Thursday, April 7, 2011

Easy lazy DIY cabinet painting. :)

So I've wanted to paint my cabinets for a year or more, and I knew I wanted green, but it had to be the perfect green. I looked, and looked. Listened to a ton of criticism about how green would NOT look good. :) It's ok, I can handle it. I had lots of people helping me look at colors, I just couldn't find the color I wanted. I decided to try a paint shop one day (after a year of looking!!) looking at all their samples, I bought a couple tester colors thinking, maybe this will work. On the way out I saw the mis-tint pile, I sorted through it thinking I could paint frames or something and found my GREEN!!! I was ecstatic. :) But was unsure, I'd been fooled before. So I bought some mis-tint and came home to try it.

Well, I loved it, others agreed that it was the one for me. With confidence in the color I started looking into how to paint your cabinets on youtube and tons of DIY blogs.
I decided I was too lazy for the sand, prime, sand, paint, sand method. :)
But I didn't want brush strokes on the doors. My VT told me about this website:http://sassystyleredesign.blogspot.com/2010/07/kitchen-101-how-to-paint-your-ugly.html and I had my answer. (BE LAZY)
In my search I didn't find anyone that had good step by step pictures. So I thought I'd try and give you some to help if you want to try it. :)

:)
Here's my attempt at a tutorial for the lazy:

1: Find your perfect Color (try not to take a year)
2: LABELED ALL MY DOORS
3: Scrub your cabinets down with TSP (wear gloves)
4: Rise and dry cabinets
5: I had walmart match my paint,
(it had just a hair more green in it than my sample but I decided I liked it better than my original and went with it.)
My paint was Glidden with paint+primer (remember, lazy)
6: Take a big breath, and begin. We painted the inside frames and drawers with sponge brushes (I really didn't want brush strokes. ) We also used a foam roller. This took maybe an hour.
Don't take stuff out of your cupboards, you don't need to. As I type this I realized we didn't wipe down the frames or drawers with the TSP, oh well they seem fine. :) But maybe when you do it you can.
7. Laid down a drop cloth and set the doors up on my food storage and my precious diet coke. :)
The one that is already kinda painted is where I tried all my different colors. Pretty cool huh. Lincoln was really hopeful I was going to do camouflage. :)
7. This handy attachment goes to a compressor, my dad has one I borrowed.
The attchment was $15 at harbor freight. I had originally bought one at home depot for $50 and my dad thought he could get one cheaper at his favorite store. He was correct. http://www.harborfreight.com/20-oz-8-cfm-gravity-feed-spray-gun-67181.html
This baby worked like a charm, I will never spray paint from a can again. I'm planning on painting furniture and accents and everything in the world with this thing. Easy, less fumes and cheaper than individual cans. So happy with this. We sprayed one side, we went top, bottom, side, side and middle.
I didn't want to get paint on my shoes, and I'm lazy enough I just did it bare feet. :) It wiped off eventually. :) Systematically. all tops, all bottoms, ect. This seemed to work faster, we just needed to make sure we got in all the little grooves evenly.
9. Paint the backside first, so if you make mistakes by time you do the front you'll be a pro. While the doors dry do another coat on the inside frames.
10. Decide the doors need a day to dry because it's snowing in April and your garage is so dang cold.
11. Next day borrow space heaters to warm up your garage. Don't think about the hike in your electricity bill.
12. Two days later decide you'll do the other side of the doors.
(I didn't want to take any chances on it not being dry.
13. Now I had read that spraying the doors saved time and to spray so your job is faster. I don't think it's faster to spray.
It took a while to make sure I was getting it right and I wanted to do it right. I
believe it would have been faster to just brush the paint on. BUT by spraying I was able to get in all the grooves and not have to do coat after coat. And to me the texture was more important than the time it took.

14.Let dry at least 24 hours.
15. Put the doors back on and then try not to brag to everyone you know that you absolutely love your cabinets and you now have to decorate everything else in your house because they make the rest of your house look drab. :)

9 comments:

Unknown said...

That looks awesome. It is like having a whole new kitchen!

Jess said...

That is awesome Anna. I am all for revamping the kitchen any way you can. I can't wait to do mine when I get back. And the green looks Great by the way.

grandma blair said...

it really does look pretty awesome. You are a pro, and I trust your judgment completely

Eve said...

I am totally inspired. Except I have no clue what color I would paint, let alone shade! I need to think on this for awhile. Maybe a couple of years. :)

Cindy said...

They really did turn out great! And that is a lot of work for being "lazy".

Tad and Liza said...

I just called my sister to tell her about this...she is buying an older house and will for sure need this!

Crystal said...

Nice work, it looks awesome!

yostyid said...

They look great Anna! I love the color!

Le said...

I totally just looked over at my cabinets thinking "I could do that." They look amazing!
(I don't know how I missed seeing this post earlier)