Painting our kitchen cabinets has been on our to-do list since the day we moved in. Our house is from the early 2000s (which I have to remind myself is almost 20 years ago) and came with the standard “turn of the century” glossy-oak cabinets. Having been in quarantine for over two months, we were itching for a home project – so, operation DIY kitchen renovation began!
Before
This is a stock photo from our home listing before we bought it (because I forgot to take a real “before” photo). It was a perfectly fine kitchen, just not the look we were going for.
Supplies
We went to Lowe’s and Home Depot to get our supplies but you will most likely be able to get everything from one place! I’m linking the exact projects we used for reference and will have a price total at the end (excluding power tools and anything we already had that isn’t linked below). It seems like a lot of stuff (because it honestly was), but I would say it was totally worth it.
Just for context, all of the supplies below were enough for 21 cabinet doors and 7 cabinet drawers.
Power Tools*
- Drill
- Impact driver
- (Optional) Orbital sander
* These can be pricey and Drew got these in a set, but these are a great investment for other home improvement projects!
Prep/Cleaning
- Degreaser (we used Krud Kutter)
- Paper towels
- Plastic cups
- Gloves
- Sanding block
- (Optional) Sanding disks for orbital sander
- Ziploc baggies
- Sharpie
- Painter’s tape
Painting
- 4 in. rollers (2)
- 4 in. roller covers (4 extra)
- Angled painter’s brushes (2)
- Paint mixing sticks (free with purchase!)
- Paint can opener
- Hand-held paint pail & liners*
- Painting trays & liners* (we only used liners and it was perfectly fine)
- Painter’s tripods (4 packs of 10)
- Plastic drop cloths
- Painter’s tape
- 1-gallon cabinet primer paint
- 1-gallon cabinet & trim paint (we used Nova White from Behr in Semi-Gloss finish)
- Old towels
* I would recommend one liner for each day you think you’ll be painting
Installing
- Drawer pulls (we used pulls on drawers and cabinets doors)
- (Optional) Cabinet knobs
- Small Phillips screwdrivers
- Cabinet bumpers
- (Option 1) Cabinet hardware installation template (not completely sold on this, I’ll explain later)
- (Option 2) Cardboard, pencil, ruler, level
The Schedule
We wanted to get this done quickly so we could (1) have a prettier kitchen and (2) keep the kitchen out of commission for as short as possible. We purchased supplies the weekend before and started our renovations on Friday after work. This process could have cut this down by two days if we hustled – but it’s hard to adult and do home improvement during the week!
Thankfully we were able to do all of the cabinet door painting in our garage, which helped us keep critters and anything from the outside world away from making their marks on our doors.
Viv’s Tip: Make sure you have a plan for meals. You won’t be able to use your kitchen at least until the base coats are done drying (for us that was Monday) so make sure to plan for that. We ended up ordering meals Friday, Saturday, Sunday…and Monday.
The Process
Day 1 – Friday (Prep / Cleaning)
Immediately after work, we started by removing the cabinet doors from the upper and lower cabinets using our impact driver. As we removed each door, we placed the screws and cabinet hinges in a zip lock bag. We then took our painter’s tape and made an “A” label for (1) the door and (2) the spot in the cabinet the door came from and labeled the baggie. I *highly* recommend this because it kept us organized and made the install process much easier.
Once we removed all of the doors, we used the Krud Kutter to remove *years* of grease and grime from each of the doors, drawers and cabinet base. Depending on what product you use, make sure to read the label to see how to apply it. While wearing gloves, we poured the degreaser in a cup and dipped folded paper towels into the solution to wipe everything down. Make sure to keep the labels organized and with the doors as you clean them. We then wiped anything that had degreaser with water and let it dry.
Today’s steps:
- Remove cabinets & organize hardware
- Clean with degreaser
- Wipe off with water
- Let dry overnight!
When we were done with cleaning, we removed the front-row worth of stuff from each cabinet and anything from the counter tops to prevent getting paint on those items.
Viv’s Tip: If we had the space, I would have just removed everything from the cabinets. That way you have a truly clean slate to work with! …And you can pretend your kitchen is nice and new for a few days.
