When you’re considering how you might improve your home’s look, one room that is fairly common to start with is the kitchen, given how frequently it is used in a typical household.
Though some people will have you believe you need to replace kitchen cabinets when you want a new look, you actually can get a new look by painting your kitchen cabinets — but there are some critical errors you can make that would really mess up your work.
With that in mind, here are five mistakes to avoid while painting your kitchen cabinets in Rolling Hills, CA.
1. Not Allowing Your Paint To Dry Before Applying A Second Coat
When you’re painting your kitchen cabinets, it’s important to fully allow your paint to dry (and even for you to allow your primer coat to dry) before moving onto the next step.
The big mistake that people make is that they don’t wait long enough, and so they start the next step in the process before the previous coat is dry.
This can be problematic because if you have a not yet fully dry coat and start applying another one, the previous one can actually come up off the wall onto your paintbrush or paint roller.
2. Using The Wrong Kind Of Paint
There is a misconception that if you get to paint, you are pretty much set no matter if you’re painting your home interior or home exterior — but this is not the case.
The kind of paint you use for the exterior of your house has certain protective elements, like those that protect against damage from the sun, which is entirely unnecessary for interior painting.
Similarly, there are certain qualities about paint that are meant for interior paintwork that would not work well if you used them outside — like being easy to clean with a wet sponge, a perfectly nice thing when you have kids running around with peanut butter and jelly stained fingers but not so much for the outside of your house.
3. Not Preparing For Your Paint Work
When you are looking to do just about any paint job, there is a certain amount of preparation you need to do to ensure that the job goes well.
For one, you really need to make sure that you know how much space there is that is going to be painted — this means measuring the cabinets.
By measuring the cabinets, you can be sure that you will have enough paint and make sure that you don’t get far too much paint — having some extra is good for touch-up work, but beyond that, you’re just throwing away money.
4. Leaving The Doors And Drawers On While Painting
When you are looking at painting your kitchen, you might think it a good idea to paint them as they are without taking off the doors and drawers — but this would be a bit of a mistake.
The problem with doing this is that you won’t evenly paint the cabinet as easily if the doors and drawers are still on.
The other big issue is that you’ll have more trouble with the doors as you won’t have the same ease of painting them when they are lying horizontally.
5. Not Protecting Surfaces Before Painting
Lastly, a major mistake that people make is that they either don’t protect surfaces at all before painting or don’t protect them enough — and then they wonder why there are hard to remove stains on the walls and floors!
Do yourself a favor and properly protect surfaces either with protective contact paper or drop cloths.
Cooley Brothers Painting is a locally owned, owner-operated, family business in Torrance, California. Call the office at 310-378-4575 or email us: info@cooleybrothers.com. You can also use our contact page to reach us.