Post 39: Painting Kitchen Cabinets

Last time we talked about our updated chandelier. Today, we're talking about painting our kitchen cabinets.

It took us a long time to decide to paint the kitchen cabinets.  We've been to some houses recently with beautiful white cabinets, though, and it made the kitchens so birght that we decided painted cabinets would really lighten up our room.  And, remember our inspiration?

My parents recently painted their cabinets, too, so we got a lot of tips and tricks from them and we found some great tutorials on Pinterest.  We did our research and came up with a "process" that we felt pretty good about, and then we got to painting!  We were even blessed by Alan's mom and aunt who came and helped us get through a day of painting!!  Here's what we did:

We chose to use Benjamin Moore Advance paint in semi-gloss.  (I've read that the higher the gloss, the more durable your paint will be, so semi-gloss seemed like a good choice.  I'm a messy cook, so surfaces I can easily wipe down are a must!)  This particular paint is self-leveling and we read a lot of reviews that said it is extremely durable, so we thought it would be a good choice for our cabinets.  You can buy it at any Benjamin Moore store, or Ace Hardware usually sells it as well.  

Our color choice was Sherwin Williams Alabaster.  We used the color in our half bath and have really liked it, so we decided to use what was tried and true.

We chose to do this project over Labor Day weekend, thinking that would give us four solid days to paint (Friday through Monday).  We were able to finish most of it, but we spread out the final coats a few days to give everything a good chance to set.  Then, it took us a few days to get everything back together...  So, about two weeks later, we were pretty much done!

This project took over our whole first floor.  We had cabinet doors EVERYWHERE and the only place to sit downstairs was in our bedroom.  This was so unsettling.  Every meal was a drive through meal.  BUT, it was only for about a few weeks.  And I love the way the cabinets turned out.  So, worth it?  Yes.  (But I don't want to do it again soon if I can help it!)

So here we go.  This was our supply list.  We had most of what we needed already, but what we didn't, we ordered on Amazon or picked up at Home Depot.

Supply List

TSP (Tri-sodium Phosphate)

Rubber Gloves (to protect from the TSP, paint, and tack cloth)

Bucket

Sponge

Sander
Medium Grit Sandpaper (80 to 100)

Fine Grit Sandpaper (120 to 150)

Vacuum

Tack Cloth

Primer

Paint

Angled Paint Brushes
Roller Brushes

Mini Roller System

Painters Tape

2 x 4 Boards and tables we could paint on (we used the boards we tore out of our furdowns)

Preparation

We spent a few days getting ready to paint.  Some of this was done during other projects, but here's everything all together so you can see the full process!

1. Remove cabinet hardware

2. Remove doors and label

We made a "map" of our cabinets to assign all of the doors and drawers a number.  Then, we labeled the doors in the hole where the hinge connected (see step 3).  We labeled the drawer faces on the back side where they would be covered by the drawer itself.

3. Remove hinges and label

This really goes along with step 2, but we used a permanent marker to label the hinge holes in each door and the inside of the hinges (where they wouldn't show).  We kept them together in Ziploc baggies.  We labeled exactly where each hinge was originally (top, bottom, and which door) so that everything would fit back exactly as it was when we finished.  We didn't want any crooked doors when we were done!

4. Take down upper cabinet boxes
We did this earlier when we removed our furdowns, but you can read about that here.

5. TSP
Using a bucket of warm water mixed with TSP, a sponge, and some rubber gloves, wipe down all of the cabinets to remove any grime or build-up that may exist.  Follow the instructions on the TSP box for how to mix everything together.

6. Sander/Deglosser
We chose to use sander/deglosser to help cut through the varnish of the cabinets before we took sandpaper to them.  We just used an old rag and rubbed every surface in circular motions.  It left a milky residue on the doors as it ate through the finish.

7. Sand
Use medium grit sandpaper to sand through the rest of the varnish of the cabinet doors, drawers, and boxes.  We spent about a minute on each side of every door.

8. Vacuum the dust

I used the vacuum arm and a good attachment to get the majority of the sawdust out of all the crevices of the doors and boxes.

