After: A rich, Pottery Barn inspired espresso. The top coat is Sherwin Williams Blackbean over a base of SW Tea Chest and a dark grey primer. The paint finish was satin, but has been buffed with extra fine steel wool to a duller sheen to give a furniture finish look
I believe in more than optimism and white paint. I believe in optimism and blue paint, optimism and beige paint, optimism and orange paint......I think you get the trend. All joking aside, a quick (or sometimes in the case of this project, not so quick) paint job can do wonders to revitalize a room, piece of furniture, or in this case, kitchen cabinets. The clients are giving their kitchen a cosmetic face lift, and I really felt that doing the central island in a different finish, a distressed espresso, would update the kitchen, espcially since they have a lot of cabinets, and the pickled wood was overwhelming the space. Painting kitchen cabinets is easy, but not quick. Since they have to stand up to a lot of wear and tear, for a painted finish to stay looking good, these steps must be followed after removing hardware (it is easier to paint if doors and cabinet fronts are removed, but for small areas it is not crucial):
1. sand--doesn't have to be stripped, just roughed up enough to accept step 2
2. High quality oil based primer- not kilz. I like XIM which is an epoxy primer designed to adhere to glossy surfaces such as factory finished cabinets. Can be tinted (as I did here) to a dark grey for darker colored paint. Let drive overnight.
3. a couple of coats of oil paint with steel wool sanding in between coats. Let each coat drive overnight.
4. For a distressed looked: sanding wear on edges, around knobs, and anywhere natural wear would take place.
5. Finish: buffing with extra fine steel wool, wax, or polyurethane. If waxing or using polyureathane, allow to dry overnight before using the cabinets.
4 comments:
What an impressive makeover on this cabinet! Beautiful! I've been wanting to take on this project for my bathroom cabinets, and I love that you shared the steps as well as your paint colors. I'm a little apprehensive of oil-based paints. My cabinets don't get a lot of wear, would it be possible to use latex and get the same look? Thanks!
You can you latex, especially if the cabinet is not high use. A few modifications will need to be made.
1. If you're using a water based primer (and it needs to be tinted to dark grey), you are going to have to rough up the finish on the cabinet a bit more for it to really hold on to the primer. You don't need to strip or do a major sand, but use a coarse 60 grit paper and really kind of scratch it up.
For the top coats of Blackbean paint, since latex dries really quickly, you'll need to add a latex glaze medium or paint extender or both to your paint to increase your working time. It will also be important to do small sections at a time. When you're doing things like this, it's easy to fall into a rythm that may be obvious later, so I like to mix up the order in which i do it--for example, left door, then a drawer, then the right door, then another drawer etc. If you have any more questions, please feel free to email me at hmitchellsettoon@hotmail.com
thanks
Wow, thanks! I really appreciate you taking the time to give such detailed advice. I most likely WILL be contacting you with more questions in the future :). First I must tackle painting my kitchen cabinets white (so nervous!!!).
I LOVE your blog and just became a "follower". Thanks for all the great info!!!
You have done a great job and it's commendable the way you turned it out. I am so glad to have this blog because, I wanted to redecorate my place and I think, your idea can really help me. Anyway, thanks for sharing this.
Post a Comment