Day 2 – Saturday (Prep / Prime)
*Before you start – pick out your ugliest and oldest clothes to sacrifice for this project. There will be casualties and it will be okay. Oh, and also remove your rings because I forgot.
This is a day we could have saved about half a day, but we decided to do a socially-distanced lunch with friends and didn’t get started until about 2pm. We used our sanding block to sand the cabinet base and nooks and crannies of the cabinets. We then put all of the cabinet doors on painter’s tripods to use the orbital sander to sand those up. We then vacuumed the wood particulates and gave everything a second and final wipe-down.
Viv’s Tip: I hate the sanding process. But I 100% recommend doing it. It noticeably removed any extra grime and removed the prior finish to prep the surface for primer. We had a friend who didn’t do that and said the paint didn’t stick. So do it do it do it!
We then used painter’s tape to tape off everything in the kitchen (ie. around the appliances, trim, walls, inside of the cabinets, baseboards, around the drawer fronts, on each drawer shelf, under the counter tops). I would make the tape around the appliances extra wide because paint will get on them, and you will be annoyed at your future-self (Hi, that was me). While taping around the baseboard, tape down the plastic drop cloths on the floor. That way you get can paint/trash/anything on the floor and easily clean it all up at once at the end!
Viv Tip: When you clean, make sure to really clean the baseboards under the kitchen cabinets if you have them. I didn’t think to do that until I was painting and then proceeded to “paint around” and had to deal with a dusty paintbrush.
Bonus Viv Tip: Put a few old towels under the drop cloth. You will be getting intimate with the floor (literally face on ground) trying to paint the base boards and (maybe) be sitting while painting the lower cabinets. Do yourself a favor and at least make it comfortable!
We then primed the cabinet bases, drawers and doors! We started off by placing 10 out of 21 cabinet doors on the painters tripods for this but ended up using wood scraps for the rest of them because we don’t have that kind of patience. I used the angled brush to paint all of the ridges and corners. Drew would then follow up with the roller to paint the flat surfaces and smooth any paint that had pooled.
Viv Tip: We only purchased four 10-packs (so 40, duh) of painter’s pyramids for this project which would only be 10 cabinet doors at a time. BUT WORTH THE BUY! I would have gotten more if I knew how helpful they would turn out. We ended up using extra paint samples and scrap wood to hold up the rest. Otherwise this would have taken forever!
Luckily the primer we used only required 30 minutes to an hour of dry time, so we had a mini “assembly” line”:
- Prime back of cabinet doors. Let that dry.
- Prime cabinet base & drawers. Let that dry.
- Flip cabinet doors and prime front of cabinets. Let that dry.
Viv Tip: Paint the backs of the cabinet doors first, then the fronts. That way if paint drips while painting the fronts it will look funky on the backs and you can’t see any happy accidents!
Once we were done for the day, we wrapped our brush and paint roller in plastic wrap and cleaned out our hand-held paint pail. Notice how I didn’t put plastic wrap as a supply…that’s because that trick didn’t work for us! We did that and it didn’t do anything for us! Our paintbrush and roller were partially dried and not in good condition to be reused the next day (but we did anyway oops). Luckily we had enough extra supplies and tools to continue without having to go to the store again.
Viv Tip: Instead of using plastic wrap, just get enough roller covers and paint trays to start fresh each day. I would also recommend to wash your brush if you don’t plan on using it for more than an hour to prevent the paint from drying on the bristles.
Today’s steps:
- Sand, sand and sand again.
- Clean, clean and clean one more time.
- Tape off cabinet basis.
- Prime those bad boys!
This took some time to get the tape perfect, but I would suggest taking your time on this. Trust me – you don’t want to spend all of this time prepping and painting to see janky edges!
Day 3 – Sunday (Prime / Paint)
Our most productive day by far! We did our first coat of our real cabinet paint this day. We followed the “assembly” line method we used yesterday, only we had to wait 1-2 hours in between each coat to make sure they “cured” enough:
- Paint 1st coat on the cabinet backs. Let that dry.
- Paint 1st coat cabinet bases & drawers (we did uppers, lowers, and then drawers). Let that dry.
