For over a year I had been dreaming of painting my old kitchen cabinets, my dream color…Sherwin Williams’s 2022 Color of the Year: EVERGREEN FOG! I just love the color! I’m a green girl by nature: red hair, blue/green eyes, and an emerald in my wedding ring. Green is my signature color! It took quite some doing, but I finally convinced my indulgent husband that now was the time. We would update our kitchen by painting our cherrywood cabinets the most beautiful green ever.
Once I had the green light, I scheduled my favorite painters, Horton Renovations & Painting (my brothers) to come the week Marc was out of state on a gig, reducing the number of people inconvenienced by having no kitchen to 1, me. It was an unfortunate choice of timing as it rained all week!
Painting is such a great way to enhance your space. It is relatively inexpensive, can take place fairly quickly, and makes a huge impact. Paint is also somewhat picky. It likes dry warm weather, not too hot and not too cold. It does not appreciate moisture in the air, at all! Although we were painting inside, the cool temp and rainy weather extended drying times quite a bit.
We started by removing all the drawer and cupboard door pulls and then taking all the doors and drawer faces off the cabinets. The inside of the cabinets were a natural maple and we planned to keep them that way, allowing all the stuff inside the cabinets and drawers to stay there during the painting. (Such a time saver!) The openings were securely masked and taped so no paint would leak through. Next, the entire kitchen was draped in plastic, the floor was covered in plastic and then paper, and all the appliances were covered.
My brother, Brian, has been a general contractor for nearly 25 years. He can do just about anything you want to your house, but painting is a true specialty of his. His biggest concern with this project was making sure the paint would stick. He didn’t want the beautiful newly painted cabinets to immediately (or really at any time in the future) begin chipping and scratching. He insisted on three things:
All the wood needed to be sanded, wiped down with TSP (a cleaning solution used by painters), and then dried with a soft cloth.
All the surfaces needed to be primed with a primer paint designed to cover and stick to wood. He also chose to tint the primer a soft gray color to bridge the dark cabinets and the lighter green paint.
Finally, all the wood needed to be sprayed. He felt spraying would produce the best, smoothest finish. He has a commercial grade paint sprayer and knew how to set up a “painting room” in the garage by using plastic drapes to enclose a work table. He used an upside down paint bucket as a pedestal where he placed each door and drawer face and sprayed them, first with primer and then with paint.
That last part sounds pretty fast and easy, but it wasn’t. Inside the kitchen, once everything was covered, Brian could come in and spray all the wood in a matter of minutes. We needed to wait about 20 minutes for all the paint dust to settle and then we could turn on the furnace in the house and help the paint dry. Brian could also spray another light coat the same day giving the wood two coats of primer and two coats of paint.
The situation in the garage was very different. We lined the floor of our garage with heavy plastic, and then laid 2 x 4 boards on the ground to hold the drying doors and faces. Each piece was sprayed with primer and then placed on the boards to dry. Although the spraying was done in less than an hour, it took all day for them to dry. The next day, the boards were turned over so the other side could be sprayed. We waited another entire day for them to dry. On the third day, one side got its first coat of paint and then, finally, on day four, it got the last coat.
What we hoped would be a 2-3 day project took us all week. Something else we did not account for was that the painting itself took only an hour or two, and then there was nothing more for my brothers to do. Tuesday and Wednesday were half days at best. Brian was the only one who worked on Thursday and only for a couple of hours. Friday, however, brought in the whole crew to put the kitchen back together.
If you would like to paint your kitchen cabinets, plan to complete your project during warm weather, or have another project going at the same time so the workers can stay busy at the site doing something else, but still be able to keep an eye on the paint. Use a professional and get a few quotes before agreeing to a specific contractor. I love working with my brothers because, well, they're my brothers, but also because Brian always has a good solution to any problem we run into along the way. Decades of experience will do that for you. He also allows me the final decision, even if his advice suggests something different.
Something else to keep in mind if you are thinking of painting your older wood stained cabinets is how long you plan to be in your house. Choosing something other than white or soft gray is really going outside the box of what 85-90% of most buyers are looking for. I’m not sure if or when we will ever move, but I know I love the new color of my kitchen cabinets. It was a few thousand dollars (labor and materials) and a week of work. We didn’t do anything else. The countertops, appliances, floor, and backsplash all stayed. We did paint the tile backsplash white and soon I plan to stencil the area above the stove. Also, after much advice, I purchased new pulls for the doors and drawers.
Whenever I’m involved in a renovation project, or even while watching renovation shows on HGTV, the thought of how much is added to our landfills by doing this, crosses my mind. Would I love new stainless steel appliances? Yes. Do I need them? Are they necessary? No. How about beautiful new Carrera marble countertops?? YESS!! But really, not needed. The green flecks in my black quartz countertops are highlighted with the new Evergreen Fog cabinets. It all works. I could have kept the old pulls, but the new ones really shine. It was a little over $100 to replace all the knobs and handles (reasonable), and I used some of the old ones on laundry room cabinets that never had hardware before. A true win/win!
If you need help with a home renovation project, let me know. I’d love to help. And if you are thinking of what needs to be done to your home to get it ready to sell, come visit me over at FirstHomeEd.com and let’s get started.
So many good things to come,
Diana Cohen
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