A number of you have asked what the process was for painting the cupboards, so here’s the saga that was, THE KITCHEN!!

I wanted to change the hardware as it was dated, and since the hinges were mounted on the outside and not hidden, I had to

– take the doors off the cabinets
– remove hardware
– fill the holes remaining with wood filler

Before the wood filler, I wiped them with an environmentally friendly version of TSP from Home Hardware, by Natura. It gets them really clean and lifts the finish (not that these ones had much finish to lift!!!) so the paint adheres well.

I then put three coats of paint on – this is because the originals were so dark and I wanted to go lighter. I painted the cabinets, then painted the doors in the laundry room so they had space to dry.

The Big Guy put on the new hardware – and swore. A lot.

He pulled off the old grout from the counter top to the back splash and TSP’d the counter top.

We used a melamine paint (also from Home Hardware) in the dark brown to help tie in the colors. It went on rather light, more like a milk chocolate, and he panicked, as the walls are more espresso brown. However, when it dried, it darkened down nicely. Although The Big Guy would tell you “IT’S NOT THE SAME COLOR”, it certainly is very close and with the varied colors in the tiles of the back splash, it doesn’t bother me in the least.

We didn’t used the countertop for a week, and even now, are very careful with it. It takes 21 days to fully cure, but when we did this in the last house, we put a small scratch in it within three days. So far, we are doing well!!!

At the time, I told The Big Guy I never wanted to paint cupboards again, but now that I see how well the kitchen turned out, I’m looking at my bathrooms!! lol. Vanities would be MUCH easier as they are smaller. Not nearly as big a project; since there are two bathrooms, we would also have an option. It’s hard having the kitchen out of commission especially with kids that are hungry all the time!

I’m not here to promote a specific product, or company, just sharing what we used based on the resources in our community.

Good Luck!