How To Paint A Kitchen Cabinet - Brush & Roll

Well hello out there again, and welcome to this How To Paint A Kitchen Cabinet - Brush & Roll blog post here on our Calgary Painting Company internet painting blog website. Today we're working on some kitchen cabinets. We'll be doing some Cabinet Painting. Cleaning them, sanding them down, we're going to prime them, then we're going to put a couple two or three coats of good quality paint on them when it's finished it can look beautiful as you will see.

This is a very popular project. These days a lot of people are wanting to paint their kitchen cabinets, so we hope maybe reading this how to paint a kitchen cabinet blog post might inspire you to do it yourself. It's not hard. You just have to follow the certain steps one after the other, after the other. The cabinet doors have all been sanded. They were washed down with a dawn dish detergent that takes off all the dust. If there was any spots of grease left that's taking them off so the surfaces are ready to go. 

What you do is, you take a brush, prime the edges, and then I'll take a four and a half inch roller. I'll roll the large areas out here. These doors have actually have got panels in them, and the panels are actually loose inside the frame. What I'm gonna do is, I'm going to run a bead of caulk down each one of them on the outside, and on the inside. 

And what that will do is, that will seal that panel to that frame, and make it much more solid. It's kind of flimsy the way they've set it up. That'll be a big improvement to the cabinet doors. Okay, so the caulk that I'm gonna use on this project will be this 950a Sherwin Williams. This is a good caulk. It's a latex caulk, goes on really good. It dries fast. 

I'll be able to paint it within an hour or so. It's a good product, I highly recommend it. A good caulking gun is very, very important. Dripless caulk gun. I believe I bought this at the Sherwin Williams store, but I think you can buy them pretty well at Home Depot, Lowes, about anywhere. A coat of primer is going to be applied, two coats of paint are going to be applied. 

How To Paint A Kitchen Cabinet Door.

So the caulking just disappears. As long as it's smooth, you'll never know the caulking has been done. Makes a big difference, especially with doors like these with that panel loose in there. It's going to secure them, and so when you shut your door, you're not going to get that little bit of rattle sound. 

Primer is a very important part to the painting process of cabinets. Think of primer as the foundation. You always want to have a good foundation, and when you apply a good primer, that's exactly what you'll get. The primer will bond to the wood, and then your paint will bond to your primer, and you have a pretty good system going there. 

A lot of paints these days advertise that they are primer and paint combined, and that's okay If you're painting walls and trim, things like that. If you're doing something as serious as painting cabinets you want to make sure that you have that good bond going on. You can see what I do with the smaller drawers is, I will tape them off, and I'm just painting the face plate. That's the only thing you need to do. 

You never paint the drawer itself inside anything like that. Unless it's a real old set of cabinets, 50, 60, 70 years old, they've been painting before, then you might want to do it. But this is the way you do like a modern set of cabinets. I will cut it in with a brush, and then I'll cut all these areas here in, where it's got the bevel. 

Okay, now you want to be sure not to leave any drips or brush marks. You don't have to put primer on real thick, you just want to cover the surface. But I'll go around, and I'll do these bevel edges. You got to watch them. They're a good place for a drip to start right in this area right here. Once I get the edges cut in the front plate, this area right here will be road happen to make a mistake which we all do.

How To Paint A Kitchen Cabinet White.

And you find a drip, just sand it off. You notice this production line I've got here works pretty good. This is the only way to do a set of kitchen cabinets. It gives you a good working surface. You have to be comfortable. If you're not, the quality of your work will diminish. Use a little inch and a half inch brush, then your brush should always have an angle on it. Very very important. 

You want to really work the primer into the wood. You notice there's a lot of different ways I'm turning my brush. And I'm working it in the crevices and points. And I'm always going back checking for runs, making sure I don't have a run. This is a good place. These areas right here a good place for a run. 

Now when you see me like for instance, this section right here, the grain of the wood is running this way. So in order to get it into the crevice, I'll go sideways, against the grain, but then what I'll do is, I'll pull my brush strokes down just like a painter would on a portrait. Pull them down to get like a reflection. They'll do that when they paint a pond and get the reflection same thing. 

