Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets In Just One Weekend: A Step-By-Step Guide

By Dutch Norwegian CoupleRenovation

Do you want to breathe new life into your old kitchen? Some paint can make it look completely different! And it’s a really easy and a cheap DIY! With some preparation, you can give your old kitchen a huge transformation in just one weekend. Wooden cabinets are the easiest to paint. But other materials can also be painted. Follow this guide if you’re wondering how to do it.

Prepare

If you prepare before the weekend starts, it’s totally possible to do this project in just one weekend. Preparation is the key to all DIY projects. You’ll need the hole weekend for painting, so make sure you’ve prepared everything beforehand. If not you might not finish in time. 

First of all, you should empty all cabinets and drawers- at least if you plan to also paint the inside of them. It’s possible to do it the quick way, and just paint everything that shows when all doors and drawers are closed. That will be a much faster DIY. But that of course depends on how your cabinet frame looks from the beginning. And if you’re comfortable with having the inside of your cabinets and drawers the old colour. Make your choice and go further.

Make sure you tape off corners and places where you don’t want paint. Your kitchen backsplash and countertops for instance.

We’d recommend you to empty everything already on Wednesday evening. Put it all into another room, so it’s not in your way.

Also make sure your whole family are prepared for this weekend. That means that the kitchen is off limits. And that only easy food that can be made in the oven, will be served. Eating out, or with family, neighbours or friends would be another option. You don’t want finger prints in your paint now do you?

Remove and clean all doors and drawers

Thursday evening you should unscrew all doors and drawers from your kitchen. The best will be if you can put them in your garage or similar. You need a table or just some pieces of wood laid out. Here you can put your doors on to dry after they’ve been painted. Don’t have a garage? Then your kitchen floor will have to do. Pieces of wood can be used here as well. But make sure you protect your floor. 

Clean all doors and drawers, and inside your frames, to remove old dirt and prepare them for painting.

Sand if needed

So, let the weekend begin! Prepare yourself for quite a long Friday evening. Does your kitchen have holes or dents in them? These will also show after you’ve painted. So, you should really sand these areas down. But be careful and don’t overdo it. Sanding will make unbelievable amounts of dust. So, make sure your HVAC is turned off. The dust somehow gets everywhere.  

Prime & paint

Once you’ve sanded down everything that needs to, clean all the dust away so that you’re ready to apply primer. Preferably you should prime everything Friday evening. Start in the back of the cabinet and work your way out. Make sure you cover all surfaces and edges. Once the cabinets are done, continue on the doors and drawers. Carefully do the inside of the door first before gently putting them down, on your already laid out pieces of wood. And then paint the front. If you manage to finish priming all the cabinets, doors and drawers, they can nicely dry until the morning. 

Depending on the instructions for your primer, it should be dry the next morning. So, after an early breakfast, you should be able to start on your first layer of paint! We’d love to see which colour you’re using! Do you struggle with finding the right colour? Check out our guide: Picking Paint Colours 5 Easy Steps To Make You A Pro.

Most types of paint can be painted over after 8 hours or less. That means, that if you finish the first layer before 12, you can start on the second layer after dinner. 

If you have small kids, asking someone to watch them this morning would be very helpful. That way you can do the first layer while someone is watching them, and the second layer after putting them to bed. 

If you work all evening you should be able to finish the second layer before going to bed yourself. Then the paint can dry overnight.

Don’t worry- if you’re not able to finish, you can always use one more day. Anyway, you’ll have a great result in the end!

Put everything back together

It’s Sunday! And you’re ready to put your kitchen back together! Let your kitchen dry a good 12-14 hours before you put all the doors and drawers back. No matter when you finished last night, that will give you time to enjoy a lazy Sunday morning first. Then put it back together piece by piece. And voilà, you have a beautiful new kitchen! 

Are you ready to do this cheap and easy DIY transformation? You totally can! 

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Let us see your finish result and share this post to help others see how easy and cheap they can DIY!