9. Tack cloth
Go over all surfaces with a tack cloth to remove any remaining dust.  I recommend wearing work gloves when you do this, or else your hands will end up really sticky and covered in all the grime you pick up off the cabinets.

10. Prepare the space for painting
We prepped by taping around all of the cabinet boxes at the base, rolling out and taping down butcher paper, covering furniture and appliances with plastic, and setting up tables and 2 x 4s to keep the cabinet doors raised for painting.

This took over our house.  Really.  We had about four square feet to sit on the first floor and our bedroom to escape to.  Yikes!  But so worth it for the finished product.  Keep reading.

Once the preparation was done, we used the following method/order to tackle the painting:

Painting

Day 1:
Prime back of doors and drawers

Prime cabinet boxes and trim

Flip doors and drawers and prime the fronts (the primer dries pretty fast, so we were able to paint both sides in one day)

Painting tips:

We painted all of our cabinet doors using the angled brush first to paint the "trim" on the doors and then using the roller for the flat surfaces.  The diagram below shows the order we painted them.  Basically, we started with the paint brush on the sides/edges, then we painted the beveled trim on the inside.  Next, we used the roller for the inside and border flat surfaces.  Then, we used the brush to go back around the edges to catch any drips.

Day 2:

Quickly sand all surfaces using a fine grit sandpaper, tack cloth, and repeat the steps from Day 1

Day 3:

Quickly sand and tack cloth all surfaces

Paint back of doors and drawers

Paint cabinets and trim

Day 4:

Flip doors and drawers and paint the fronts

Day 5-6:
Repeat Days 3-4

Day 7:
Sand any blemishes and tack cloth.  Caulk any cracks or holes that were missed.

Day 8-10:
At this point, we were so tired of having cabinets hanging out in every room of our house.  So, we decided to go ahead and hang everything back up and then see what needed touching up.

To hang up the boxes, we marked where we wanted them on the wall and then screwed in a board at that height.  This gave the box a place to rest while I held it against the wall and Alan screwed it in.  (Remember, we raised the cabinets about four inches!  This part really made a difference to me!)

Next, we hung the doors and drawers.  Remember, we labeled our hinges when we took them off, so it was easy to match everything up.

Then, we cut and nailed in the crown molding to the cabinets.  Some of the molding had to be cut because we had fewer cabinets, and previously, the molding ran along the furdown (even where there weren't cabinets.  We just used the miter saw and then went back with caulk where there were any imperfections.

Day 11:
Go over all surfaces with one or two very light coats of paint using the roller.  Use the angled brush to fix any trim that needs extra paint and to clean up any drips from the roller.  Here, Alan used the roller and I followed behind him with the brush.

This went really fast and made all the difference in the cabinet finish.  (You can see at the top of the door Alan is painting, below, the sanded area that we had to paint over.)

Ta-da!  Much better!

Day 12:

We wrapped up this part of our kitchen flip by cleaning up and attaching new hardware that we purchased from 99 Cent Knobs.

What do you think?

We're almost done!  Drop by soon for our undermount lighting tutorial and our first stab at installing a backsplash.

Post 37: Drywall and Texture and Paint

Welcome back!  If you need a refresher, we just finished installing our new granite counter tops!  Since we have removed our furdowns and destroyed our backsplash, we have a lot of drywall that needed to be replaced.

We had some experience with this in our half bath, so we weren't too worried.  All we had to do was measure the wall that needed drywall, cut the drywall to fit, and screw it in to the studs.  (We scored our drywall with a razor blade and then bent it to cut it the rest of the way through.)

Once we had walls again, it was time to tape, float, and texture the walls and ceiling.  Now, around the time we got to this part, Alan was swamped with school and my holiday to-do list just kept getting bigger.  We were barely chipping away at the kitchen, so we decided to call in the pros.

FYI, if you're ever at a loss for a budget-friendly contractor (or any contractor, for that matter), try using Thumbtack.  It's a free app that lets you type in what type of service you're looking for, where you're located, and what your time frame is, then it sends you quotes from handymen/contractors who are willing to do the job.  You compare, haggle, and agree on a price, and if you find someone you're happy with, you hire them to do the work for you.