So my brushstrokes aren't going against the grain. Everything goes with the grain. I learned a little tip from Bob Ross. Yeah Bob was the master painter. I'm sure everybody knows Bob. What you want to make sure is at this point right here, there's no dust, there's no debris. Make sure you take a little vacuum, or you take what they call a tack cloth run it across there. 

We don't want any dust any material on there now at all. We want to be perfectly clean. So I'm getting ready to start rolling cabinets. This is a four and a half inch roller cover. This is a Wooster. Using these high density roller covers when it comes to painting the project like this, don't pinch pennies unless you absolutely have to because this is a major project and you want it to turn out nice.

How To Paint A Wooden Kitchen Cabinet. 

Tools are everything. So go ahead spend the extra five dollars, buy the best. You won't fight it throughout the whole project. Applying the primer. This is the first coat of primer. I'll just repeat that process throughout the rest of the doors. So far, so good. The cabinet doors and drawers have now been sanded, washed, and primed. 

Now the primer's been applied. I'm just going to let these sit here overnight and cure. You got to be careful sometimes on a project like this that you can get going too fast and just because you can touch it doesn't mean the primer is necessarily cured and completely dry. I'm going to work my way inside in the same process. 

I'll sand them down, wash them down, caulk them, apply primer, and then two coats of paint. Eventually all this will go back together to make a beautiful kitchen. So there is the primer coat being applied to the cabinets. Which usually don't paint the inside or the shelving unit, just the framework. We'll get the doors done, put them back on, and it looks really nice. 

And constantly coming down and making sure that all my brush strokes are straight of course. This is just a primer. By the time I put two coats of paint on it, I will actually use four and a half inch roller and go ahead and roll these until there will be no brush strokes at all underneath, side, and on the framework. 

Nice thing about doing these how to paint a kitchen cabinet type of blog posts is also to pass on lessons that I've learned through the years. And here's a big one right here. All kitchens will have a stove. Whenever I painted over the top of the stove area, I would take my drop cloth and cover up the stove.

How To Paint A Laminate Kitchen Cabinet.

But one time, one of the knobs was on the front. I brushed up against it as I was painting. Instantly I smelt my drop cloth getting hot. No problems came of it, but it could have been disastrous. So I don't cover the stove anymore. Once I get finished painting, and I mean right after I'm finished painting, I'll just take a wet rag, and I'll just wipe it down. 

Sometimes you'll get tiny little splatters, and you just wipe it off. It takes them right off. A lesson passed on to you. What you want to do is you want to get real comfortable. You know there's nothing really fun about painting the base cabinets. Kind of awkward because they're down low. What's important is, I'm sitting on a pad, it just makes everything go a little bit easier. 

You just don't want to put too much on. Put your brush in there, dab it on each side of the bucket, you don't have a lot on there. What you're doing is, you're just working it in the wood itself, making sure it gets in the grain. anytime you do an edge, the top edge like this, I always want to come back and make sure none of it flowed over to the front section. 

Always checking. Make sure there's no runs. Why you need a good brush there. Here's an area of concern. You got the wood grain. Wood grain is where you see the stripes in the wood right here. They're going down or up depending on how you want to look at it. These pieces are going sideways. Horizontal into it. I like to paint according to the wood grain. 

So for instance. On this piece here, I'm going to go up, and down. But then on this piece where it connects, I will go horizontal. And the same here. Here's two intersections. One and two. Well, I'll paint this piece vertical. The others that connect, I'll paint horizontal. Horizontal, and then I bring my brushstroke straight through it. 

How To Paint A Melamine Kitchen Cabinet.

And that way it stays true with the lay of the grain. When I paint, I paint according to the grain. I'm getting ready to put the second coat of paint on the frame, and the first coat on the actual door panel. And the drawers. So I'm taking this sanding sponge, not putting any pressure at all. It's just the weight of the sponge and my fingers on it just going up and down. 

