Kitchen cabinets, step 2 of 2

Here's the next chapter of the cabinet painting. Once all the sanding's done, you're ready to begin the painting.

Uh...uh...uh... don't slap that paint on just yet, my friend. You've got to prime first.

Step #1: Prime the cabinets and doors.

You want to make sure that you tape off any area that you don't want painted, especially around the cabinets. Personally, I lay down EXTRA tape because I *LOVE* the small of 3M Scotch painter's tape! I don't know what kind of fragrance they put in it, but they should offer the scent in other media.






You might also want to give consideration to how you're going to dry all these doors. We ran into a small issue here, which we ultimately solved with saw horses, a couple of boards and some clamps.



Once the taping's done, get out that big brush and get ready to slap on that paint. That's really not an exaggeration. The primer is so thick that it often makes a funny sound when you make contact between the wood and the wide brush that is dripping with primer.



We used a primer suitable for a kitchen. I believe it has extra moisture protection, as opposed to a primer for your living room.

We found that we definitely needed two coats of primer. It says that you can apply the next coat after only 4 hours, but since we mostly paint at night, after Jonas is off to dreamland, we can really only do one coat a day.



Step #: Sand -- again?

Yes. The sanding really never goes away. We lightly sanded after each coat of primer, just to scuff up the surface a bit, for adhesion purposes. I left the sanding to Joe--too messy. I'm a details person.



Step #3: Paint. Finally!

After what seemed like an eternity, I finally got to paint with the real stuff. This took some adjusting because the paint is much thinner than the primer. I had to be extra careful in the corners and recesses, otherwise the paint would pool. If allowed to dry like like that, it would make the surface of the painting look very uneven, which is something that would drive me crazy.

Tonight, I tried using a tiny craft brush in some of the corners and that worked out pretty well, so when I paint our second round of cabinets this weekend, I'm going to try that.

This is our assembly line of drying doors.

In the end the "clamp system" (see above) didn't work out so well. We bought these little gadgets called "Paint Pyramids" and they're pretty handy. You can paint the back of the door, lay it on the 4 pyramids, and then paint the front of the cabinet door. Because the door lies on the tip of each pyramid, it has minimal contact and hardly leaves a mark. MUCH FASTER than doing each door, one side at a time.