Tips and Tricks for Painting Your Kitchen Cabinets
Are you interested in a change in your kitchen? Do you need to mentally preparing yourself to paint those cabinets? We know you can do it. It just takes a bit of time, but soon your kitchen can be looking brand new! Here are some tips and tricks for painting your kitchen cabinets using Bungalow 47 chalk and clay paint.
A Frequent Painter Tells All
We talked with Jill Lazarro, one of our paint retailers located in New Hampshire. Part of Jill’s business, Silly Jilly Designs, is offering her clients the service of painting kitchen cabinets. Jill uses Bungalow 47 Furniture Paint products exclusively on all her projects, and has completed many stunning before and afters. Check out these kitchens Jill has painted.
Tips and Tricks for Painting Your Kitchen Cabinets
We always say that ‘paint fixes everything’. It sure makes a difference and adds that personality a homeowner is looking for to make the space their own. Seeing these pictures, ere you convinced yet that you can handle this project? No worries, we’ve got more tips and tricks to share and advice from an expert like Silly Jilly Designs who does this all the time!
Tips for prepping your kitchen cabinets
It’s important to clean your cabinets with a degreaser such as Zep or Krud Kutter.
To remove built up grease, use a flat tool such as a metal putty knife or a flat head screwdriver for tight areas, and scrape out residue.
Think about what hardware you will be putting on the cabinets when you are done painting. Will the holes match up to what you currently have? If not, you will need to fill all the holes and sand the areas smooth.
You can paint with the doors on or off. This is a preference thing, so you will need to decide. You can easily paint with the doors on, but this will require needing a fine artist size brush to get around the hinge areas.
We always recommend painting both the front and back side of the door! Painting the interior of the cabinets is not necessary.
Tips for painting your kitchen cabinets
Stir the paint well and use a nice synthetic brush. Jill at Silly Jilly Designs says she prefers a Purdy 2.5″ angled brush.
On occasion, Jill at SJD uses our Bungalow 47 Clear Primer on kitchens that have a dark stain or knotty pine. This helps with bleed through issues.
If desired, the paint can be used in a sprayer. Thinning the paint slightly with water may be required to obtain the proper viscosity for your sprayer. If you want to use a sprayer, keep in mind that this step obviously requires removing all the doors and having space to lay them out.
Start with a damp brush and paint in one direction with smooth, even strokes. Use a drier brush on crevices so you don’t end up with too much excess paint sitting in creases and puddling. Check out this post and video to see how easy it is.
Tips for finishing your kitchen cabinets
Jill says she always uses Bungalow 47 Matte Finish (we would too) to protect her paint job. Matte Finish is water and chemical resistant, and is a great way to protect your cabinets from spills and scratches that frequently happen in a kitchen. Jill finds that it is best applied with a terrycloth staining pad. It’s important not to get too much on the sponge. It wipes on easy and requires two coats.
A quick way to apply your first coat of Matte Finish is to dip your brush in just about 1/4″ of finish and using a quick feathering motion (like when you are doing a dry brush technique) apply a very light layer working in small areas. For the second coat, apply a thin coat of Matte Finish to obtain full coverage. Make sure all spills and drips are brushed out. DO NOT OVER APPLY!
You can sand with a high grit sandpaper between coats of paint and/or Matte Finish. This will give you a super smooth finish.
Check out my Pinterest boards for other painting ideas and projects. Tune in again to learn more tips and tricks for painting your kitchen cabinets using Bungalow 47 chalk and clay paint.
Check out this post of a kitchen we painted and lived with, and how it held up.
We’ll be back in a few days to talk more about choosing colors, trends in kitchen cabinets, and how the paint job is holding up after years of use! Thanks for checking this out and if you have any questions, comment below and we will make sure we answer all your queries.
Happy Painting, Jill
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