Kitchen Painting Party

Mike and I finally had our first weekend home with nothing planned so we decided to take advantage of it and the nice weather to tackle painting the cabinets... which turned out to be a much bigger project than originally planned. I didn't set my hopes on having the whole thing done by Sunday night since I knew I wanted to do a good job with the prep so we'd have proper adhesion but I didn't anticipate not finishing with primer by the time it got dark last night. Loosely following a few tutorials I read online, this is how it broke down:

Friday night - Mike and I grabbed a quick dinner then went to town clearing out the kitchen and taking all the doors & hinges off. In all it probably took us about two hours with the power drill saving us a significant amount of time with six screws to take out of each door (three screws per hinge). This is where we left it when we went to bed.

The hardest part was probably getting the shelves out of the upper cabinets which were clipped in on all sides. That or peeling off not one, but two layers of old contact paper. Luckily the bottom layer had probably been applied about ten years ago because fresh contact paper is all but impossible to get up and this stuff had lost a lot of its adhesion. One of the biggest reasons for us painting the kitchen is the insides of the cabinets just felt dirty. It's amazing the accumulation of crumbs, dirt, and other gross things the insides of the cabinets had that no amount of vacuuming could fix.

Saturday morning - Mike and I woke up early and hit Home Depot before the Saturday crowd rolled in. On our list of things to get included 38 hinges, 2 replacement track holders for the undersides of the drawers, 3 replacement rollers that make the drawers slide in and out easier, 4 packs of metal pegs to hold the shelves, liquid deglosser, and a pack of 120 grit sand paper. Good thing I like numbers.

We came up short on the replacement rollers, but we got everything else and went to work on filling holes and sanding. Although we like the drawer handles the previous owner picked out, the knobs for the doors were not our style and looked rather dinky on the big cabinets which meant Mike needed to fill the old holes so we can re-drill new ones after we are done painting. While he was at it, he also filled a few chips in the drawer fronts and a 1/4 inch gap in between two of the upper cabinets. Meanwhile, I busted out the new electric sander (one of my birthday presents along with a compressor and nail gun attachment) and went to work on the cabinets inside. Overall, I wasn't aiming to remove the top layer entirely, just rough them up enough so that we get maximum paint adhesion down the line. I also rubbed all the cabinets with a liquid deglosser which helped remove any lasting varnish while helping to wipe away all the dust from the sander. This step literally took us all day until about 5:30 but at least we felt like we were getting somewhere.

Creepy Selfie

Had to join in on the sanding fun

Sunday - Mike rarely sleeps past seven so he was up taping off the counters and appliances by the time I got up. He also graciously agreed to me going to yoga & coffee with my good friend while he stayed home and primed. That's true love.

When I got back I help him finish up inside and then we set up a station outside to use paint sprayer #1. I say number one because we were sorely disappointed by it and went back for a different model after an hour of trying to get the first one to work how we wanted it to. Basically the issue was our compressor wasn't big enough for the sprayer and we could keep an even PSI level which in turn meant that we were getting a really inconsistent spray. Our options from there were to either get a compressor twice the size (which we really wouldn't have a need / space for) or go for an electric one. We went with the ladder option and got semi-better results but I'm still not totally convinced on this model. I'm holding out that it will do better with paint than with primer but I'll definitely let you know once we get there.

In the end, we ended up primering everything by hand which is why we still aren't done with this step. We got another six doors and two drawers primered after work this evening but at this pace, it's going to take us the rest of the week. The only really good thing we did was set up a convenient station for painting with a drop cloth nailed to the fence that will be perfect for the paint sprayer if it ever decides to work.

Next step after we prime is to start in on the inside of the cabinets and drawers with a basic white, semi-gloss paint and then move on to the outsides with a beautiful grey-navy satin paint by Benjamin Moore. Wish us luck! I'll be back with an update next week.