Looking Fresh

Last weekend was another long one spent on the kitchen but the good news is we are almost there! After two failed attempts at buying a paint sprayer, we finally bit the bullet and bought a good one. We had a 10% off coupon for Lowe's so Saturday morning we headed over there to get it... and then proceeded to visit not one, but two Home Depot's and an Ace Hardware. Ace is the only one that carries Benjamin Moore paints and I knew the color I wanted was from their line but I am a Behr paint girl through and through so we opted out of buying with Benjamin Moore since their paint is twice as much as Home Depot's and they didn't carry the Advanced line that I kept reading was a good one for cabinets. The second trip was to get more semi-gloss ultra-white because we didn't realize that the gun guzzles paint (but for good reason -- a coat with a spray gun is equal to two coats by hand). Unfortunately I didn't get a good action shot of Mike spraying the cabinets since I was inside rolling the cabinet frames while he was busy outside, but this is the model we got and at $180 on sale, I highly recommend it!

Graco TrueCoat II

With the cabinet and drawer faces done, we spent most of Sunday focusing on the interior. I can't get over how fresh and clean the insides look with the white paint. One little trick I used to give the interior of the cabinets an even cleaner look was using painter's caulk to fill all the gaps.

One less place for dirt and dust to hide? Check. Once I was happy with the insides of the cabinets, I started on the frames. Anything that requires a detailed hand and a lot of patience isn't really Mike's deal so usually that means he leaves the 'cutting in' to me. I like to use a nice 1.5" angled brush with the paint lid as my 'pallet'. Just call me Picasso.

Once I had made a nice border around all the edges of the cabinets where they touch the ceiling/walls or have an interior angle, I used a foam roller to tackle the larger area. I never knew about these handy small, high-density, foam rollers before this weekend, but they work really nicely on cabinets and don't leave as much of a texture as traditional rollers.

Starting with the highest and farthest out cabinets, I worked my way inwards and then moved on to the lowers. I accidentally started with the lowers when I was priming and ended up brushing up against them frequently while climbing up and down my step ladder. After one coat, this is where we were at:

Pretty big difference right?

After a second spray-coat on the cabinet doors last night and a full day to dry, looks like we should be good to go with installing hardware and putting everything back together tonight. I am so ready to have our kitchen and entire house back in working order!