How We Painted Our Kitchen Cabinets: A Tutorial

We recently painted our kitchen cabinets white. You can see the reveal post with lots of pictures HERE. Since then, I've gotten lots of questions from people wanting to know exactly how we painted them. So today I'm doing a full tutorial with lots of pics. I'll show the products we used, how we did it, etc. I'll also share how we added the furniture feet to the bottom of the cabinets. I do want to say that this is what worked for us. It may not be the best way for everyone to do it, but we've been extremely happy with how ours turned out. :) If you follow me on Instagram (my Instagram name is texasdecor) you've already seen some of these pics and explanations. :)

Here's a couple of refresher pics of the finished, painted cabinets...

Okay, the first step was to clean our cabinets. We used Krud Kutter Gloss Off. It was a cleaner and deglosser in one. Our existing maple colored cabinets had a slight sheen to them, so this worked to dull them a little. You can also see the cloths we used to clean them in the pic below. After we cleaned them according to the directions on the bottle, we let them dry for a couple of hours, then started priming them. You don't have to let them dry that long, it just took us awhile to get everything ready to start priming.

 I also took these pics of our cabinets with my phone and added the numbers to them in my "Beautiful Mess" App. (you can see the old, original maple color in these pics)

I gave the cabinets numbers and gave the drawers letters. You always want to number everything, so you know where to put the cabinets back when you're done. 

Then on the insides of the cabinets, I put the hardware to that particular door inside a ziplock bag with the assigned cabinet number in there too. Then I just set the hinges inside the cabinet. 

On the actual cabinet itself, I wrote the corresponding number inside the hole where the hinges were. It would be covered up once the hinges were put back on. You can also see I put an arrow pointing to the top of the cabinet so we'd know which side was "up." :)

After we removed the drawer fronts, we just wrote directly on the front part which letter it was. 

Then on the drawer front (that we removed) we wrote the corresponding letter. Again, we put a little arrow showing which side was "up."

Next up, it was time to prime them. We used one coat of Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 primer and let it dry for 24 hours before we put on the first coat of paint. We used 2 inch Purdy brand brushes to get into the grooves and regular paint rollers for the flat parts. 

Here's a helpful hint. We used these painter's pyramids to prop the cabinets on while we primed/painted them. I think we bought 80 for this project. (they come in packs of 10) Each cabinet needed 4, so it was a lot. 

You can see the painter's pyramids at work in the pic below. They worked like a charm! Holly says "This painting business is exhausting." :)

Here's what our living room looked like for about 4 days. We moved all our furniture into the foyer and dining room. 

This pic is kind of blurry, but here's where I painted the drawers. 

As far as I'm concerned, this is the MOST important part of the painting process...the paint! I would be willing to bet I spent about 15 hours online researching "how to paint kitchen cabinets." This Benjamin Moore Advance paint got great reviews, so we decided it would be the best choice for us. We got the color "simply white" in a satin finish and used two coats. (letting it dry 24 hours between each coat) I can't tell you how happy we've been with this paint!

In all the painting tutorials I read, everyone seemed to like the 4 inch foam rollers for painting cabinets. Well, as you can see in the pic below, this is what happened when we used them. It bubbled up and looked horrible. (We even let it dry on a spare cabinet and the bubbles never went away. It dried with those little bumps all over it.) This is why we DID NOT use foam rollers. I'm sure it was just something we were doing wrong, because others seemed to love the foam ones.

The pic below is right after we smoothed out the bubbles with a brush. (it was still wet when this pic was taken, but the paint levels out as it dries, so you can't see brush marks when it's fully dry) It was fine after that, but I didn't want to have to do that every time, so we just used brushes for the grooves and regular paint rollers (not the foam kind) for the flat parts.  

Here's another tip...when you're figuring out how much paint you'll need, in addition to the cabinet doors (both sides) and frames, don't forget about the kick plates under the cabinets...

and the underside of the cabinets themselves. Those two things were the hardest to paint. We literally had to lie down on our sides on the floor to see what we were doing when painting the kick plates. 

After we put two coats of the Advance paint on them, (letting them dry for 24 hours between each coat) they had to sit and "cure" for about 5 days before we could re-hang them. We just moved all the cabinets (with painters pyramids under them) into the dining room to cure. 

After the cabinets went back up, we put new bumpers on them. (our old ones needed to be replaced) The ones we bought are in the pic below.

Here's another tip...we used a q-tip to put a dab of Vaseline on the bumpers so they wouldn't stick to the newly painted cabinets. 

Y'all probably remember how we waited forever for the hardware to arrive. It was on back order (several times) and took several weeks to get here. Now I'm thinking maybe it was a blessing it took so long because we didn't have hardware on our old cabinets, so we had to drill new holes in them for the new pulls and knobs. Maybe it was better that we had to wait several weeks after painting to drill those holes? It might not have been a good idea to drill on the newly painted surfaces. I was just thinking it might have made the paint crack or something. I don't really know. 

These are the best little things! They are templates for installing hardware on your cabinets and drawers. I think they were only about $2 or so and well worth it! My hubby said it made the installation process MUCH easier (and faster) 

This is the one for cabinet doors...

And this is the one for drawers...

Here's the hardware we got. The cup pulls are "Siro Designs 3 inch antique pewter Pennysavers" from Lowes. The item number is #424843. The cabinet knobs are from Home Depot and are "Richelieu 1 1/4 inch Pewter Knobs" Item #202700986

You know, I never thought too much about putting hardware on the cabinets. We never had it on our old cabinets and I thought of it as mostly "decorative." But, after we spent so much time and effort painting them, it just made sense to put hardware on them to protect the paint job. I didn't want our (sometimes grimy) hands all over the fresh paint, messing it up. :) So, I guess cabinet hardware is decorative AND has a purpose. :)

Now, for the cabinet feet. Below is the tag on the ones we bought at Lowes. They're just 4 inch cabinet feet. They were $5.98 each. They come unfinished, so you can paint/stain them any color you want.

I primed them with the same primer we used for the cabinets and then painted them with the cabinet paint (Ben Moore Advance) so they would match perfectly. After we painted them, my hubby removed the screws. They were a tad too tall for the kitchen cabinets, so he shaved a little off the top to make them fit. 

Then we just simply placed them under the cabinets and my hubby nailed them from the inside of the cabinet.

You can see he put about six nails in them. I don't think they're going anywhere. :)

And that's it, my friends! Here's a little collection of pics showing how the cabinets look with just paint...

Then with paint AND feet...

And finally, the finished product with paint, feet, AND hardware. :) I think the addition of the feet and hardware really do make a difference in how they look. We still need to replace the back splash with white subway tile, but that will probably be a few months down the road. :)

Edited to add: You can now click HERE to see the subway tile reveal with a link to the tutorial.

Oh my word, I think this is the longest post I've ever done! I hope this will help someone who's thinking of painting their cabinets. I say "go for it!" There wasn't anything hard about it, just time consuming, but SO worth it! Please don't hesitate to ask any questions. I know I asked plenty of questions when contemplating whether or not to paint mine. I'll do my best to answer anything you can think of. :) 

Here are some very helpful links I used when painting my cabinets:

Evolution Of Style Blog and Dear Lillie


Thanks for visiting!

~Lisa

I'm joining these parties: Dwellings, Savvy Southern Style, Imparting Grace, Common Ground, I Should Be Mopping The Floor, Cupcakes and Crinoline, It's Overflowing, Maria Elena's Decor, A Stroll Thru Life, From My Front Porch To Yours, By Stephanie Lynn, Home Stories A to Z