Painting your own kitchen cabinets can make having new looking cabinets affordable. The problem comes in for some homeowners when they realize they are not particularly good at painting, and do not really know how to get a beautiful kitchen cabinet finishing. For most people we recommend to look into hiring a professional service like cabinet painting Calgary, but for those of you who love a DIY project, we still have some tips to keep in mind.
If this sounds like you, follow these three tips and you will discover your kitchen cabinets look just like a professional painted them.
Choose the best paint for the job — While many homeowners go with a gloss paint, this is not usually the best thing to do for an amateur painter.
This is because it is much more difficult to get a smooth surface with a gloss paint, and that every minor flaw becomes quite obvious when the paint has dried.
This is why it is usually recommended someone without much painting experience uses a matte finish or a satin sheen instead.
Be sure to strain your paint — Few amateur painters strain their paint, but they really should.
Look at a can of paint closely, and you will see bumps and lumps in it. If these lumps are not either mixed in carefully or strained, they will eventually be picked up by the paint brush and transferred to your cabinet surfaces. If you want beautiful kitchen cabinet finishing, then this will easily destroy that.
You can, of course, mix the paint thoroughly but even that does not always get rid of the lumps. This is why most professional painters will tell you to spend a little time before you get started and strain every can of paint.
You can do this with paper cones made especially for filtering paint. You will find them at most paint stores.
Sand cabinets before painting with primer — The best way to get a flawless painted surface is to sand down each cabinet before you paint it with primer. You can sand it down again after you have applied primer and the primer has dried.
Sanding gets rid of any imperfection in the wood surface and allows you to paint onto a completely smooth surface.
While some people do use sandpaper to do this, it is not generally recommended by most professional painters. They will use an abrasive pad that you will find in any kitchen department.
These green pads are a little less tough on a wooden surface, yet still sand it down to a nice smoothness.
Once each cabinet door has been sanded, you can then apply the primer, let it dry and apply the topcoat. In some cases, you may need two topcoats if you are covering up a previous paint job.
Let the cabinets dry thoroughly and, if you do follow these three tips to help you get a beautiful kitchen cabinet finishing, you should be happy with the result.