Painting cabinets might be a daunting process, but you can learn to do it right the first time by avoiding these five mistakes!
We recently renovated our guest bathroom. The biggest DIY project was painting the cabinets a deep teal. The cabinets were old oak and in rough cosmetic shape (though underneath they weren’t so bad). Clearly 25 years of use had taken their toll.
I read a few blogs on the best way to go about painting cabinets, so I thought it would be pretty easy. But it wasn’t. And I made a handful of mistakes that I’ll share here so you don’t have to make them yourself!
I started by sanding the cabinets, which led me to my first mistake.
Not Sanding Completely
I borrowed my cousin’s palm sander, which actually worked great for the most part. Of course our cabinet doors had some places the sander couldn’t get, and that’s where things got a little hairy. I gave them a rough hand sanding, but I should have spent more time on those nooks and crannies. The paint, even with primer, had a harder time sticking, leaving me with uneven spots, and requiring more paint.
Solution: spend a little more time manually sanding those tight spaces. It’ll save you paint and time in the long run.
Not Tinting Your Primer
This isn’t something I thought to do, but Ryan’s friend (who’s a painter by trade) mentioned it when he stopped by…after I’d primed the cabinets. He said to add a bit of your paint color to the primer to tint it — and you can get away with fewer coats. White is one of the hardest colors to cover, so having your primer tinted will save you time and money!
Solution: add a little paint color to your primer
Not Using the Right Paint
I made one other mistake that you’re not likely to make — my brother came over to help paint and I gave him the entirely wrong color. It was a darker teal that I had bought as a sample. Going on, it only looked a little off, so I didn’t really question it. But by the time it dried, it was clear it was a different color.
This wouldn’t have been that bad, except that the sample paint was a much lower quality than the final paint I had chosen, which was specifically formulated for cabinets. That meant that the brush and roller marks were much more visible in that layer. I ended up sanding down some of that layer to help get rid of the painting marks.
Solution: buy a high-quality paint meant for cabinets (and hide everything else!)
Getting the Hinges Mixed Up
I should have labeled. I read a dozen blogs that said to label my hinges so that they would all go back in the same places. But I figured all the hinges were the same, so why spend the time?
Huge mistake. The hinges had worn in specific ways in the last two decades and a half, so that after they were painted and I was putting the bathroom back together, none of the hinges worked quite right. I ended up sort of forcing everything into place, and while the doors work, they don’t work as well as they would have if I’d labeled them.
Solution: label the darn hinges!
Getting Your Doors Mixed Up
While you’re labeling your hinges, also label your doors. I thought I was doing a good job of keeping the doors in the right order when I was painting them, but nope. I went to re-install the doors, and they didn’t fit properly. Figured out later that two of them were switched—I have no idea how that happened during the process, but it wasn’t good to have a door that sat half an inch higher than the others, and wouldn’t shut all the way.
Solution: label the darn doors!
My Biggest Takeaway
While making these mistakes was frustrating, I tried not to let them get me down. I know that these are not our “forever”—someday we’ll pull these out and put in better cabinets with higher quality hardware. Knowing that made it much easier not to be totally frustrated with the process—I kept reminding myself it’s all a learning process!
And when all was said and done, I loved how they turned out. I’m so glad I took a risk on the teal and even though they aren’t perfect, they are definitely very “me.”
Get more teal inspiration: Teal Cabinet Paint Colors
You can also check out the full bathroom reveal, and learn how to make the DIY floating artwork and a shower curtain out of a flat sheet!
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Ivy Baker says
This is some really good information about what to not do when you are painting your cabinets. I liked that you pointed out that you shouldn’t mix up the doors. I wonder how professional cabinet makers keep the doors straight. I know that I would have for the doors to be put on wrong.
Katherine says
I never thought about the primer we would use! Thanks for that tip about prepping it before we apply. Like you said, that would save us a lot of time and money.
Renee says
I have 25 year old cabinets that have painted over over hinges too. We’re your hinges painted over and how did you get them off?
Cori George says
Our hinges were not painted over — the cabinets were wood before we painted them. My guess using a screwdriver to pry them off would be what I would try first!
Erin says
Put the hinges in a boiling pot of water and it takes the paint right off
Ste says
I would have thought the same thing about the hinges! Glad you wrote this!
Sarah Kite says
Great post and awesome results! Thank you for sharing!!
Dawson Burgman says
Your cabinets look awesome! Cabinets are so hard to paint, and have them look good.
Kimberly says
How do you label the doors and hinges?
Amy Motroni says
Just any system that works for you. It’s just a way to keep track of which hinges go with what doors so you can put everything back the right way. You can make piles and label it together like that to organize it all.
Hope that helps!
Amy, HLMS Reader Support
Sarah White says
Thanks for this post Cori ! I had my kitchen cabinets refinished by a local cabinet refinishing company and they did a great job, but I want to go the DIY route for my bathroom cabinets this year and I will definitely be referencing this post to make sure that I don’t make any mistakes! I would definitely be the one to lose track of which hinges go to which doors, so thanks for warning me ahead of time haha 🙂
Martina says
These are great tips Cori! I found every one of them to be true and then some in our recent cabinet painting adventure :) Thanks so much for sharing your insight!
Lori says
If you’re painting the cabinets how do you label them and paint them.
Marlon says
I’d like to find out more? I’d like to find out some additional information.
Arlene says
It is perfectly fit for my new cabinet. I will paint it with the tips you share to us.
Pamela Allen says
I just finished my lower cabinets in the kitchen. Even after several months they stuck together. I read what a professional painter said to fix this, petroleum jelly on all the areas that are sticking. It worked like a charm and he said it would still cure under the vaseline. I used semi-gloss and it takes forever to cure.
Mari Cris says
I am so excited to reface my cabinets now. I’ll just wait for theconcrete contractor to get done with their job outside then I’ll start working on repainting my stuff inside. Thanks for this article by the way. Now I know what has to be done!