How to paint kitchen cabinets in 3 short days! Today we are going to walk through our process here at Exterior and Interior Painting Specialists. After we finish talking about how to paint your cabinets, we will give you popular ways you can restyle your kitchen just by painting and replacing a few things!
Our kitchen cabinet process used to take 6 days, but since we work in an assembly line process, use an airless sprayer, and create an onsite spray booth we are able to cut it down to a 3-day process.
The first thing we do when we enter a new job site is lay down drop cloths to protect your floors. In parts that we will be spraying or there may be heavy paint on the ground, we use a construction like paper. We make sure to tape down this paper to make sure it doesn’t move. As long as there are no holes or tears in the paper it is leak proof! So if a curious dog wonders into an area and there is a water bucket or open can, it won’t leak through to the floor! In other areas we use regular cloth drop clothes. These still protect the floor since they are thick, they are laid out through the entire area we will walk through, just in case someone has any wet paint on their shoes.
If we are at a big project site, we section it into groups and work through. We paint one area then move the drop clothes and paint a different area while it dries before the second coat. This is how we save time and only take three days instead of six!
Next, we begin taking the drawer fronts and the door fronts off the units. These will not leave the job site at all. We will talk about where they will go but for now, we will set them off to the side. After we take everything down we also remove all the hardware, this includes the handles, hinges, and anything else on the cabinets.
After taking everything off the cabinet fronts we clean everything with TSP. We use TSP (Trisodium Phosphate) to break down the grease, grime, and all other things off the surface. Make sure to get into the cracks, depending on the style of cabinets you have! If you don’t clean everything well the primer will not adhere right and the paint will not stick. Just like in dominos, if one thing goes wrong, everything else tumbles down and does as well.
To be able to spray the units, and sand with less of a mess, we will tape off the inside so there is no over spray. We do this in the drawer and door fronts as shown in the video below. We take plastic and drape it over all the appliances, so nothing is damaged with over spray.
Now, before we go onto a light sanding we are going to set up our HEPA filter sanding system! This is important to do before you start sanding everything! This filter system collects very small microns of dust! We will keep this running while we sand and while we are spraying anything.
This next piece is an attachment to the sander that sucks up and collects all the extra dust that comes off as we sand. Sanding takes off any other layers of paint on the cabinets and makes it easier for the primer and new paint to adhere to the cabinets.
Now we need to sand everything. We will sand the doors and drawer fronts that we removed everything form, and we will sand the actual units that are attached in the kitchen, living room, bathroom, or wherever the cabinets are. Make sure you really get into the corner and the cracks, but don’t sand too deep, you just want to remove and paint, finish, or sealers that were there before.
After lightly sanding everything (Door fronts, drawer fronts, & units) we then clean them with TSP again. This will just make sure to get any extra grease or grime that may still be on there.
We are going to go on and set up a spray booth! Building a spray booth in the garage, spare room, or basement allows us to spray the fronts with the airless sprayer and keeping it on site! It is important to keep them on site for many reasons! If we take them off site we risk them being damaged or lost! Keeping them onsite also means we have to move them the least, keeping their environment stable will make sure it looks its best as well as helping it dry faster!
To set up the spray booth we first lay drop cloths to protect the floor, we then hang plastic from the ceiling creating an enclosed space so there is no over spray. This means we can easily get every angle of whatever we are painting in the booth, without worrying about damaging anything else.
We spray the cabinets instead of roll or brush so there will not be any marks. It is important to keep up on your airless sprayer. If you do not, there can be many issues including over spraying and runs in the paint.
Now it is time to do the first spray: The primer. We use Extreme Bond primer from Sherwin-Williams. It needs to be applied very thinly. You want it to basically be translucent.
We must wait at least 4 hours before we can apply the first coat of paint. Letting the primer set in will help the paint adhere the best.
After applying the first coat of paint you will need to wait another at least 4 hours for the second coat. At our company we always do two coats on all of our projects.
After the second coat is painted on waiting 12 hours is a must before it will be durable enough to put everything back together. We always let them sit over night.
Now we can go and start removing the blue tape we had used to closed off the inside of the cabinet units where the doors and drawers would go. After removing all of the tape from the inside of the units you can hang the doors and drawers back up where they go. Make sure they are all aligned and equal.
and now…
- The first look is just a typical repaint. Updating your kitchen with a fresh coat of paint can take your kitchen cave and turn it into an elegant hangout. Currently one of the most popular colors is a shade of grey.
2. Another way to give your kitchen its own personality is by having one of the detached sections an accent color while keeping the rest of the cabinets the same. It’s a way of having an accent without drawing too much attention away.
3. Another new up and coming look is accenting the island. Something about the center of the room being a darker color than the rest brings it all together. It gives the heart of the home its own heart.
4. Having the top a lighter color and the bottom a darker color. This nice accent separates the room in a nice clean line. It brings a sophisticated feel to the room. If you are feeling really rebellious, you can have the top cabinets the darker color.
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