Painting Kitchen Cabinets - 1

Ah, so you want to update the look of your kitchen cabinets cabinet doors with a nice coat of paint, but you’re afraid that it will look amateurish. After all, you say to yourself, you’re not a professional painter. Well don’t worry. We’re here to show you how you can paint your kitchen cabinets in 5 easy steps.

Clean Your Kitchen Cabinet Doors

You want to ensure that your kitchen cabinets are spotless or else you risk trapping dirt under the paint, which could lead to peeling. Because kitchen cabinets are magnets for grease, consider using water and grease cutting dish or laundry detergent. All purpose household cleaners like 409 could also do the job. Even though your next step in painting is sanding, take care to use a non-abrasive sponge while cleaning to prevent deep scratching.

Sand

Sand the surface of your cabinets until all the existing paint is taken off. Make sure to sand smoothly and evenly to prevent the creation of small indentations in the wood, which will show through your new coats of paint.

Apply Primer

Before painting your kitchen cabinet doors, you need to apply a primer to both prevent the paint from chipping and to ensure a smooth, thick coat that accents your existing kitchen colors. If you plan to use oil based paint, use oil based primer. Alternatively, if you will be using latex based paint, use shellac based primer.

Apply the First Coat of Paint

After the primer dries, it’s time to apply the paint smoothly and evenly.

Apply Two or Three More Coats of Paint

After the first coat dries, you will need to apply two or three more thin coats of paint to prevent bleed through. You will apply each subsequent kitchen cabinets coat after the previous coat dries.