How To Paint Kitchen Cabinets – Jeffrey Court Week 2
This post is about how to paint kitchen cabinets. What products to use. What paint sprayer to use and whether or not you need to seal.
I’ll also be straight with you and say that painting cabinets is NOT for the faint at heart..
But if I did it, then you definitely can too!
It’s Week 2 of the JEFFREY COURT RENOVATION CHALLENGE sponsored by FROGTAPE & SINKOLOGY. All opinions are my own.
In this competition I am one of 12 design finalists chosen to renovate a space in our home in just 6 weeks!
If you missed week 1 and need to catch up, head to LAST WEEKS POST to read all about it!
ALSO, VOTING STARTS TODAY!!
The winner of this competition is chosen by votes and I need your help!! You can vote once every 24 hours from every device you own!
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Simply text VOTE to 877-649-0816.
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VOTE HERE
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WEEK 2 UPDATE
With all of the painting experience that I share on INSTAGRAM it may surprise you, but I have NEVER painted kitchen cabinets before!
Sure I dabbled with the BUILT IN BENCHES that I built to surround the fireplace in living room but that was nothing.
THIS project contains a whopping 12 base cabinets, and 28 doors and drawers. OY!!
Luckily I was gifted some amazing products to help get the job done.
FROGTAPE
FROGTAPE, who is one of the sponsors of this challenge, provided all of the painters tape I needed to create a plastic bubble to surround the kitchen area.
I was super helpful to be able to paint indoors, considering I was spraying all of the cabinets with a paint sprayer AND we were in the middle of Snow-pocalypse 2021. There was no way I was going to be able to get outside the week that the painting went down!
Frogtape is my absolute favorite tape to use when painting. In fact, I’m sure you have seen me using it a lot if you follow me over on Instagram!
FrogTape contains PaintBlock Technology which creates a micro-barrier seal to prevent bleeding.
For this part of the project I needed the premium adhesion to help hold my bubble together, but that also would remove cleanly when I was finished.
FrogTape delivered!
GRACO PAINT SPRAYER
When I was in the planning stages of this project I reached out to GRACO and they were so kind to provide me with their Magnum Project Painter Plus paint sprayer to paint the kitchen cabinets in record time.
I have used a paint sprayer before but this bad boy was BRAND NEW adventure.
The start up directions were a bit much for my attention span so I resorted to YOUTUBE to figure out the ropes.
Here is the video I watched time and time again to figure out the sprayer!
The initial set up took a good amount of time as I carefully learned how to use the sprayer properly. But this is common with any new tool!
What I didn’t realize when getting started is that I did need to have two 5-gallon buckets to help with start up which I didn’t have on hand. Therefore, a trip to the hardware store was needed before I could actually paint.
It ended up taking about 30 minutes each day to set up the sprayer for paint.
Once I was able to start painting I was shocked at how easy and fast it was.
Since I was painting kitchen cabinets I had to be extra careful not to layer on to much paint or else I would get drips. Small, quick strokes worked the best. I also had to figure out a walking pattern through my setup so I wasn’t bumping freshly painted cabinets with the dangling sprayer hose.
Knowing these things after the first coat made each of the following coats that much easier.
Using a paint sprayer was a LOT of prep work but it saved so much time in the end and gave the most amazing professional finish.
SHERWIN-WILLIAMS PAINT
I’m definitely no stranger to Sherwin-Williams paint. In fact, their colors and products encompass every square inch of my home! You can head over to this post to TAKE A PAINT TOUR OF MY MODERN ECLECTIC HOME.
Sherwin-Williams was so gracious to gift me not only the finish paint but also the bonding primer as well. Since our cabinets were not painted properly in the first place, starting with a primer coat was my assurance that this new paint would stay put!
For the cabinets I decided on the most beautiful shade of dark green, Roycroft Bottle Green (SW2847).
The color is a blend of greenish-black with a hint of blue. It was the perfect choice for the style of the basement bar.
