DIY Cabinet Painting

How to paint the inside of a kitchen cabinet!

 

What we have to work with.

So, I know we might be moving out of this house, and not very many people see the inside of your kitchen cabinets, but this is a project that has been on my to-do list since we moved into our house. Finally, my OCD could not handle it anymore, my mom said I was crazy, and I started to paint the inside of our kitchen cabinets.

And boy am I glad I did! We had a contractor come over to fix our bathroom window, and he observed that the old paint in the cabinets was most likely lead paint! Lead paint in our kitchen cabinets! Thank goodness I followed my intuition and began the process of covering it up.

I first suspected the bad paint when I took the sander out, plugged it in, and went to begin sanding down the old paint. Right before I turned it on, something in my head screamed for me not to pull the trigger. I hadn't even considered the possibility of lead paint until this very moment. I decided to play it safe and simply paint over the old, dingy stuff instead. Phew. In newer houses, I do recommend sanding first, but I certainly didn't want to risk having lead particles floating around my kitchen of all places.

So...I apologize in advance for the picture quality in this post. The camera comes out after Everett goes down for bed, which means 0 natural light for taking quality photos. You can deal with it though, right?

Step 1: Put on weird shorts.

Step 2: Wipe down inside of cabinets thoroughly, let dry, then tape off any areas you don't want painted.

Step 3: Use a paint brush to paint corners, edges, and any other areas a roller won't be able to reach.

Look how disgusting the old paint was. Can you understand why it was bugging me so much?

Step 4: Use a roller to paint the larger areas. BTW, this painting kit from Sherwin Williams changed my life! I love the mini rollers so much that I bought another kit for future use, and snatched up all the replacement rollers they had in stock (selfish). They are a bit more expensive than something you can find at Lowe's or Home Depot, however, know that I only had to use 2 coats of paint with the Sherwin Williams rollers, compared to 4 coats of paint with the Lowe's rollers. This saved me hours of work. Not to mention the fact that the Sherwin Williams rollers made a smoother finish.

Step 5: Repeat Steps 3 & 4 until you have a smooth, seamless finish.

Step 6: If you want a contrasting accent - which only you will notice, but it will make you happy every time you grab a cereal bowl - use an edging tool to paint the back wall of the cabinet. {this picture was taken with the iPhone...sorry}

Step 7: Wait for the paint to dry, remove tape, and ENJOY!

Our walls are painted in Benjamin Moore's Robin's Nest. What's funny is the paint sample I chose was labeled wrong when I bought the paint for our kitchen. I originally was going for a muted gray tone, and I kept waiting for the turquoise to dry a different color. It never did, but I ended up loving the classic color, which is reminiscent of the old kitchen appliances of the 50s - 60s. AND I was ahead of the decorators because we are now seeing a lot of designer kitchens painted in this color scheme. The inside cabinets are painted in Valspar's no-VOC paint in Ultra White, and the accent is Valspar's Notre Dame - one of my favorite shades of gray.