Kitchen cabinets can make or break a kitchen’s appearance and feel. But buying new kitchen cabinets can break the bank.
Fortunately, there is another solution, repainted kitchen cabinets.
But before you start, read this because cabinets are intricate. They usually have some sort of bevelling and tons of hardware.
It is ideal to hire professional painters for this job, but if you must DIY-it, then at least read this.
Pick the Right Paint
The first thing to consider is the color paint you pick. If you have painted a room the wrong color and repainted it a few days or weeks later, you may be tempted to think it is no big deal to repaint something.
You’d be wrong if you are thinking that about cabinets. These are not a quick job.
Schedule the Enough Time
Looking at the cabinets you may think- smaller than a room; I’ll do it after work tomorrow. You’d be wrong. Cabinets take much longer than you’d image. Plan on five days, give or take.
Why, you ask
Well- first you have to take off the doors and drawers. Then you have to take off the hardware. Do not paint the hardware. It will crack within weeks.
Then you have to clean the surface. Kitchens are typically grimmer even when you clean regularly. Before you paint, be sure to wipe the cabinets down with a degreaser.
Wait--where’d that go?
It seems insignificant, but it is not. Those cabinets have been there for years most likely. They have settled into their space, expanded with time and all. So when you go to put the cabinets and drawers back up and when you go to put the hardware back on, you will want everything to go back into the same place so everything is straight. Quickly label everything so you know where it came from.
And please please please, do not rush to put them back up. Cabinets are touched regularly. They bang against the wall or each other every so often. If the paint is even a little too wet, even if you cannot really tell, it is too early to put them back up. It is frustrating to have a room, especially a high traffic one like the kitchen, disassembled, but it is more frustrating to have your hard work destroyed.
Prep Them!
Sandpaper is your friend. Even if you do not need to smooth out any imperfections, a good sanding of your cabinets will help the paint stick. And so is primer. As the paint settles in, if there you skipped the primer step, the knots in the wood will start to show through.
Usually, wood cabinets are stained, so if you want to paint over them you have to be careful because there may be gaps in the grain. This does not stand out with stain, but once you paint over them, the grain will surely stand out. Filling these gaps with putty is a solution, but a time consuming one.
Prop up the cabinet doors when you paint so you do not forget the edges and start with the backs of the cabinets. Starting with the backs is simply a precaution against your impatience or shall we call it enthusiasm. If you flip the door before the paint is dry so you can paint the other side, it is better to scuff up the inside of the cabinet than the outside.
If we had to boil it down to one thing you must do, we would simply say, hire a professional!
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