170 FINALLY! How to Paint Cabinets & Trim!

I feel like the suspense is so thick you could cut it with a knife.  I mean, I began teasing and waving that piece of candy in front of you at least 6 months ago.  You know, the, "We are painting our trim white" tease?  And yes, we painted our trim white.  Doors too.  And as many of you know, we even had painted our cabinets awhile back as well.  All of which I have not documented on this blog.  The horror right?  And why you ask?  Well, the cabinets were done before the blog was born.  But I am popping into my DeLorean and going back in time to share what I can about that process as well.  And the trim, well, it pretty much just got done within the last couple of weeks.  Well, let me rephrase, it was all pretty much done within one single weekend back in December or January, and then all the little touch ups and hole filling and edge fixing just took place recently...


I get all sorts of organizing questions each and every day, but one of the most common questions I get isn't related to organizing at all.  It's, "How did you paint your cabinets?  And your trim?".  I am SO excited to finally be writing up this post for you!

First, cabinets.  I will start out by saying that I had never read a blog when I decided to do this.  I had no clue what I was doing.  I was terrified.  I only knew that I didn't want oak anymore.  I know, some of you may be screaming at your screen right now, some LOVE oak, and I am not one of them.  We all have different taste right?  And I will say, in this area, it seems as though oak is all you find EVERYWHERE and in every home.  So when I told friends and family I was painting our cabinets, I didn't have much support.  In fact, I am pretty sure they tried to call the loony bin.


What I did do is google tutorials online, and found this one to be the most helpful.  I followed it step by step.


When it came to choosing a color, I went with Behr's Navajo White.  I held up tons of paint swatches, and it was the one that seemed to match most of the items in the house at the time.  And, I had seen an inspiration picture with a similar color and really liked the look.

I followed the steps to a T.  We removed the cabinet fronts, washed everything down, hand sanded each and every door and cabinet {sorry, I can't remember the grit we used, however it's recommended to use 150 or finer}, wiped them down again, primed and then painted them with two coats of the Behr interior satin paint.


And, how lucky are you, I found a really awkward picture from 2007 when I was working on the cabinets!  Sorry for the boob shot. 

There I am, cabinets laid out on 2x4's and priming away!

I just used regular ol' paint brushes if I remember correctly, with all the grooves I decided to take the risk of brush marks since rolling would just be one more step.  But brush marks really weren't so bad, they were barely visible, since we lightly sanded in-between each coat!

Once all the cabinets were installed, something was still missing.  I didn't want to roll/paint all of the plain oak paneling on the sides of the cabinets since I feared it would smear or look extremely streaky, so I just painted out some wainscoting that the hubs cut down to size instead.  It added texture to all the cabinet sides and was easy to install with a combo of liquid nails and an air nailer.

So far we have cupcakes and icing but no cherry on top... so the last touch was to add some crown molding.  Again, done before blogging world so no pictures were snapped, but my husband installed some pine molding along the tops of the cabinets, which I just added two coats of paint to, to match the rest of the cabinets.

So what kind of a difference did all of the work make?  And how much time?  I believe the whole cabinet project took us a week from beginning to end, since we waited for everything to dry well between coats, and did it on the weekends and evenings.

As far as the difference, well, here are some before and afters for you:

Before:

After:

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After:

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After:

Of course the swapping out of light fixtures and some of the accessories make a big difference as well {and learning how to take better photographs}.  But it was mostly in the paint.  Such a small investment to make a HUGE difference.  It really opened up the space!

The very second that I finished the cabinets, I wanted to start on the trim and doors.  But I was far to overwhelmed.  So I waited.  For about 3 too long years.

When it came to painting out the trim, I decided to try a new approach.  I didn't want to sand it all down, because let's face it, I have better things to do.  And since we painted out our cabinets, Behr had come out with their new paint/primer combo paint.  So I assumed that meant, no priming, one coat and done....

I chose "Swiss Coffee" since it's almost a white white, but just shy of it.  I didn't want it to be so crazy white that it felt stark or clashed with the rest of the house.  And I went with a satin sheen again, just as I did with the kitchen cabinets.

Here are the supplies I used for the trim and doors:

Yep, that's it.  I actually started out by taping all of the trim out.

And I quickly realized that there was still bleeding under the tape.  That I was using the tape as a safety net to go quicker, and it was really going to cause me more work in the long run.  I did much better when I finally nixed the tape and just cut in with my trusted Wooster brush.

The first coat actually went on and didn't cover the best.  It had me a bit nervous and disappointed.  But I let it dry, and went back over all of the trim for a second coat.  It did the trick, and looked fantastic!

Then, a few days went by and I noticed the paint was chipping off of the trim really easily.  I was sure this was because I decided to skip the sanding step.  I decided it was too late to turn back, so I just touched up the marks as they occurred.  And what I realized down the line is that it just took time for the paint to actually harden and cure.  Now, it's much much more durable and doesn't nick much at all.  And if/when it does, it's still so easy to just touch it up as needed.

About halfway through painting out the trim, I realized that the original air-nail holes had never been filled and were far more obvious in the white trim.  So, we snagged up some white paintable caulk:

To fix the holes, we just put some caulk on our fingers:

And swiped it over the holes:

Making it barely noticeable that they were ever there to begin with!  See how nice the trim looks?

When it came to the doors, we had flush oak doors.  We made the choice to donate them and swap them out for new primed/paneled doors, since I had a huge fear that just painting them out may look worse than leaving them oak.  I wasn't sure how the paint would adhere and how they would wear.  The new doors would still be hollow core to save us mega amounts of moola, but I liked the look of them far better than our original oak doors, and we scored them for between $35-$40 a piece on sale.
 
As I mentioned the doors came primed only, so I used the brush again to go around all of the insets of the door itself.

Then, I removed the door knobs and just rolled the flat parts doors with a foam roller to finish them off.  Again, I can't get over the difference swapping out the oak for white made!

So for some more before and afters?

Before:

After:

Even the pantry brightened up a bit!

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After:

And in our walk-through from the living room to kitchen?

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After:

And remember the difference the white built in's made?

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After:

So the moral of the story.  IHeart white trim, cabinets, doors and paint.  They have made our home feel twice as big, cleaner, fresher and happier.  It was worth the time investment, however, I am a rare breed and LOVE to paint.  It soothes me.  And it always brings the most exciting before and after so I never mind investing my time!

OK, what did I miss?  Did this spark any additional questions that I didn't cover within the post?  What other tips do you have for someone hoping to paint their cabinets and/or trim?