I know that we all strive to see my closet painted and I get closer every day. I have been stuck in these painting steps for days, and I would love nothing more than see that the beautiful blue -green color is on these cupboards. But all of these steps that I have to carry out before painting are the most important parts of the process.
Unfortunately, it seems the steps that most people want to skip. I will never forget when the chalk color came over years ago. One of the sales points was that they don’t have to grind before painting. You could simply hit this color over every finish and it would look beautiful, or something was told. And since this chalk coloring debut before these many years, so many other colors have come onto the market with the same claim. No grinding necessary!
That drives me crazy when I am honest, because the fact is that when you hit color on a rough surface or a surface that has never been prepared in any way, your color decision will simply not look so great. The painted surface can only look as good as the surface below. Color does not magically make cracks, holes, uneven surfaces, rough surfaces or other imperfections disappear.
And that is exactly why I take so much time in the preparation level before I paint a little, whether it is a piece of furniture, cupboards or anything else. One of my favorite people, who follows in Instagram, is Kayla Payne. She paints cupboards and furniture, and her approach is very similar to me. I saw the entire process of her own kitchen cabinets not too long ago, and that was almost a month for her, just to paint your kitchen cabinets. She made a super glossy finish that takes even longer and even more attention to detail what I do in my closet with a satin finish, but due to all this attention to detail her finish became amazing. Since it used such a super high gloss color, she had to grind these cupboards up to 600 degrees between color coating. But I loved seeing this whole process and your attention to detail.
Anyway, all of this to say that I know that I am stuck in the super boring part of this project (it’s boring for me, so I know that it is boring to see it!), But it is not a phase through which I can hurry up. It is also not a phase that I want to push through, because if I don’t take the time to do these steps correctly and pay attention to the details, the finished project looks like a cheap DIY project. And that’s the last thing I want. I may be a DIYER, but I never want my projects to look like obvious DIY projects.
So yesterday I worked with a 40-minute break from around 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. to take a pot of chilli, and then an hour break for lunch with matt. And I spent grinding all the time and then preparing a little more. And almost the entire loop that I made yesterday was by hand. My goal was to take off the sharp edges from all trim pieces. And I don’t know if you noticed it, but there are many shelves in this room, which means that there are a lot of trim pieces that had to be sanded.
I take the time to do this with all my projects that I build for two reasons. First, I think it looks better. But secondly, the factory -cut edges on this pre -defined wood is so sharp that it can literally cut them when they run their hand quickly enough. Ask me where I know. But really, I just don’t like it what it looks like.
So I start with a sanding paper of 80 grit to put down these super-sharp corners and then track with 120 bodies and then track 220-grit sand paper to get a softer, rounded edge that you can see below.
It is one of these little details that, in my opinion, make a big difference in the finished project. And although I may be the only one who ever notices, that’s enough for me. It is often difficult to recognize the difference before it is prepared and painted. This is what it looks like after it has done all of this, but before the Priming …
But the reason why it took so long is that I do it all by hand. If you use a grinder for this process, you can leave the pieces next to the piece I loop, and it can also take off too much corner and leave uneven corners too quickly. I have a lot more control if I do it by hand. And this step has to be carried out after all shelves and shelves were attached. You do not want to complete the edges of the cabinet cladding and then add the cladding to the shelves, as this leaves a gap between the two parts, which then have to be filled and sanded.
And it also took so long because there is just so much of it. I loop each one of the exposed edges. And again I have a lot of shelves and a lot of cabinet cladding in this room.
The good news is that I finally completed so long and boring process at 9:00 a.m. last night, and then I spent the rest of the time until I went to bed on the right side of the room. I had to laugh because I had left the primer before I was able to prepare the last shelf. I still have to prepare all corners with a brush, but I have (almost) prepared all areas that could take place with a 6-inch role.
Today I have another complete, uninterrupted working day in front of me, and now that all the preliminary grinding is finished, my goal is to do the rest of the priming until the end of the day. And yes, as soon as the primer is dry, I will grind every single piece of each surface with 220 body sandpaper by hand Before I paint. Because again the painted finish can only look as good as the previous finish. As soon as the primer is switched on, dry and sanded, I still have to boil, which will probably be a full -day job with these many shelves. And then finally paint!
So I’m almost part of the part we all want to see, but in reality I am still at least two working days away from color, if not three or four. I also have to build my glass shelf. The glass is currently equipped for delivery, and as soon as I have it in my hand, I will build the frame so that it can be prepared, prepared and painted when I do the rest of the cupboards.
Anyway, all of this to say that if you bother to build cupboards, do not hurry up the boring steps. They are really the most important. And if you want to paint cupboards or furniture and your first question is: “How can I do it without grinding?”, Be very likely that your finished project will look like a DIY project. In my more than 30 years of diyying, I just found that grinding is one of the most important steps in paintings and furniture, and if you skip this step, it will show. It is boring but necessary.
Update: I asked a few people why I don’t make my floors before painting the cupboards. While that would be the logical order, the Bona Red Out is in the back and I still don’t have a shipping date for it. Under no circumstances do I want to keep progress in this project while waiting for me to arrive. So I will continue to work on the cupboards and let them paint them first. Yesterday I spent a good 90 minutes to clear the entire dust from the shelves and cupboards and prepare them for the primer, so I will definitely paint first. And then, as soon as the color is dry, I cover the cupboards with plastic before going through the floor so that they do not become dusty again.
It is not the ideal order to do things. It would certainly have been easier and would have made much more sense to do the soil first and then clean the shelves and cupboards and to paint them. If I had all my floor products in my hand, I would have done these things. But as it looks, I can’t stop working with a floor product on the back and while I was waiting for it.
