You’ve probably noticed that we’ve been painting cabinets. My coworkers have been noticing too, since I’ve been showing up to the office with paint still on my hands and in my hair. Classy, you guys, I like to keep it classy.
The painting process has been incredibly simple…and yet incredibly time consuming. We kicked things off by giving everything a good sanding. A really good sanding. We had around 60 years of gunk to sand off in some places.
Like I mentioned before, we decided to go with Behr’s Swiss Coffee for the cabinets. We used the satin finish, again thanks to our friendly pro at the Depot. While people often choose the Semi-Gloss finish, he mentioned that with a lot of lights in the kitchen the semi-gloss can actually reflect too much light and make things too shiny. Since that wasn’t quite the look we wanted we went with his recommendation and used satin instead.
I’ll let you know if that was a good choice once the kitchen is done. You know, next week. (La la la, I can’t hear you, la la la )
We ended up doing 1 coat of primer and 3 coats of paint on each of the cabinets. The shelves soaked up the paint a little more and we ended up doing just 1 coat of primer and 1 coat of paint. I think we were slapping it on a little thicker at that point, because, yay! Done!
So that brings us to today. Everything’s painted…but I haven’t sealed it. Some people say seal, some people say no sealing required. Anybody have some expertise to send our way? (Bonus points if you say don’t seal it. I’d like to be all done now)
Wow! so.much.work. But its' totally going to be worth it. I think you'll be happy with the satin decision. I've thought that I maybe should have done satin on some of the trim/woodwork in our house - esp. the kitchen and stairways. It reflects a lot of light.
ReplyDeleteYay for getting done soon!
I think you'll be okay NOT sealing. I've also heard to go with satin vs. semi-gloss, so good call.
ReplyDeleteIf by sealing you mean polyurethane of some kind... I just want to mention to be careful which polyeurethane you use. I've had that stuff turn white paint into a really yucky, yellowish color when it dries! It even did that a little bit on our cabinets, and I'm just noticing that now. It's not a problem if the paint color is something other than white, but for white paint it does tend to discolor. I think you might be able to find some that doesn't do that, I meant to ask around a while ago but haven't had a chance. =)
ReplyDeleteI've always found painting to be one of the more tedious home improvement jobs so I always like it to be over and done with as quick as possible. My vote is a 'no' for the sealing, but I'm not an expert ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe did some sort of finish in between satin and semi gloss... can't remember the name. It is pretty reflective in the light at night... but I'm not changing it now! I think satin would've worked well for us, too - I think you made a good decision there! As for sealing, we didn't. Our cabs have been done for about 1.5 years now, I think, and they still look just as good as the day I finished them (okay, so maybe there is 1 or 2 tinnyy chips.. but that's it!). So I vote no. :)
ReplyDelete~Chelsea
We did a matte finish that is supposed to be that brands must durable and cleanable paint. No sealing on our end. Never heard of having seal your painted cabs, though. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI can't speak to the sealing v. not sealing. I have painted a lot of shelves with Behr paint, and my one piece of advice there is to give those babies a _long_ time to cure before putting much on them. If you can stand it, I'd wait at least a few weeks before putting anything in there that's heavy and not oging to be moved frequently (e.g., a stack of dinner plates). Not what you want to hear at this point, I'm sure!
ReplyDeleteOooh, I'm excited to see the cabinets! I don't blame you for not wanting to seal them after all the work you've already done!
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you've decided yet... but, I painted ours about 4 years ago. They need redone now. They don't look BAD, but you can see places where we've scrubbed on them, etc. If we do them again (in like 10 years, ha!) I would probably seal them just to give them a bit more durability. I drop things; I'm a messy cook; I have to scrub the cabinet fronts and it shows.
ReplyDeleteI am a professional* and I say don't seal it, but that's just my oppinion. It might make it last longer, but normal wear-and-tear with a good paint job is not going to chip apart for a long time (unless there are other problems) and by then you'll either want to repaint another color or just do a touch up. :-D
ReplyDelete*procrastinator.
When we painted our cabinets we opted not to seal; we heard way WAY too many stories from other ppl who did seal to feel it was worth the trouble(peeling paint, discolouration, tacky consistency etc) .
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