Painting Kitchen Cabinets

On the surface, this job might seem like something you should leave to the pros. 

But with just a little time invested in understanding the process, you'll see just how easy (and satisfying) painting your kitchen cabinets can be.

You don't need to be a skilled painter, craftsman or know anything about home improvement to take this on. 

While it's definitely labor intensive, this is a project that literally anyone can do from start to finish.

We'll show you detailed how-to videos below, but this project has essentially five basic steps: 

1. Prep, Mask & Clean

2. Detach Cabinet doors and drawers

3. Sand, Clean and Prime

4. Paint, Recoat

5. Touch Up and reassemble. 

It's essentially a five day process depending on how large your kitchen is and how many of your kitchen cabinets need to be painted. 

But essentially, you'll start by first imaging what you want your new kitchen to look like. 

Consider all your options.  What color do you want?  How will that blend with your backspalsh, countertops or flooring? 

If you have an island, do you want those cabinets to be an accent color for a little contrast?

Have some fun here and stretch your imagination.  Use the team at Home Depot or Lowe's and have them show you what your options might be.

Consider using apps like Houzz or ColorSnap Visualizer from Sherman Williams to see what your cabinets might look like once they're completed -- BEFORE you put an ounce of paint on the wall!

This will help you ease any anxiety you might have over your choice of color before diving in.

This little tool is just under $20 and allows you to add both tape and masking paper to an area in one move. 

Saves time, material, energy and frustration.

It's one of our absolute go to tools and you can find it here!

itOne of the biggest problems with painting your kitchen cabinets is the amount of dust that's raised.

To keep this problem at bay, we highly recommend the Zip Wall. 

This item will keep dust from your work area from floating all over your house.

And trust us, the dust will be everywhere.  So help make this a non-issue with this handy dandy accessory.

Buy it here!

This step might seem a bit more challenging than it actually is.

You'll want to remove all of the doors and drawer faces from your cabinets so you can sand, prime and paint them separately.

You don't need to remove the cabinet boxes from the wall as you're just working on the cabinet doors themselves.  You'll paint the frames and boxes on the wall.

The trick to properly removing your kitchen cabinets is to be sure you know which pieces go to which cabinet (hinges, screws, drawer pulls, etc.) and which cabinets go where.

Be sure to take the time to NUMBER each cabinet.  We usually will put a piece of blue tape near the cabinet we removed, so we'll know that Cabinet number 29 goes where the number 29 is hanging.

This might seem like we're over explaining something basic here, but you'd be surprised how few people take the advice here and just think they'll remember. 

So, to avoid eight hours of hell trying to remember what goes where, spend two hours up front and mark each and every piece of hardware and cabinetry. 

Why Dawn?

Dawn cuts through old kitchen grease better than almost any cost effecdtive dish soap out there.

It's also gentle enough to avoid causing any undo damage to the wood on your cabinets.

But it here!

Now for the fun part!  The actual painting process!

You'll want to start by making sure everything is clean and dust free. 

Remember, any dust that ends up on your cabinets during the painting process is usually there for life!

This nifty $60 drying rack will make the process of painting all of your cabinet doors and drawers so much easier.

Simply paint and set aside to dry and move on to the next.

This takes five minutes to set up and is a favorite tool!

Buy it here!

When it comes to paint sprayers, there are a lot of different models out there to choose from.

For our purposes, we went the more professional route, but you may not need something so heavy duty.

That said, be care not to be cheap here.  Saving a couple of hundred dollars by buying a crappy paint sprayer might negatively impact your overall project.

Take the time and shop for what's right for you.  And even though, we're recommending this particular model off Amazon, we encourage you to head down to your local Home Depot, Lowe's or Ace and find the one that feels right to you.

If you choose the right unit you'll soon discover that painting is a fun and easy chore that has lasting effects for decades. 

But if you're looking to move on something right now, here's our choice.