We have reached critical stage painting the doors and drawers. No dust, there's no lint. Everything is completely ready to go. As the paint goes over it, you may not see it eventually when it dries. Put your doors up there. It is make sure everything's totally clean in between each coat. So you just basically just run your hand over that surface, and if you feel anything anything at all.

Take your fingernails kind of scratch at it a little bit. A lot of times it's just a little piece of lint on there, something like that. But that thing ought to feel just as smooth as can be. And that's a good tip when you're painting walls and stuff too, just take your hand and just rub it across it, if you feel something it's going to show up in your paycheck.

Now we're getting ready to do the final coats on doors and the drawers. Getting down to the very last stages here. Once I get the doors and everything on, I'll come back in, and there may be a few places where I might have to touch up a little bit. One coat of primer, and three coats of paint on it. 

The main thing that you got to remember if you decide to do a project like this, that paint, even though I can touch it, it's not cured yet. That paint will take two, three, four, sometimes up to 30 days to really finally cure to the point where it's as hard as it should be. You just have to be careful when you put it all together again because everything is still soft. 

How To Paint A Metal Kitchen Cabinet.

Now I get it. To some people this looks like real nightmare. This is all your hinges, screws, different size screws, and handles. And now it's time to put all that back together. When you lay everything out like that it's pretty nice because that way there you just come over here and get what you need. 

The surface that everybody's going to see when they walk in your kitchen down on these two by fours, so I want to be sure and put a rug there to make sure I don't put any scratches on. Now I'm ready to put some hardware on and start assembling the cabinets. 

A handy and practical tip is to make sure you don't strip the screws out. Put them in. Notice when I use a drill I use it in pulses. I don't just turn it on and try to drive the screw in. Take it in easy. You got to be careful with handles, because they will strip out real easy. Once you get them started you kind of want to work them in together. 

Surgically remove stuff, organize your screws, your handles. Put it all back together. Believe you me it makes for a much better project. Those are lifetime tips for you. Everything flows better if the project is neat. All the hardware has been put back on, the doors and drawers have been put back together, and now the final phase is to get the doors put back up. 

Sometimes when you put the doors up they'll take some adjustment. But you want to just make sure you allow yourself enough time to be able to make those adjustments. I'm pretty happy with this Behr kitchen paint, it worked well. Make sure between each coat to give it enough time to dry well. And I like the primer too. 

How To Paint Kitchen Cabinets Professionally.

Primer is the glue. That's what glues everything to the original wood, and then the paint just goes on top of it, and becomes one strong system. You know, I've been in construction my whole life. Because most of the time I have worked by myself putting on these cabinet doors, I've got a way of balancing the door with one hand, through in drilling. 

Everything ready to go. But if you're a beginner, get some help. Have somebody hold that door for you as you line up the screws and you tighten them up. You could have spent all this time on this kitchen making these cabinets look so nice, and at the very end you slip, nicked the cabinet. You're moving the door up and down, you're scratching the face of the cabinet. 

You could really do a lot of damage to the nice kitchen that you just finished. If there's somebody available to help you hold the doors as you put them up ,it's always a good idea. If not just go slow. It's all about balance. And you can do it. It's just a little bit harder. Okay now a lot of times the cabinets will need to be adjusted. A little bit left, or right. 

And these hinges are pretty good hinges, in that they have adjustment that you can either slide the door up and down, or you can slide the door left and right, or move the bottom over, move the top over. You can have a lot of trouble with drawers getting them in and out. It has these two orange tabs on it. Another tip is when I pull the drawer out, I just reach underneath there, and I compress them, and the drawer just slides right out in the slot. 

It's in there, back and locks into place. Okay got all the doors up the drawers up. It's always nice to finish a project like this, and be able to stand back and go wow. This would be pretty high on the scale between one and ten when it comes to painting. You know you're getting up there probably eight nine maybe even a ten. 

You should be able to paint your kitchen cabinets yourself. You will probably get much better cabinet painting results, and complete your job faster by hiring in professional painters or professional cabinet painters to complete your cabinet painting for you. You could call in 1/2 Price Pro Calgary Painting and talk with the friendly and experienced Calgary Painters to arrange a free painting estimate or a free painting price quote.