Painting Kitchen Cabinets

The kitchen was pretty rough when we got it. Cabinets were solid but it was that old brown oak cabinets you see in houses from the 60s. It was a prime candidate for a makeover.

This was a picture from the listing website. It wasn't exactly like this when we took possession but you get the idea.

I surfed a fair bit to try to figure out the best way to paint the cabinets. I really struggled but in the end I found an excellent description on younghouselove.com. 

First thing I did was take the doors off and bring them home to work on them. I found a super degreaser called XIM Gon. Nasty stuff but it worked super well. Stripped off 40 years of grease in no time. I sanded 120 grit to rough up the finish and remove some of the varnish. 

Oak is an open pore wood and I didn't want to see the pores in the paint surface. I found an excellent product called Timbermate wood filler http://www.timbermate.com.au/products/Timbermate+WaterBased+Wood+Filler.aspx

I mixed it with water to create a slurry and painted the surface of the doors with a foam brush. I let it dry and then sanded through 120 then 180 grit.

I also used it to fill the holes left by the old cabinet hardware. We liked the knobs themselves but not the ornate fixtures that came with them. We kept the hinges as well. They did look pretty good with the knobs.

After that it was a matter of priming and then painting. After one coat of primer I used 0000 steel wool to really smooth down the doors. A quick vacuum and once over with a tack cloth and I was ready to paint. 

 I used Benjamin Moore's Advance for the finish coat. It's a waterborne alkyd and it's claim to fame is excellent self levelling properties. It worked quite well. Three coats with steel wool/vacuum/tack cloth between each coat and I got a pretty impressive finish. You really have to move fast though. I brushed the details, used a roller for the flat surfaces and backbrushed to eliminate any bubbles. I had 18 doors to do but only enough flat surface in my home shop to do 9 at a time so the entire process took 10 days.

The colour we wanted was the famous French Grey from Farrow and Ball. Turns out Kilkarney from Benjamin Moore is exactly the same colour. I used their Pearl finish which was the lowest sheen available. 

For the cabinets I followed exactly the same procedure. A little trickier because I was working vertically but it turned out fine.

I didn't even have to empty the cupboards:-)

I used Ikea wood countertop to fill in the corner left by the position of the old stove. There was a baseboard heater that prevented moving the cabinets to the left of the new stove so we had to remove that but other than that there was very little electrical work needed. I got the drawer pulls from Lee Valley. I got a jig from Home Depot but unfortunately Lee Valley spacing is metric and the Home Depot jig is imperial so I had to drill my own holes. Bit of a pain and it took two jigs to get the spacing right as I missed on my first try. 

The other very pleasant surprise was how easy it was to replace the faucet. The plug and play setups they sell these days make it painless. Literally - no blood and no swearing:-)

All in all we have what I think we wound up with a well laid out kitchen with some pretty good cottage style. Still needs paint and a new ceiling but that's another post. 

Romain