Painting the Lower Cabinets

18 months ago, I painted the insides of the upper kitchen cabinets.  Well, all but two small ones.  I was going to finish the job this spring, then botched my knee doing Passover cleaning and couldn't kneel for months.  But the floor looked amazing!

The stars finally aligned.  I had the time, motivation, and health simultaneously.  I didn't have to do any major cooking for the two days I expected things to be chaos.  It was time to empty the cabinets and break out the paint.

I quickly found out that the main source of procrastination was emptying the cabinets.  It was way more stuff than when I had done the uppers.  It took almost an hour, including the time carrying it to the spare room.  I have a lot of kitchen gadgets, small appliances, and pots.  Drawers came out without emptying, which saved a lot of time.  And once I could really see inside everywhere I wanted to paint, I realized how disgusting some of it was.  There was even debris from the last kitchen remodel 16 years ago.  I would have to clean first.  Still doable in two days.  Paint prep always takes longer than the painting itself, and I did not plan to do a perfectionist job.

The next day I did the cleaning and spackling part in an hour.  Had an early lunch while everything was drying, then did a primer of Killz to cover the stains.  That took roughly 90 minutes.  Killed a couple of hours watching shows, then went at it for a first coat.  Another hour.  By then, it was too late to do another coat and I cleaned up for the night.

In the morning, I evaluated the job.  It was better than I expected.  Not perfect, but good enough for something no one really sees.  The two little upper cabinets that I had forgotten about last year and the two below them were the only things that needed another coat.  I just had to put in new shelf paper and could start putting the kitchen back together.

I was hoping to declutter far more than I did.  A small box is going to the thrift store, and a bunch of containers went into recycling.  The good news is I actually use everything in the kitchen.

I think this is the last closet or cabinet painting project on my list.  I can stop contorting myself into ever smaller spaces.  And I'm very glad it only took a couple of days!