Painting Laminate Cupboards...start to finish...

Again I'm writing and posting this out of order....we did this last year, and I've talked a bit about it....this post I'll be more precise on what we did to update our cupboards....after I'm completely done I'll upload a short video of all our changes to our kitchen....

First pictures....this was how our kitchen looked...after the overhead cupboards were removed and before we took the cupboard and drawer fronts down.  Before we did all that our dishwasher had already been removed from the penninsula and new stainless D/W installed and running.  These are the 'best' BEFORE pictures I have.....

And now our process of painting our cupboards and then applying a faux finish to them...

First I made a chart of the layout of the cupboards....when each door and drawer front was removed I marked it....on the door I marked it where the hinges were.  We brought everything outside and in one day we washed all the front with TSP, sanded them...then washed them with Lestoil....rinsed them. And brought them into the house for painting....painted the backs first the dark brown melamine paint....they only needed one good coat....as the back were already a dull brown finish.  The next day flipped them....and started on painting the fronts....and while I was waiting for them to dry I painted the frames of the cupboards two coats.  This took probably four days....for the wait time to dry and the amount of painting I was doing.  Not steady work....taking the time for the paint to cure.

During this time we soaked all the hinges and knobs in a lestoil combination....Lestoil really removes grease.  Took a steel brush to the hingest...even soaked the screws that we removed....knowing that they fit our cupboards exactly.  We prepared all the hinges for painting....using a Restoleum Dark Brown.  We eventually used a black Rustoleum...so that they were also antiqued to match the wood graining on the cupboards.  We wanted the hinges to 'disapear' into our cupboards.  We spray painted the knobs...just the circle piece a satin nickel Rustoleum.

I then took a litre size can of the same brand of paint...the melamine in Espresso.....and I can't remember exactly my ratio of adding glaze....I'm thinking equal parts of paint and glaze....made enough of it which I stored in a covered 2 quart ice cream container....so that I could do my graining.  With gloved hands I used a painted door....which I purposely did for a 'practise' door before graining the real doors.  Using a sponge brush.....covered the whole front of the door and the sides.....using the graining tool went over the front....up and down covering the whole surface....then using a lint free rag...lightly going over what I grained to soften the paint and also touching up the sides of the door.  I waiting till my practise door was dry....knew right away that it was going to look AWESOME!....and then tackled the 'real' doors....matching up the pairs that went side by side....working on two doors at a time so my graining would match....completed all the fronts....then went on to the cupboard frame....this was fast...taking not more than two hours...then left alone for two days to cure before the hinges were put on.  That's when I knew the hinges needed to be dusted with the black spray paint...to dull the brown.  I didn't grain the drawer fronts with the door fronts...waiting for pull knobs....so they could be attached then removed....then grained....here are the pics!

Isnt' it amazing...what a little bit of graining will do??....took a flat brown colour and gave it so much dimension and texture.

When shopping for the drawer pulls...found a great deal on the cupboard knobs....so we took off the spray painted knobs and attached the new ones...and then one afternoon Bob put them all back up.  At this point we were waiting for our carpenter to install our new over the range microwave hood-fan before we could finish painting that cupboard box....and he had taken three door fronts to make new ones as we were making the cupboard over the stove smaller...so there was more room for the new hood fan/microwave and he created a cupboard and drawer for the spot next to the dishwasher.  He also made a cupboard/new door for the spot where the old dishwasher was.  So I couldn't finish painting/graining the penninsul until that was all installed and finished.  Here's some pics before I painted the penninsula...

At this point the new counter top had been installed along with a new stainless sink....these pictures show the painted door knobs....we hadn't purchased our drawer pulls yet....as I had said, once we purchased our pulls we also purchased new door knobs.

NEXT....taking down the ceramic next to the stove....painting the kitchen...installing new appliances...then finishing the penninsula.