Painted kitchen cabinets DIY project has been on my DIY to-do list for a while now. I have a friend who is moving into a new apartment and I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint on kitchen cabinets. They’ve been moving in and cleaning up (including the painting of walls, replacing electrical outlets to totally update the apartment).
We started by taking all the cabinet doors down and taking all the hardware off.
You can see that it is a fairly small apartment size kitchen with old wood (well-built) kitchen boxes and standard flat doors. They were painted on the inside and coated in some kind of shellac coating on the doors and on the outside of the boxes.
We began by cleaning the surfaces of all the painted kitchen cabinets and doors with TSP (Tri Sodium Phosphate) that easily dissolves all the years of grease and grime on these rental unit cabinets. Make sure you use gloves and a teaspoon of TSP with about 2 litres of warm water. Be prepared to change your bucket of water with TSP regularly as the water begins to get quite dirty quickly.
Next. we sanded all the surfaces that had that shiny shellac coating on it to give the paint a good surface to adhere to. After wiping all the surfaces with a damp cloth to get all the dust off we began by painting the first coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to the inner surfaces of the doors and the outer surfaces of the boxes on the walls. A very thin coat with a foam brush does the trick. You’ll notice we have also started to “beautify” the cabinets by adding a bump out for the crown moulding that was added later.
The paint doesn’t actually take that long to dry. By the time I did one coat on all 12 doors I was ready to paint the next coat. The colour we choose was a combination of the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint French Linen and Graphite (1:1). This produces a wonderful deep grey/steel colour. It was a wonderful contrast to the light gray colour that my friend chose for the walls.
While I was painting my friend added the remaining crown moldings to the top of the cabinet boxes and a valence to the bottom of the upper cabinets as well.
We then began painting the crowns, valence and outer cabinets of the boxes. You’ll also notice we chose another colour/paint that he had from a previous project to use on the inside of the cabinets.
The next day I began by waxing all the painted surfaces with Annie Sloan Clear Wax. This took a bit of time as there were many surfaces and I had to do it all on the floor due to the lack of space in the apartment.
We then rehung all the cabinet doors with new hinges and reapplied another coat of the wax for added durability.
I completed by painting all the interiors of the cabinets next.
I left my friend to complete the painting around the cabinets and to attach the hardware. I will update the website with the completed kitchen and cabinet project.
Hope you find the inspiration for this painted kitchen cabinets project to do your own. The cabinets turned out absolutely beautifully!!!
I have to mention this little cabinet that was painted with the ASCP as well. It’s surface is made/painted with melamine. Unfortunately, I am a little concerned about the paint sticking to melamine. I will update you in a future post as to whether or not the cabinet needed another application.
Here is an update to this kitchen makeover.
Julie Jones says
I am really curious about the little cabinet and whether the ASCP stayed with that piece. My house has very sturdy kitchen cabinets but they are all Formica. I am trying to work around not having to reface or replace the cabinets. This would be the perfect answer for me. I too am not sure if painting Formica especially in a high traffic area is sensible or will I have a real mess in a year and have to reface anyway. What are your thoughts or experience with this situation?
Studio Paint says
Hi Julie,
thanks so much for you question and for visiting my website!! Yes the ASCP has held up well on the melamine/formica cabinet. I will take a photo for you and others that are interested in how it held up the next time I am there and post it.
I have now used ASCP for over a year and have completed many projects with this paint… and to my knowledge everything I have done has held up. I have to remind you though that the cure time is very important…. if you choose to either wax or use another type of sealer remember you must let it set up for at least 30 days…. ie. very light use and then should be fine. If you are using wax you might consider rewaxing after a year or two to ensure good coverage.
Thanks again for visiting and for your great question!!
Maxine