Painting the INSIDE of the Kitchen Cupboards!

Cleaning and organizing the kitchen cupboards is a great project at this time of year.  I started to do just that at the beginning of the month.

In the process....I looked...really looked at interiors of the cupboards!
YIKES!

The melamine laminate has the scratches and scuffs that come from normal use over time. The original white has become dull and yellowed.

I decided that they need a fresh coat of paint.

I did the research to find the best way to paint the interior of laminate cupboards and shared the plan with Mr. S.

Of course....he thought I was bonkers! 

"Nobody ever looks at the insides of cupboards?" he said.

"I do!" I said.  

"Whatever....do what you want!" he said.

So perhaps it is that I have too much time on my hands.....I decided to ignore all the naysayers and get on with it!

SO....ON TO THE PROCESS!

Supplies and Tools

I researched the kinds of paint to use and learned that it was critical to use really GOOD paint.  Really good paint is really expensive! The work this would take meant that the money for $50 a gallon paint would be worth it!

We chose this water based heavy duty paint from Hirshfields.

I love that it has a semi-gloss finish and that it cleans up easily with water.

A good quality paint brush, foam roller, and masking tape were the only other tools needed.

 I knew this project would be a lot of work and would take a lot of time....but hey I have TIME!
What I hate about projects like this is the disruption and mess!
There is no way that I wanted to totally empty the cupboards and do them all at once.
So I decided to take this on one cupboard at a time!


The first step was to empty the cupboard....duh!
I took the time to really look at all of the stuff as I unloaded the shelves.  I used this as an opportunity to do a little purging and re-thinking of what things we really needed to keep.

Next the interior surfaces get a good cleaning with some TSP.

Oh my!  What a lot of dirt and crumbs had accumulated!

 There really isn't a lot of need to do much masking...and a little bit of newspaper was enough to keep the area around the single cabinet free from drips.

I used the paint brush to get into the corners and the foam brush was great for a nice smooth coat of paint.

I did one coat for all of the surfaces and then two coats for the shelves and bottom of the cabinets.

This paint dries very quickly.  The second coat could be applied after a two hour wait.

It seemed wise to let the paint cure for 24 hours to be certain it was hardened well.
Wow!  What a difference!

The bright shiny white cupboards make the cabinets feel brand new!
The time spent cleaning and sorting all the contents was also time well spent.

Before all of my vintage pyrex bowls were stacked in the cabinet in the lower photo.  This meant that when I wanted to use them....I had to do some major lifting to get the one I wanted.  I moved the bowls to the lower shelf on the smaller cabinet.  Then all of the pyrex bakeware went to the wider cabinet.  This is much more efficient and looks nicer too!

Right now, I am getting ready to paint the interior of that awful corner cabinet.  It is the one we keep pans and baking sheets in.....so as you can see there are a lot of scuff marks to cover!

It is probably good there is no "kitchen-cam" here!  Picture this lady crawling into this cabinet to paint!  I hope I don't throw my back out!

Yup....I may be crazy!
But...I have controlled the crazy by doing this over a period of time.
The supplies can be stacked on a shelf ready for the days when "I have too much time on my hands" and need a project!

I guess this graphic says it all!

 I would love to hear about your crazy OCD/ADD projects!

Have A Great Day!

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