Introduction

Instead of replacing your old kitchen cabinets, make them new by repainting them. With an inexpensive paint sprayer and a few gallons of paint, you can transform your kitchen in a weekend.

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on new cabinets to give your kitchen a stunning new look. If your cabinets are in good shape, you can give them a fresh face with paint. Everything you need to give your drab cabinets a silky smooth painted finish costs less than $250—including the spray painter.

Professional painters typically spray-paint doors because it produces an ultra-smooth finish. In this article, we’ll show you how to spray-paint your doors and drawers to look like professional kitchen cabinet painting. There’s just a short learning curve to use the spray painter effectively. You could also spray the paint cabinet frames, sides and trim, but masking off the cabinet openings (and the rest of the kitchen) takes a lot of time, so just use a brush for those areas.

Despite our enthusiasm, there are downsides to a painted finish. Paint isn’t as tough as a factory finish, and even if you’re careful, you can still end up with paint runs and brush marks on your paint cabinet sides.

All the materials you need to paint your cabinets are available at home centers and paint stores. Plan to spend four or five days completing the job—you’ll have to let the paint dry overnight between coats, and you can only paint one side of the doors per day.