Before you paint those cabinets

Getting a new paint job done on your kitchen is one of many ways to give your kitchen a new look without making heavy renovations. The cabinets are also a very important part of the kitchen and painting them alone can help bring a new look to your whole kitchen. Doing the cabinets paint job yourself saves you a lot of costs. Especially when you don’ t have to do too much on it.

Preparing to paint

Before you start painting your cabinets, there are certain preparatory steps you must take before the actual painting. First, you should check the cabinets for bad doors or hinges that might have weakened as a result of human activity and rust. If they need replacements, get them replaced or fix the hinges as the case may be. If the doors don’t need any fixing, then all you have to do is remove them so they can be painted more comfortably and effectively. Make sure to cover all the parts of the kitchen where the paint is not expected with a newspaper while you’re painting. This helps you avoid having to do extra work to clean up unwanted paint.

After replacing broken hinges and doors, you should get a clean rag and some mineral spirits to remove every trace of grease and stains. The reason why this is necessary is that paint doesn’t work well on dirty or greasy surfaces. This may take time and repetitions depending on how frequently you cleaned up the grease that accumulates on these surfaces before then. When you’re done scrubbing off the grease and stains, you can then apply primer to the surface to seal off any holes on the surface of the cabinet. You must use a primer that matches the type of surface you have on your cabinet. A primer also helps you prevent dark stains or colors from showing in the coat of the paint.

Then you can wait for the applied primer to dry off and even out with the surface. When that happens, you can begin to apply the chosen paint to the surface. You must apply two coats of paint if you want to have a decent job at the end of it all. The same process can be applied to the cabinet doors until it becomes perfect.

Choosing the right paint colors

When it comes to painting the kitchen, the most economical thing to do is to paint the walls and the majority of the space with bright colors to bring a pop to the look of things. When these bright colors are already applied, it becomes easier to introduce other colors to the kitchen doors, walls or cabinet to complement the general look and improve the appearance.

Painting kitchen cabinets takes a lot of work. It is quite a tough decision to pick the right paint color or shade sometimes. One wrong painting decision can leave the whole kitchen looking like a shabby piece of work. There are, however, a few valuable suggestions to help ease your burden with the colors.

White - The color white can never go wrong anywhere. It simply sets into the environment and waits for other colors to complement it. White looks even better as a color for your kitchen when you have white appliances to complete the look. It provides a synchronization that makes your paint color look more intentional than it already is. One last attribute of white that makes it great for kitchen painting is that it makes your kitchen look as spacious as possible. Painting your kitchen with the color white also helps make your preferred cabinet color stand out at first look.

Black - The color black has the biggest contrast when put against white. If you’re looking to make your cabinets leave a sophisticated look on the eyes, you might as well just opt for the color black to help you achieve the desired look.

Blue - Speaking of bold colors, the color blue remains one of the best options. Blue performs very well when combined with any bright color. It also adds an aura of comfort to the overall look of the whole room.

Chocolate Brown - One of the most powerful paint effects on cabinets and doors is achieved with chocolate brown. When used on cabinets, chocolate brown helps deliver a beautiful, wooden feel to the cabinets or doors. This feel is arguably the best for a natural feel on cabinets after the color green.

If you’re not a fan of monochromatic color combinations, you should settle for colors that easily mix without looking off. A very good example of such combinations is the good, old blues and yellows.

To Spray or to brush?

The next big decision you have to make is to decide what mode of the application you want to use for your painting job. You have two choices in this regard; painting and brushing. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses that will be discussed. If what you are looking for in your kitchen cabinets is a smooth, professional look, spraying is the best way to go. The only downside to spraying is that it consumes time and costs quite an amount because you’d have to buy or rent a paint sprayer. Brushing, on the other hand, is a less time-consuming method of applying paint and works well for varying cabinet designs as opposed to spraying which has certain limitations in practice. Overall, you decide which one works best for you by inspecting the situation.

By Franky Boy, interior painting specialist from Alberta Colour Painting.