Spray Painting Oak Kitchen Cabinets.

I think I mentioned a while back that we started working on the kitchen. I mean, it's not like we have anything else to do, so why not renovate the kitchen? :)

Well, we started laying tile two years ago and it finally got finished a year later. The cabinets that we moved out of the way are still sitting in the dining room. All the junk we took out of them is up in the "junk room". It used to be the "art room" but no art was ever created in there because of all the junk that was deposited in there whenever we had nowhere else to put it. So in short, we've been living with a torn up kitchen and stuff all out of place all over the house. It's driving me batty all of a sudden. So, this week I went back to work on painting the kitchen cabinets. I started on them in the spring but had to stop because of all the other projects I needed to work on.

Inspiration

This is a farmhouse, so I wanted the kitchen to look like a farmhouse kitchen with nice bright painted cabinets. I didn't want fancy new painted cabinets, I wanted them to look old and hand painted; which is a good thing, because new, old-looking painted cabinets cost a fortune!.

After viewing hundreds of pictures of painted kitchen cabinets on the web, this is the one that I kept coming back to.  ( image from thelavenderlily.blogspot.com -I think)  This, and all the ones painted white, but I decided I liked these green ones the best. Our cabinets are very similar in design, so it was easy to envision them looking like the picture. Believe me, it was a nerve-wraking decision. It seems just plain WRONG to paint over good oak, but they were so dated and dull, and our kitchen is small and narrow  and rather dark, it needed brightening up. Experts always warn that oak has a raised grain that will always show through the paint, no matter how many coats you put on. Well, I like to see the grain in the paint, it doesn't bother me at all. If someone's reading this, biting their nails and fretting over should they or shouldn't they paint over oak, I say, don't listen to the experts, just go ahead and do it!

Well, to cut a long story short, after buying the paint and making a start, I soon found out just what a pain in the rear this job is. It was taking forever! And the finish wasn't that great either. There was no way I could paint all these cabinets by hand with a brush and the texture the roller left -even one made for smooth surfaces, didn't look good. Ok for walls, not so great on cupboard doors. I was really in a quandry. Then I had the idea of maybe spray-painting them. The fate of the ozone layer immediately shot to mind, but there are far worse things being pumped into the atmosphere in far greater quantities. So, I looked online and found that Krylon have the exact color I wanted. It's named: "Celery" and it's perfect! ( the primer, by the way, is "Ruddy Brown", also by Krylon. I actually like the two colors together so I left the inside of the doors flat Ruddy Brown", and the outside is "Celery". Once any surface grime has been cleaned off, spray painting goes 20 times faster than painting with a brush or roller. It dries in minutes so you can put on a coat, go feed your chickens or pull a few weeds in the garden and then come back and put on another coat. See, you can do chores AND paint your kitchen at the same time! Stuff like that is important to some of us.

This is what we've been living with for 6 months or so.

 This is where we were at yesterday morning.

Last evening we started installing white beadboard behind the cabinets. Only two pieces are on. I'll take pictures when the wall is done.

That cupboard at the end is painted a deep red named: "Sun Dried Tomato". It's regular paint, I think it's by Glidden. The side wasn't finished in this shot, but Ken finished painting it last night.

I'm already jumping for joy at the transformation. Can't wait to see it all finished.

More updates tomorrow.