Hands down, the question people ask the most often: “How do I paint my kitchen cabinets?”.  I’ve painted a few in my time, two here on the blog – one a tuxedo kitchen, and one all white kitchen. But this time, I thought I’d break it down, and film a video of the process for you.  

This is my neighbor’s kitchen.  It’s a builder grade oak kitchen from the late 80’s.  She has great storage space, it’s a great lay-out, but it’s time for the orange hued oak to go.  I think hands down the least expensive and best way to re-do your kitchen is to paint your cabinets. It’s a bit of work, but it makes an HUGE difference. 

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Supplies:

• Krud Kutter  
• Scotch Brite Pad
• Purdy Brush
• White Lightning Cleaner (TSP Cleaner)
• Dixie Belle BOSS
• General Finishes Antique White Milk Paint
• General Finishes Queenstown Gray Milk Paint
• General Finishes High Performance Top Coat
• Painters Tape
• Paint Sprayer
• Paint Tent
• My favorite hardware source: https://www.dlawlesshardware.com/

Hear me on this, the most important step in getting a lasting, durable finish on your kitchen cabinets is the prep work.  I know prep work is annoying, time consuming and the lest fun part of the process, but if you don’t do it right, your cabinet finish will fail! Your paint will chip/peel off and you will have a mess. 

So here’s how you do prep work right:

CLEAN THOSE CABINETS!  Do you know what a build up of 20 years of grease looks like?  It’s not something you usually see on wood cabinets, so you don’t usually take the time to clean them – which is fine, but to paint them you have to get the grease off! I used Krud Kutter and a scotch brite pad to scrub and remove as much as I could.

SCUFF SAND. This is up to you, but I did go over the flat parts of the cabinets doors and boxes with sandpaper – just 220 grit, and just a light sanding, but enough for a little extra insurance that the paint will stick.

CLEAN AGAIN.  Then I used a TSP cleaning mixture and paper towels to clean off what was left.  We were still getting dirt off at this point, so it wasn’t overkill.  

We cleaned all the cabinets like this and set them aside to let them dry.

Once everything was dry, it was time to prime.  These cabinets were going to be painted a light color, so priming the oak was essential to be sure the cabinets didn’t yellow over time.  I chose Dixie Belle BOSS primer because 1. it’s water based (ie: not smelly) and 2. I could spray it 3. I think it’s the best water based stain blocker available. Everything got 2 coats of primer. 

The color for most of the cabinets was going to be Antique White.  A beautiful creamy (not yellow) white.  I pulled out my tent and paint sprayer and sprayed the doors with the primer and paint.  

I explain in the video that right after this, my sprayer stopped working.  I couldn’t figure it out, so I just grabbed my paint brush and kept going.  So, it’s really up to you if you’d like to paint by hand or spray. (If you use a roller be sure to smooth out the roller marks with a brush). Spraying is faster and generally gives a smoother finish, but you can get the same finish with a brush if you are careful. If you use a brush, for the love of all things good, use a good brush. I used a Purdy XL Cub. 

Overall, the cabinets took 2 coats of primer, 3 coats of paint, and 1 coat of High Performance Top Coat in Flat finish.  That is a lot of coats.  

We did the island in a contrasting color – Queenstown Gray – a beautiful gray.  Because the island was going dark, I didn’t prime it.  It took 2 coats of paint and 1 coat of top coat.

When everything was dry, we brought them all back in and re-installed the hardware and new hinges.  

Here’s the step by step process in action for you…

Look at what a difference!  It looks like a whole new kitchen! It’s so bright and light and modern. 

My neighbor and I worked together on this kitchen, here’s a breakdown of what we did spending just a few hours a day to get it all done in a week:

Day 1: Remove all doors, clean doors
Day 2: Clean cabinet boxes and prime.
Day 3: Prime doors, 2nd coat of primer on boxes
Day 4: Paint boxes and doors, 2-3 coats
Day 5: Finish painting doors and boxes
Day 6: Topcoat, install new hardware and re-install doors. Do a happy dance!

There you have it – how to paint your kitchen cabinets. If you are ready to give your kitchen a face-lift, grab your brush and get painting! 

Have you painted a kitchen before?  Did you love the results??

Until next time,
Jenni