- Eat lunch 🙂
- Paint 2nd coat on cabinet bases & drawers. Let that dry. (We wanted to make sure the cabinet backs were reaaaaaally dry before doing a second coat).
- Paint 2nd coat on the cabinet backs. Let that dry overnight!
We made sure to take extra time and be extra careful when doing this coat to make sure the paint went on smoothly. This was the point when we realized how important the cleaning, prepping and priming of the cabinets was. The paint went on so smoothly onto the primed cabinets and actually stuck to the surface!
Today’s steps:
- Paint & dry.
- Eat.
- Paint & dry some more.
Viv Tip: If you’re painting your drawers on the counter tops and didn’t take all of the stuff out (like we did), lay old towels on top to prevent paint from getting on everything.
Day 4 & 5 – Monday & Tuesday (Paint)
The work week began and thus, our productive paint days were over. Thankfully we did most of the hard work over the weekend and only need to paint the cabinet fronts! After work on Monday, we flipped the cabinet doors and painted one coat of cabinet paint. I painted the details with a brush and Drew rolled that *ish* out.
On Tuesday after work, we did the same thing. Except it was just me because Drew had some work to do. I just put on some Fixer Upper episodes and painted away!
Today’s steps:
- Paint.
- Watch Fixer Upper.
- Paint some more.
- Watch more Fixer Upper.
Day 6 & 7 – Wednesday & Thursday (Install!)
Install day, people! My favorite days of the entire process. We split this between two days because Drew had more work to do (can we all be sad for him together?). On Wednesday night, we installed the handles on the drawers. I recommend this because your guests won’t see those first so you can use it as a trial run.
We ordered the cabinet install tool (we’ll call it the “guide”) made by the same company as the handles we ordered to help with the placement of the handles. It has pre-made holes that corresponded to the length of our drawer pulls. We used 5 inch (128mm) handles on all of the cabinet doors and drawers and a 6 1/4 inch (160mm) handle for our longer drawer. It worked out perfectly for the handle doors! It did, surprisingly but not really, require a bit of math. Here’s how we used it:
- Measure the length of the cabinet front then the length of the guide.
- Subtract the length of the guide from the length of the cabinet.
- Divide the difference by 2 to know how far to measure from the edge of the drawer front.
- Using the # from (3), measure that length from one side of the drawer front and place the guide.
- Make sure the distance from the sides of the drawer fronts and the guide are even on both sides.
- Mark the appropriate pre-made holes in the guide and remove the guide.
- Drill the two screw holes using your drill.
- Remove any hanging pieces of wood from the drill holes.
- Install using screws from your handle pack! The handles we purchased came with two different length screws that worked perfectly for us.
My real frustrations came out on Thursday when we tried to apply above method to install the handles on the cabinet drawers. Long-story short, the tool did not work because it didn’t account for our early-2000s style cabinet doors with the intricate and thick edges. Because the tool had pre-measured holes and a right-angle guide, we had little to no room to get our guide in the spot we wanted. I ended up making my own with a piece of cardboard, a pencil, a level and a handle.
I measured the distance from the side and top of the drawer to the spot that I wanted the candle to go. Then I measured the distance between the top and bottom screw-holes in the handle and made my mark in the cardboard. I used the level to make sure the holes were straight and level. I poked a hole with a screwdriver and made my guide! We ended up having some trouble because it wasn’t the *perfect* guide for cabinet holes (ie. Drew had to move some holes up and down). Just have patience and it will all work out!
Today’s steps:
- Drill holes in cabinet drawers and doors.
- Screw on handles (with patience).
- Enjoy your cabinets!
It was definitely a detailed and sometimes tedious process, but completely worth it. Instead of spending $10 thousand dollars on a kitchen remodel, a couple hundred dollars’ worth of supplies to paint and get new kitchen accessories made a big enough impact!
Before (Again)
After
This definitely was a detailed process but worth every penny and minute! It really transformed our kitchen and made it feel brighter. I’m actually excited to be in here to cook (well maybe on the cooking part). We’ll see how everything holds up but we’re very excited about it turned out!
Our final timeline and cost:
Total Time to Complete: 7 days
Total Project Cost: $348.29
Happy renovating!
Vivian
