Non-teaching post: cabinet revival

Last summer, I tackled redoing my kitchen cabinets.  This was a rather daunting task because I moved homes, classrooms, and had thirty eight cabinet doors to redo. 

Our finished kitchen:

So when I decided to redo our master bathroom, it was a much smaller project.  I had seven doors to paint, so this was a weekend task (not the whole summer!).

Starting picture:

There was nothing wrong with the cabinets, I just wanted a different color. 

I used the Rust-oleum kit from Home Depot:

We also bought drop cloths, sponge brushes, and paint brushes.  I actually used the Federal Gray color.  There are two kits available: a dark kit and a light kit. Home Depot has the small kits (perfect for bathrooms and smaller projects) while Lowe's also sells a larger version of the same brand.  I ended up buying two of the small kits to do my entire kitchen last summer because I didn't know the larger kit existed.

  

Step 1 is taping the walls.  We painted our master bathroom blue last summer and I don't want to repaint, so making sure I'd have clean lines was crucial.

I also lined the inside of the cabinets after I removed the doors.  I was too lazy to take everything out of the cabinets, so don't judge!

I took the doors out to the garage where I put them on a (beer pong) table.  I used a drop cloth to make sure I didn't get paint all over the garage floor.

One of my favorite parts about this kit is that I didn't have to sand the space before painting.  The first step was using the cleaner and sponge to clean and dry the cabinets.

Next comes painting with the base coat:

 

It obviously looks much better after the second coat:

  

Next comes the staining portion.  This is optional.  Since my doors were more purple than I expected, I chose to use the stain to darken them up.  As a helpful hint, be sure you've got two pairs of gloves because you definitely need to wear gloves for this part!  You pour the black glaze on and wipe it off a few minutes later with white gauze.  Be sure to pay attention to which way the cabinet doors will be reassembled because you want all the doors to be the same.  I chose to go both horizontally and vertically when wiping off the glaze, making a criss cross like pattern. 

You can add a second coat of glaze and restain if you want them darker.  I ended up doing two coats of stain since the smaller doors came out lighter than the larger doors, since the larger doors took longer to stain.  

Finished stain:

After waiting eight hours (less if you're in a super hot environment), it's time for the final step!

Using the fourth step, the protective coat, you will put the white sealant on all the painted surfaces.  I used a foam sponge brush to wipe off the extra white goop (as shown below).  If you don't wipe it up, it will dry that way and I know I don't want white goop on my doors!

 

Let them dry, seal the back side of all doors, and you are ready to reassemble!

Here is my finished project:

(And I didn't even ruin my nails!)