DIY Refinishing – Kitchen Cabinets

If you have well used kitchen cabinets and they have served their time but still in good shape maybe it’s time to do some DIY refinishing on them. Stand back and try to envision what color would look good and coordinates with the rest of the kitchen. One quick note though: dark colors will close up the room a little making it look a little constricted and smaller, so consider lighter colors and brighter colors to repainting the doors.This will vastly change the looks of your kitchen.
Myself personally I like to paint with oil-based paint, I have found it dries harder and last longer, work longer without its starting to set. I strongly recommend that you use a top-quality top line paint for this application.

Take off your cabinet doors and hardware, and lay them down horizontally onto a soft work bench. And take some liquid De-glosser and a lint free rag or cloth and start rubbing down the door to remove all the greasy buildup and dirt. If your wood grain becomes raised and bumpy from putting on the De-glosser take some 220 grit sanding paper and sand it back down smooth.

Now that you’re ready to start painting, I recommending this with an oil-based primer. Usually what I do if your door has a reveal or some kind of pattern indent use a soft brush first to paint this indent using long flowing smooth brushstrokes. Immediately afterwards, use a mini roller to roll the flat of the door. By using the mini roller you’ll find that it will remove the brush marks off the flat part of the door. This is why I like to use oil paints as opposed to latex paints because the oil paint stays moist long enough to be able to work out the brush marks when the rollers goes over top of them. Leaving a very fine and consistent transition between the brushed part of the door and a rolled part of the door.

When the primer dries well enough for sanding which will probably be about at least four hours later to 24 hours later. Go ahead and sand the door with some fine grit sandpaper again about 220 grit.

Now you can put the finish coat on exactly the same way. Once this finish coat has dried you can again repeat the process by sanding it lightly. And put one more coat of paint on.

Finally now your ready to put back your hardware and the doors back up.

By: Vic Nagy

About the Author: