Your kitchen can get a lot of use and your cabinets a lot of abuse as you cook in and use your kitchen several times each day. A kitchen remodel can update the look of your kitchen and refresh your surfaces, but when your budget limits what items and appliances you can replace, you may need to get creative with paint to give your kitchen a new look. Here are some tips to help you paint your kitchen walls and cabinets to renew the interior of your kitchen.
Clean the Kitchen Surfaces
The interior walls and cabinet surfaces in your kitchen will naturally pick up a layer of grease and oil from cooking each day. The sticky oil and grease on these surfaces will attract dust, leaving your walls and kitchen cabinets sticky and dusty. Before you can apply any paint in your kitchen you will need to clean all the surfaces you plan to paint.
With a bucket of warm water and some liquid dish detergent, wipe down the walls with a sponge or a rag. Then, repeat this process over the surfaces of all your cabinets. Be sure to open the doors and drawers to clean these interior areas, as they will collect a layer of grease as well.
For a stronger cleaning solution, you can use a cleaning solution containing trisodium phosphate (TSP), which you can find at most home cleaning supply stores. Be sure to wear gloves, long sleeves, and eye protection goggles when you work with trisodium phosphate, as it can irritate your skin and your eyes if it comes into contact with them.
Prepare and Paint Surfaces
Now you can remove all the hardware from your cabinets, including hinges and door pulls, as you don't want paint to get upon these areas. Remove the drawers and place them, along with the other cabinet doors, on a tarp or other area for painting. You may want to set up this painting area in a garage or outside in your yard, depending on if the weather it wet or dry. This will provide you a flat area to paint each cabinet door and allow it to dry before turning it over to paint the second side.
Before you begin painting your walls, place painting tarps onto the floor around the room to catch any drips and splatters of paint to protect your flooring. Apply masking tape over baseboards and along wall edges that you do not want to paint.
If you have a steady hand, you can use your paint brush to apply the paint along floor and ceiling edges, and skip the application of masking tape. Many professional painters skip the taping process as they are able to "cut" into their paint surfaces to create the straight paint edges they want. Keep a wet rag by your side so you can wipe up any inadvertent drips while using this cutting technique.
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