Stripping Kitchen Cabinets Tutorial

For the last few weeks I have been slowly working on redoing our kitchen. I am starting with stripping our cabinets so I thought I would do a tutorial on stripping paint and show you the before pictures of our kitchen. Here's what the room looks like now. (Ignore the missing cabinet doors on the left. I got a little too excited about stripping paint that I removed them before I took a proper before picture).

View from the living room

I will admit that I was, in fact, the one who picked out the......Bold? Daring? Ok, hideous colors. I was in my early 20's when we purchased our house and being young and not having quite figured out my style yet, I had the great idea of going with a chili pepper/tabasco theme. I had found some orange, green and gold plates and a brightly colored chili pepper table runner. I used those colors for the walls and cabinets. The plates and runner were the perfect pop of color for the kitchen. It was overkill with the walls and cabinets. Lesson learned.

Our walls and counters are very empty and boring right now. We sold all of our decor at our yard sale in July.

View from the back door

Ok onto the paint stripping. I'm stripping the cabinets just to repaint them. I know it seems like a waste of time. Why not just paint over the orange, right? There are already so many coats of paint on the doors that they don't close all the way. I wanted to do it right and start fresh, so here we go!

To start, you'll need to find yourself what I like to call a good stripping station. Mine happens to be an old fish pond with a piece of plywood on top. So fancy! It's nice and sturdy and provides a large working space.

Next, you'll need paint stripper....duh! :) I got mine at Home Depot for about $8.00. 

You'll also need a chip brush, a scraper, a steel wool brush for any nooks and crannies, and a pair of gloves.

Don't forget something to put the scraped paint into. A paper box lid works great!

The instructions say to pour the stripper into a metal container and brush it on. I'm too impatient for that, so I pour small puddles directly onto the door and quickly brush it around. 

After 15-20 minutes the paint should start to look like this. 

Time to start scraping!!!

Sorry, don't know why this picture is sideways???

 Here are the doors after one coat of stripper. I typically only have to do two coats. I strip the paint until there is only a thin film of paint left, if that makes sense. I stop with the coats when I can see wood underneath the film of paint. At that point, it's stripped enough that a good sanding with an electric sander will take care of the rest. 

After the second coat (see how you can see the wood?) I take my steel wool brush and brush off any remaining globs of stripped paint. I also use the brush to get in good along the edges and corners. 

And here's a cabinet door after it's been stripped and sanded. Let me know if you have any other questions!

The DIY Club