Laboring Over the Long Weekend

Over the weekend we painted the cabinet doors, drawers, and shelves in the yard outside.  It took full 3 days to get it all done - it sounds like a long time to get a few things painted, but for such a small kitchen we have a lot of cabinets!  There's a total of 35 pieces with 2 sides each (front and back, top and bottom) for a total of 70 surfaces.  1 coat of primer + 2 coats of paint x 70 surfaces = 210 things to paint.  And that's not including the 3 coats of polyurethane I still need to apply or the actual cabinets.  This kitchen project is a monster and we've barely begun.

The cabinet doors ready for painting

Before painting, I filled all the old cabinet hardware holes with wood putty, let it dry and sanded it smooth.  Everything had already been sanded back in June.  I primed and painted everything outside, leaning the doors against the house (it's so much easier to paint upright than laying it flat) and placing everything on cardboard to protect it from the grass.  I used a paintbrush for the tight spots and a 4" foam roller for everything else.  I like the clean flat surface that foam rollers leave behind, I've used them for all my furniture painting projects and have been really happy with the results.

The cabinet doors, primed

I used Killz high-adhesion primer in white to seal everything in and help the paint adhere better.  Some spots required a quick second coat.  The cabinets are Benjamin Moore semi gloss in white dove, my favorite shade of bright creamy white.

The cabinet doors, all 27 of them, painted