5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Painting Our Kitchen Cabinets
Here we go, folks. The thing I was MOST nervous for in this kitchen renovation: painting our kitchen cabinets. I had no idea how to paint Semihandmade cabinet doors, but I spent hours and hours on the phone talking to professional painters, reading paint forums, binge watching YouTube channels… and everyone gave slightly different advice. In the end, you just have to learn from experience, because you likely won’t have the exact same materials + tools as any other painter or DIYer! So I’m here to tell you what I WISH we knew before I started!
Want a FULL breakdown of the timeline + materials for painting your own kitchen cabinets? We’ve got a post for that!
- Plan for a practice round, and watch the paint as it dries.
The only way to actually know DURING painting if your technique is going to produce good, consistent results is to watch the paint dry. I tried different painting techniques, changed up how thick each coat was, etc. etc. and took photos of each surface while it was wet, then compared the results when it was dry. Once I knew which technique produced the best finish when dry, I knew exactly what to look for as I was painting.
- Practice with each paint/primer so you know how it feels.
I can’t tell you how jarring it is when you finish priming feeling like you finally passed the spray gun learning curve, and then you switch to your paint and everything is totally different. Practice, practice practice!
- Sand, sand sand!
We sanded our Semihandmade doors before priming, then after our primer coat, then after our first coat of paint. We skipped sanding between coats of paint on the backs of our doors to save time (and to show YOU photos of the results!) and the difference in finish quality is noticeable.
- Paint both coats on the backs of your doors/drawers first.
Make your mistakes where no one will actually see them, and prevent damaging the paint on the fronts of your cabinets during painting/drying!
- Keep your spray thin, and build up your paint slowly.
Especially when you’re painting doors with trim, insets, etc. etc… It’s easy to end up with some “puddling” of paint while you’re trying to get paint in every nook and cranny on your doors. So keep your spray thin and build up slowly.
A bit of a caveat here, though: The product we used to paint our cabinet doors had a VERY short working time. So especially on larger doors like pantry doors, you may have to make your spray a little thicker to keep each coat of paint even.
Want a FULL breakdown of the timeline + materials for painting your own kitchen cabinets? We’ve got a post for that!
HAPPY PAINTING!