We’ve painted kitchen cabinets before. We’ve done Ikea kitchen cabinets before. But painting Ikea kitchen cabinets was a new combo move for us. And despite a nagging voice in our heads that asked if it was a bad idea (paint laminate? or slick factory finished cabinets?! can that even be durable?! ), we’re extremely happy with the final result. Plus, it was pretty easy to do – no paint sprayer or fancy equipment necessary!
We’re about a month into using them every day and so far they’re holding up wonderfully. They’ve been scratched, scrubbed, kicked, and real-life tested by two kids and so far no scrapes, dings, or dents to report. They look as good as the day we freshly painted them, and as smooth as factory-made Ikea cabinets – so we’ll share how we got such even coverage.
Before I show you the step-by-step instructions, let me give you some context for the project.
WHY DID WE REDO OUR KITCHEN WITH IKEA CABINETS?
As we discussed in our last podcast, we wanted to replace our old kitchen cabinets to better maximize the storage along that back wall. It’s a small kitchen and, although we’d organized it carefully enough to make it work for the past two years, we knew there was room for improvement.
The skinny drawer pictured below is a great example of how inefficient the old thickly-framed cabinets were. There was so much wood framing around the drawers & doors that everything was more cramped than it needed to be. What do you even put in a drawer that’s one olive oil bottle wide?
Yes, that’s the same sized olive oil bottle in the photo below, except now it can stand up because the drawer is much deeper along with being significantly wider, so we can store a lot more. We knew from our previous experience with Ikea kitchens (like at our beach house) that we could get big functional gains by replacing the cabinets. For one, there’s much less thick framing around the sides of Ikea cabinets- as you can see below – plus we shifted the stove over a bit, so this drawer ended up being much more useful for us.
Not to mention that Ikea cabinets have so many customizable systems you can add (secret drawers that nest within other drawers, caddies that fit perfectly to corral things, etc). I’d say we upped our small kitchen’s efficiency by at least 50% by upgrading the cabinets. We’ll show you more about how we organized them in a future post. For now, back to the subject at hand: how we went from “Ikea white” to a custom paint color of our choosing.
WHY PAINT THE IKEA CABINETS?
We REALLY loved the mauve color we painted the old cabinets (Artsy Pink by Sherwin-Williams). These are the old cabinets below:
The mauve feels like a fun homage to the original laminate counters and even the walls, which we discovered were once that color during our first phase of renovations before we moved in.
Ikea doesn’t sell any doors that color and ordering paintable Semihandmade doors is significantly more expensive. Their DIY flat slab fronts would’ve cost us about $600 vs the $185 we’d pay for white flat fronts from Ikea. And we are no strangers to painting something, so it felt worth attempting this, even though laminate surfaces or slick pre-painted finishes (Ikea calls these “lacquered”) can be a little tricky. Thankfully, paint and primer “technology” is constantly improving and you can now get strong bonds, even without turning to oil-based products. So here’s exactly what we used:
TOOLS & MATERIALS FOR PAINTING IKEA CABINETS
We took a low-tech, low-mess approach to this project (aka: no paint sprayer) so the material list is pretty simple. Had we been painting a larger kitchen, we might’ve opted for a faster paint sprayer approach, but I personally find that we can be more methodical and careful when we hand paint a project like this.
In addition to your cabinets (we ordered Ikea’s VEDDIGNE door and drawer fronts) you’ll need the following:
- Sandpaper or sanding block in a 120 to 220 grit*
- Tack cloths
- Paint (we used Sherwin-Williams Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel in a satin finish)
- Primer (we used Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 Primer for All Surfaces – a quart was more than enough for us)
- Small 4″ or 6″ foam rollers, roller tray, and a small angled paintbrush
- Painter stands or tripods
- Dropcloth or similar
- Your cabinet fronts, we had ordered Ikea VEDDIGNE doors
- Optional: Painter’s tape
- Optional: Liquid deglosser
*You can also use an electric sander for a faster result, but it takes some extra care that we’ll talk about in a moment
Source: https://www.younghouselove.com/how-to-paint-ikea-kitchen-cabinets/