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I am going to help my daughter and son-in-law redo their kitchen cabinets and we are planning to paint them. They are an ugly dark wood now and we wanted to paint and glaze them to lighten up the kitchen. I would like to get the look of the glazed cabinets sold by Kraft etc. Do you think this is possible for a do it yourselfer? We want them to look good and don't mind how much work or time it takes. Anyone had any experience they can share either good or bad?
Bonnie
Do you have a particular Kraft Maid finish that you want to mimic? They've got a number of different ones and some are probably going to be easier to recreate on your own than others.
Here's a thread from my kitchen re-do where I was trying to mimic one of their finishes where the cabinets are cream colored with more of a coffee/espresso glaze around the raised parts. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/801789/ How I did it was cleaned/sanded/primed (as you should do no matter what finish you're trying for), then I did 2 coats of latex semi-gloss in the cream color that I wanted. Then I got a mocha colored glaze and brushed that onto the raised areas, brushing on more or wiping it off to get the effect I wanted. Then I finished it all up with a coat of semi-gloss polyurethane. They turned OK although I'm not 100% happy with them--I think if I were to do it again I would paint a mocha colored paint underneath, then paint the cream over it and sand off the top cream coat to expose the mocha color. I think this would have given me a little better control over how the brown looked.
I have been practicing on an old cabinet door and haven't gotten the look I wanted yet. What kind of glaze did you use. I have tried different colors by mixing paint to clear glaze about 4 to 1. I am afraid I will ruin their cabinets and they will hate me! :O)
A dear friend helped me do mine about 8 years ago and I really like them. We dry brushed a diluted brown paint over a cream base. The results we ended up getting were kind of an accident and I don't think I could do it again if I tried.
Thanks for your help. I have been seeing your name on lots of forums and you are so generous with your help and seem to know so much about alot of things. You must be a very busy involved woman! I just retired in September and am trying to figure out how to best use all of this free time.
The glaze I used was a premixed mocha colored glaze that I bought at Lowes--I think it was Valspar brand but I'm not sure. It was in their decorative painting/faux finish section. And don't worry about messing it up, all you have to do is paint over it if you don't like how it turns out! Cabinets can look very nice just plain cream/off-white colored, just dress them up with some pretty handles and they'll look fine if the glazing part doesn't give you the look you want. Good luck with your project! Painting cabinets is quite time consuming so I don't think you'll have to worry about too much free time while you're working on it! I did mine over the holidays last year, it was the only time I had a decent number of days in a row off from work and it took up quite a lot of my time that week.
