Kitchen Makeover: Part 3 Paint Paint Paint

Ok, we are at the fun part! I’m glad you guys are still with me 🙂

I love to paint. I love to see that transformation happening right in front of my eyes. I find it calming and relaxing, and I sincerely hope you do too! 🙂

Lets talk about the paint for a second. You already know that I was using Benjamin Moore Advance in Semi Gloss, but let’s talk about color.

If you have never really picked a white before, then let me tell you-all whites are not created equal! Take some time and google white kitchen cabinets and read about what colors people are choosing and why. Trust me, you do not want a bright, harsh true white. Do your own research, but if you want to know what I used, it was Oxford White. Chantilly Lace in Benjamin Moore is another good one that I see on the blogs a lot-I have never used it myself however.

Ok, back to painting the cabinets:

Start with Benjamin Moore Fresh Start Primer. This stuff is the bomb. Since I discovered this stuff, I have never used another primer. It goes over anything, oil paint included, and gives you exactly what the name promises: “a fresh start”. You want to have a good primer because the last thing we want is the old stain leaking through the white color coat.

You cannot skip this. Do not use a paint and primer in one. You need good adhesion and good stain blocking. You need to to use a good primer.

I did three coats of primer on the cabinet fronts, and one everywhere else.

Once you let those dry, then you can move on to the Benjamin Moore Advance paint: Ben Moore’s ADVANCE Waterborne Interior Alkyd Paint – Semi-Gloss Finish.

There’s a couple things you need to know about this paint: it takes a long time to dry. Remember I talked about it staying “open” and “flowing” together to create a smooth painted surface? Well, if you are painting vertical surfaces, this will also result in drips if you are no careful.

I cannot stress this enough: THIN COATS! Do not slather this paint on. Trust me, they will look better if you do lots of thin coats rather than several thick ones.

So besides my three coats of primer (fronts only), I did four coats of paint on the front (only 1 and 1 on the backs cause I didn’t care what the insides look like). I know this sounds like overkill, but I was going for this “smooth” effect. Plus I made sure to keep my coats thin. This really helped keep the grain to a minimum. Since the Benjamin Moore paint is self-leveling, every coat helped! You can probably get away with 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of paint, but just assess your work and decide it you want more coverage.

I have pictures below to to show you the process:

Here is a picture of the front and back. You can really see the difference the multiple coats made to bring down the grain on the cabinet fronts. The grain is much more prominent in the right hand picture.

In direct sunlight, you can see the grain in the reflection. Not bad!

Side by side. Big difference in grain & overall finish!

I let the paint dry VERY thoroughly in-between coats. Something else that I think is worth mentioning is that I didn’t spray the edges with seven coats of paint, because I didn’t want it to get too built up and chip off because of the bulk. There are maybe three coats on the edges. As I did the coats, I would just spray two sides each time, and flip them for the next coat and do the other two sides.

Here is my painting station. It was very small and cramped, if you have a Biggar area it will make it easier. Navigating this was not fun.

Spraying the wall cabinets:

Here it is after 1 coat of primer, and 2 1/2 coats of paint (the half coat means that I sprayed the final coat on the just exposed trim of the cabinets. I figured the inside was good enough to with three coats). Check out the 70s hood range-I just sprayed it too! We just replaced that this year-over five years later.

THE AFTER

You can see how it already looks so much brighter in here. Getting rid of that dark top helped make the room feel larger and taller, plus the crown moulding just gives that extra “pop” to the cabinets.

That’s it for now.

Comment below with any questions about the painting process and I will be happy to help.

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Stay tuned, I will have Part 4 of my Kitchen Makeover up soon!