What probably would have taken us months took our contractor four days.  We went to work, and when we came home, they had made major progress on our kitchen.

Here's what they did for us:

• taped and floated the ceiling
• sanded the ceiling
• floated the walls over the wallpaper
• textured the walls and ceiling
• painted the whole room

It's definitely a different feeling having someone else do the work for you.  I don't feel quite as proud... but it's still satisfying to have a job well done!

We're getting so close!  Hang in there with us as we finish out our biggest renovation yet, and click here to read about our chandelier update.

Post 36: Counters and Backsplash Demo

Last time, we showed you our kitchen electrical work.  This week, we are talking about our counter and backsplash demolition (and showing you a look at our new counter tops).  

We have really enjoyed our granite tile counter tops, but since we are trying to brighten up our kitchen, we decided to go with a lighter granite slab.  We think it's really important that the kitchen makes a great impression since it is such a focal room, and we're hopeful that new counters will do the trick.

Our first step to new counter tops was to demo our old counters.  We are getting our new granite professionally installed, but everywhere we priced, we would have had to pay extra for demo, so we decided this would be fun and cost effective to do ourselves.  We took out our kitchen sink and our stove top and we were ready to roll.

What we discovered was that there were three layers to our counters. To take them off, we had to remove each layer, one at a time.  I thought about drawing a picture, but this one from The Family Handyman was so good, I didn't think it was worth me trying to create my own! (This one actually has four layers.) So what you see is the granite tile, then a waterproofing membrane (we didn't seem to have this...), then backerboard, and then plywood.

We removed the tile layer by “chiseling” it off with a hammer and lever.  (I should say, Alan did it this way.  It was more efficient for me when I just whacked the counters over and over with a hammer, so I chose this method.  To each his own.)

I definitely recommend ear plugs!!

Both methods worked fine.  We had all of the tile off in about an hour.

Once the tile was off, we had a middle layer to remove.  This layer kind of looked like drywall, but it’s called backerboard.  This layer came off pretty easily with the hammer and the lever because it was basically just glued on.

With the backerboard gone, all we had left was a layer of plywood.  I asked our contractor if we could leave this, but he encouraged us to replace it.  (There was a lot of sealer left over and he said we would get a better seal with clean plywood.)  We used a magnet to find the screws because so many were hidden by the sealer and then we unscrewed the plywood base. For screws that we couldn't quite see or get to with the drill, Alan used his dremel tool to sand down to it through the sealer. Then, we could easily unscrew them.

No more counters! (As you can see, we took this opportunity to paint the cabinets. More on that another day.)

To remove our backsplash, we basically had the same method: hammer and lever.  This went horribly in some spots and beautifully in others.  I think it’s because the tiles on our backsplash were so big.  If you angled them away from the wall to get behind them with the lever, they pushed back into the wall on the opposite side, leaving us with huge, gaping holes.

Yuck.

At least we’re good with drywall, right?

This led to our next step... We cut out the yucky drywall and replaced it with new sheets. The walls on our kitchen were becoming quite the jigsaw puzzle, so we opted to take most of the drywall down and have large, solid sheets instead of small, choppy pieces. It was a little extra money, but it saved us a lot of time cutting out odd shapes and fitting everything together, so we decided it was worth it.

With the drywall up, the only thing left to do to prepare for our new counters was to install the decking. This was pretty straightforward. We measured the counter tops and cut plywood to fit over the top. We screwed the plywood into the counters and we were ready for granite!

A while back, I took a trip with Alan's (and now my) Aunt Christine to pick out our granite slab. I loved this one and though it would really brighten up or space. (We're in a shadow, but it looks much brighter in our kitchen. Keep reading!)

Granite day finally arrived and we were so excited to get our new counters installed. 

What do you think?

Our kitchen is obviously a huge project, but we are moving right along!  Soon, we'll show you how we finished up the drywall and start to put the room back together.