. This will allow you to work on re-painting your kitchen cabinet frames with less clutter.
Step Three: Stripping and Sanding
Now you're ready to prepare your kitchen cabinets surfaces. If you know that your kitchen cabinets have been painted a number of times, to speed things up you can purchase chemical paint strippers -- these chemical formulations can be applied like a thick paste. After waiting a while, you simply scrape the substance off and you will find that it will take many layers of paint off along with it -- saving you a lot of time.
Also, before painting your kitchen cabinets you also need to sand them smooth. Use several different grades of sandpaper, ending up with a superfine grade, which will leave your wood surfaces smooth as glass. Steel wool is also helpful at the end, to give you would a very smooth feel.
Step Four: Primer and Paint
Once all of your wood surfaces have been properly prepared, you can now begin to paint your kitchen cabinets -- including the application of any necessary primer coats before the top coat of paint is applied. If your paint requires multiple coats, allow each coat to dry thoroughly before adding the next one.
As a general rule I prefer to use glossy paints for kitchen cabinets. A glossy, hard-surface is easier to clean -- and as you know kitchen cabinets are subject to a certain amount of oil and grease build-up over time.
Step Five: Give Your Painted Kitchen Cabinets a Hardware Face-Lift
Before mounting your kitchen cabinet hardware, go over your doors and frames and gently re-open any screw holes that may have become clogged with paint. Before you put your old hardware back on your kitchen cabinets consider: why not buy new hardware instead? It doesn't have to cost all that much, and new hardware and door pulls can dramatically improve the appearance of your newly-painted kitchen cabinets.
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Loretta
Posted 165 days ago
Last summer I painted my kitchen cabinets and did some stenciling on them. Everybody that sees them loves the way they look. It was a really fun project.
