Thursday, August 14, 2008

Priming cabinet doors


My back is killing me but I just finished priming the kitchen cabinet doors (as per the This Old House Magazine insert from August's issue). I was lucky enough to find that we have clothesline down in our basement on which I could hang them to cure completely since TOH suggests using cup hooks to hang them to dry between steps. In a couple hours I will venture back down to sand the first coat and then I have a feeling I'm going to have to do a second or even third coat of primer to get it perfectly smooth. So far, then, these are the steps I have followed:

1) Remove doors, labeling inside boxes and doors and removing hinges and numbering accordingly.
2) Use TSP substitute (wear those gloves and eye protection!) and wipe down to remove three decades of grime and grease. Let sit for 3-5 minutes and wipe down with clean cloth.
3) Fill holes with wood filler, let dry, and sand off excess with 100-grit paper.
4) Sand all surfaces with 100-grit paper to "rough up" the surface of the cabinets and the boxes (at this point, I also used a tack cloth to remove the dust).
5) Drill holes and screw in cup hooks on tops of upper cabinet doors and on the bottom of lower cabinet doors.
6) Prime one side with sandable primer (I am using Sherwin-Williams' Prep Rite Classic as it will go well with their ProClassic paint later - no skimping on paint or cheap brushes), let dry to the touch, flip over, and prime the other side.
7) Once dry to the touch, hang doors to dry completely.

Step 8 will be later today, then, sanding with orbital sander and 220-grit paper to smooth out brush marks.

So, that's that. I hope this turns out well. Thom is worried the kitchen will be too bright with white cabinets (well, they're technically going to be Sherwin-Williams' Alabaster, a bit more cream than just plain white) and the halogen lights we just installed but we'll see. It may be that we install a darker tile backsplash to balance it all out. 

2 comments:

A. said...

Oh wow, I'm getting tired just reading about it. Hang in there, I'm sure you're going to be really happy with them when it's all done and I think the color sounds lovely. I'm a fan of white cabinets.

Katy and Jeff said...

I'm a big fan of white cabinets - we just did ours in a more slapstick fashion. So now I will making a copy of your steps and plotting to redo our kitchen and bathroom cabinets one day in the future....like next year :)