This past summer, I undertook the DIY project of the century and painted my entire kitchen, inducing the cabinets and the tile backsplash, by myself (well, about 95% of it by myself – but more on that in a minute). I have been itching for a renovation in my kitchen, and I just went for it.
It took me about 3 weeks to complete the entire project. I had the kids home for the summer and I still needed to work from home. Painting the backsplash is the shortest time commitment (and also time sensitive – must be done in one day). You could easily knock this project out in a long weekend if you had help and time. I had neither (for the most part). I told myself I would finish before my daughter Caroline’s birthday weekend. Well, friends, I finished ON her birthday. So I win.
My cabinets, tile backsplash, and walls. Now, let’s get into all of the details of each aspect of this project! I’m going to tell you exactly what I did to paint, and how I did it.
First, the easy part – the walls. I used Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray in the space – the color we have almost everywhere else in our house. It’s very neutral and almost beige-gray. I don’t like grays that pull too blue, and this one never does. It always looks perfect in any lighting situation. I took my kitchen walls from a much darker taupe down to the Agreeable Gray color.
Cabinet Painting Supplies – Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations Kit in Pure White – 1 Gallon of Behr Premium Plus Ultra Satin Finish in Pure White – Paint brushes – Mini paint rollers and extra roller heads – Painter’s Tape – Plastic tarps – Tables – Screwdriver – Rag
Let’s first talk about the kit – the Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations Kit. This is a kit that comes with a deglosser (you do this first instead of sanding cabinets), a bond coat (the actual color the cabinets will be), a protective topcoat, and an optional glaze (I did not use this). The kit is very user-friendly and straightforward. I did a ton of research beforehand and watched a lot of videos on this kit before using it the first time. I definitely recommend you do this! Get on YouTube and search for people painting their cabinets dark to white with the kit.
IMPORTANT: For me, the Rust-Oleum kit did not have enough bond coat paint for me to do my entire kitchen (my cabinets needed 4 coats), so that’s why I went out and purchased a gallon of the Behr paint. The color and finish of Behr Premium Plus Ultra Satin Finish in Pure White matched perfectly. (Another note: I did have paint left over from the gallon I purchased.) It’s a much more cost-effective way of completing this project instead of going out and purchasing another kit. I had enough deglosser and top coat for my entire kitchen, just not enough actual paint.
I didn’t want my house to be a wreck and my kitchen to be unusable, so I painted all of the cabinets in sections. I did all of the work in my dining room on tables with plastic tarps, so that it was out of the way but still in the nice air conditioned house.
Here’s the order of how I painted my kitchen cabinets. – Tape off the frame of cabinets – Number all cabinets with painters tape and sharpie – Remove hardware and put all pieces into ramekins – Set up all the cabinet doors in a configuration, take the painters tape off and place next to the doors so I still knew which door I was painting – Degloss frame – Degloss cabinet doors – 4 coats of paint (yes, the cabinets and frames needed a full 4 coats) – Top coat – Let top coat dry 12 hours – Put doors back on – Repeat per section
Here’s how the process looked when I got to the last section of my project!
We used Homax Tough as Tile Epoxy Brush-on Kit. You roll it on with lint-free rollers (much easier and more even than a brush) and wait 3 hours in between coats. You must finish all of the coats in one day otherwise the paint will not cure properly. This took 4 coats to cover. I ended up doing the last two by myself and I had to stay up til 2 am to make sure it was done within that 24 hours.
WARNING: This stuff SMELLS TERRIBLE. It is intense. You have to ventilate the area you are working in and wear respirator masks when you are painting. It’s best to leave the house in between coats if you can.
Tile Backsplash Painting Supplies – Homax White Tough as Tile Epoxy Brush-on Kit (we needed 2 kits) – Lint-free mini rollers – Mini roller trays – Painter’s tape – Plastic tarps – Respirator masks – fans (to ventilate)
Before painting, you need to thoroughly clean the tile, otherwise, the epoxy paint will bubble or will not stick completely to the tile. I scrubbed the tile with steel wool and Comet, and then wiped the entire area down again with some Windex. That seemed to work just fine.
Here’s a close-up of how the tile looks once it’s cured. It’s shiny like real tile. You can’t even tell that it’s paint!