I had the color mixed into Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel in a Satin finish. This paint has the durability of an oil based cabinet paint with the luxury of water-based clean up. It is self leveling and leaves the smoothest most luxurious finish.
There is no top-coat needed when painting with Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel, as it is already added into the paint.
Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel comes in Satin, Gloss and Semi-Gloss finished. I would recommend choosing satin or semi-gloss for kitchen cabinets.
HOW TO PAINT KITCHEN CABINETS
Being 100% transparent. Painting kitchen cabinets is by far the most tedious painting project I have ever done.
There is a lot of prep, time, patience and cleanup that has to take place in this kind of project.
If you can push through, however it will be so worth it in the end!!
Here are the steps that I followed when painting cabinets for the basement bar.
STEP 1 – REMOVE ALL DOORS, DRAWERS AND HARDWARE
This step alone took the better part of a day. I started by drawing out a map on a piece of paper where every cabinet was. I then numbered every cabinet on my map and then numbered each door/drawer and hardware for that particular cabinet.
I used FROGTAPE to mark the cabinets and wrote the number on the tape.
Including this step is especially handy when it comes time to reassemble.
STEP 2 – SAND ALL CABINETS, DOORS AND DRAWERS.
Lightly sanding with a 220 grit sanding block is the best way to start prep. Just enough to smooth any rough edges and give the primer something to stick to.
I followed this by wiping everything down with a damp rag to eliminate sanding dust.
I had 28 cabinets/doors/drawers in total and this process took about 4.5 hours.
STEP 3 – PREP THE AREA
Since I was painting in the dead of winter I chose to paint indoors. It also made sense to create one large painting area since I couldn’t move the island cabinets anyway.
I used two layers of construction paper and FROGTAPE to protect the tile floor and several layers of canvas drop cloths and plastic tarp to protect the carpet.
I then used large plastic dropcloths and FROGTAPE to create a plastic bubble around the entire painting area to protect the surrounding area.
This process took a good part of another day.
STEP 4 – PRIME
Finally! It was time to start painting. I set up my GRACO PAINT SPRAYER, dressed myself in paint coveralls and threw on a respiratory mask.
I used SHERWIN-WILLIAMS Extreme Bond Primer for this step. This primer is second to none providing an extra degree of adhesion compared to other primers.
A super light coat is all that was needed and it dried super fast!
STEP 5 – SAND (AGAIN)
I waited 24 hours for the primer to cure and the next day gave everything another once over with 220 grit sandpaper and a damp cloth.
STEP 6 – APPLY THE FINISH COLOR
This step will take a few days and a few coats to achieve perfect results.
Every coat will need 24 hours to cure before another coat can be applied.
This is particularly tedious when it comes to the doors and drawers that needed to be coated twice on each side.
A few spots needed to be sanded between coats but not to the extent of step 3 & 5.
The entire finish process took 4 days to spray plus one additional day for the last coat to cure.
AFTER 9 LONG DAYS, I WAS OFFICIALLY DONE PAINTING CABINETS!
clean up & CABINET INSTALL
My husband did the most wonderful thing for me in this week of the challenge. He offered to hire our trim carpenter to come re-hang the cabinets for me!
It was a blessing in disguise as I was swamped with client work and really needed an extra set of hands to get the job done.
The night before they arrived we had a clean up party from all of the painting in WEEK 2.
Three out of my four kiddos were home and my sister in law was over hanging out and every one pitched in to help tear down the plastic bubble that I practically lived in the week before.
The kids had a blast playing in the “rubble” and I was thrilled to get the space cleaned up in record time.
After so many days of non-stop work. I was happy to coach this process from the sidelines!
WHAT’S NEXT??
Next week the project continues with a lumber runs for 2 building projects and an accent wall, planning the built in cabinet in the wine nook and starting the process of tiling!!!
Everything will really start making sense next week so make sure to come follow along on INSTAGRAM for all of the detailed tutorials and subscribe to my blog for weekly updates!!
AND DON’T FORGET TO VOTE FOR HAUTE!!!
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