LIGHTEN UP WITH HOUSE DOCTOR – PART II

We thought we’d continue with last month’s theme of lightening and brightening your home to help counteract the dark and gloomy winter light.

We often advice sellers to refresh their home by painting the walls in a neutral colour, which doesn’t necessarily mean using magnolia or white, but that’s a subject for another time. This month we are concentrating on using paint to revamp one of the main rooms in your home, which is also one of the most expensive to transform, the kitchen.

If you cannot replace your kitchen for a while, you can at least alter the look by changing the door handles, re-facing or replacing the cupboard doors or even by painting the cabinets yourself. Yes, painting the cupboards is possible, the finish won’t last forever but will brighten and lighten until you are ready for your new kitchen. Allow a long weekend for this job and, if you have a garage or similar space to lay out the doors to dry, be thankful.

Paints

Paints have greatly improved over the years so don’t worry too much about complicated processes. Read directions and ask for help if needed.

There are companies that have chalk paints to coat and revamp old furniture and cabinets.

Annie Sloan is one of these BUT she does suggest waxing to seal the paint afterwards. We haven’t tried this on kitchen cabinets but many on our team have used this paint to transform older furniture.

The Traditional Painter website has lots of hints and tips on painting kitchens.

The Little Greene Paint Company is mentioned in the Traditional Painter website as a great paint to use and our team concur. We use it often in home and kitchen makeovers. We love the colours as well as the finish.

We especially like to use the Colour Scales on the paint chart. Colour Scales is a collection of 48 sophisticated neutrals in 12 families.

Each family is made up of four shades with colours stepped in strength to achieve a simple, harmonious colour combination when used together.

As a network, we often revamp homes as part of our business and also often, in our training. In the Before and After shots you can see how the kitchen has been revamped by painting the cabinets, the addition of new handles and pulls, as well as some stick-on tiles to cover up the old border tiles. We also painted the walls, de-cluttered and added new blinds.

We have, for more than 10 years, used a product to prime any cabinets or furniture we want to paint. It is called Zinsser and is available from many decorating stores. It looks quite watery when you put it on but don’t be concerned by that, I would give any item at least two coats, they have a short drying time which helps.

Optimum Way to paint kitchen cabinets.

This is one way to paint your kitchen cabinets, we do know many who have NOT removed the doors or drawer fronts and just sanded and painted them in situ.

In our experience it is worth spending time in the preparation to gain a better, longer lasting finish.

1. Remove doors and hardware. As the cupboards were all similar sizes we numbered inside each cupboard and labelled the doors to match for an easy system to rehang the correct door to the correct cupboard. Drawer fronts may vary in construction, some might not be easy to remove and may have to be revamped in place.
2. If changing knobs or handles and the new ones are of a different size, fill and sand existing screw holes.
3. Clean and sand down any existing drips or runs if cabinets have previously been painted. Wipe after sanding.
4. Prime twice with a paint such as Zinsser (mentioned above)
5. Paint the back of doors (and drawers if needed) and allow to dry, preferably at least overnight.
6. Paint the fronts and allow to dry, two days is better, but at allow at least 24 hours drying time.
7. While the doors are drying paint any facing parts of the cabinets that will be seen even when the doors and drawers replaced.
8. Put the handles or pulls back on, measuring carefully if adding new ones.
9. Rehang doors and return drawers.