Painting Cabinets

Ever since I started reading home decorating/renovating blogs, I've been fascinated with how wonderful painted cabinets can look. I say can look, because I've also seen some not-so-good cabinet paint jobs. So I was hesitant to do this project myself. If I screwed it up and it looked bad, what would my other options be? A whole new vanity? Then we'd need a new counter top. Then we'd be spending more cash than we wanted to. But I decided to go for it. It didn't look very hard. I thought I could do it. And I'm very happy to report that I was right! Seriously you guys, anyone can do this. It just takes a little time and effort.

Before

Here's what you need:

• Screwdriver
• Sandpaper
• Paint and painting supplies
• Adhesion primer

Step 1: Take all the doors off and the drawers out. Then remove the hardware. If you want to change the placement of the hardware, this is when you would putty those holes using wood putty. Also, inspect the doors for any chips or gouges and putty those, too. Let the putty dry completely. Thankfully, our cabinets were in pretty good condition, so we didn't need to do any puttying. I did, however, need to glue the corner on one of the drawers because it was coming apart. Dang, those corner clamps come in handy!

Step 2: Take the doors/drawers outside and sand the crap out of them. Well, actually, you just need to do a light sanding so the primer will stick better. Then go back inside and lightly sand the surface of the cabinet frame.

Note: I did the majority of this project after the kids went to bed, so that's why it's dark outside. My neighbors probably thought I was crazy, sanding cabinets at 10:00 PM. Whatever. They don't know my life.

Step 3: Brush everything off with a stiff brush or a broom. I would like to take this opportunity to show off my adorable little walrus hand broom, because that's what I used to brush the sawdust off. Isn't it cute! The snout comes off, that's the brush part, and the head is the dust pan. I love it.

Step 4: Prime it. You want to get some adhesion primer. It's made to be used on smooth surfaces and it sticks really well. It's pretty thick, but works like a charm. I got mine at Lowe's. Most likely, you'll only need one coat of this. That's all I did. It doesn't have to look even, you're just using it as a base for your paint, something for it to stick to.

Step 5: Paint it. You want a high gloss paint for this. I used Sherwin Williams All Surface Enamel in a high gloss finish. The color is Black Bean. Two coats did the trick for me, and it's a super dark color being painted on white primer, so I can't imagine that you would need to do more than two coats.

Step 6: This is the hard part. You should wait as long as you can to put the doors back on. Latex paint take a month to fully cure. We waited a week, and then we tried to leave the doors/drawers propped open as much as we could to prevent them from sticking.

Step 7: Install the hardware before you put the doors back on.

Step 8: Hang those doors back on! Then you're done!

We have no natural night in our bathroom, so I had a hard time getting a picture that showed the true color. This is pretty close, but it doesn't look quite as shiny in real life. I am so happy with the results! And it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.