Here we go! Finally, the end result of the cabinet door, Plan A version. It looks pretty good!

You may recall that we originally had to vote to decide which Drillbit Art pattern we would use. The winner was the bird!

So I eagerly got started, sanding and priming, in Painting Your Kitchen Cabinets – Part One .

And I showed you how to do a bird design via secret Remodeling Guy methods, hereafter known as Drillbit Art .

What happened next was a surprise to everyone including myself! I got frustrated with some brush marks and decided to try something new. We spray painted the cabinet door with good old spray paint.

That was plan B. If you haven’t seen that post, you ought to take a look because the results were pretty darn good. And the door we did is holding up great!

Back To Plan A

Well, I had already started the door and committed to give it to the lucky winner of the giveaway! I was determined to get it looking nice one way, or another. So after the paint dried I took a good look.

It wasn’t so bad. Both the initial problem (brush marks), and the fact that it came out nicely had a whole lot to do with the fact that I was using a matte flat paint. The winner specified that she didn’t want a sheen to the finish so I went with flat.

Flat never paints that smoothly on woodwork (with a brush) and I knew that, but those brush marks made me crazy! The good news is that flat doesn’t show the brush marks as much. Even so, the door had to be lightly sanded again and another coat applied, for a total of three coats. That was a TON of work for one little door.

The finish looks pretty nice, but you can still see some brush marks.

Even the area around the bird, and the large flat surface of the raised panel wound-up looking pretty smooth. I had to hit some of the bird holes with the drill a second time because paint had gotten in them, but that was easy.

The Verdict?

I don’t know. Based solely on the evidence I SEE, from my experience with this project, given the choice…seems like spray paint to me. But read the comments on that last post before you try it.

I call you guys The Crew for a reason. I consider this a team effort and many of the comments had good points, both for and against the spray paint. The hand painted method worked out fine too.

The Important Thing

It’s really not super critical HOW you paint your cabinets. The important thing is that you DO paint your cabinets if you don’t like them now! Both of the “average Joe” friendly methods I’ve shown are bound to have a mistake or two. But just remember the words of a wise friend….

It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Just go for it! You’ll be glad you did. One really important bit of advice is this… whatever method you choose, practice on something small first! Get good at in in a bathroom or on a small piece of furniture, then go for the gusto.

If you haven’t seen it already, take a look at the post about the Spring Round-Up. I’m going to give you all a chance to show off your work, painting or otherwise, on May 1st.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What do you think of the finish on the Plan A door? Has anyone tried to spray paint? One reader did try and had problems, anyone else?

(I thought of one more thing and added it in the comments… lucky me, I was the first comment!)

Yesterday, I wrote about the sanding and priming portion of repainting cabinets. Today, I’m going to show you how to do this:

Making the bird pattern was so much fun I decided it should be a hole post!

Make A Pattern

I started off by taking a picture of the door I wanted to work with, then pasted that picture into a Photoshop File that was set to the exact real size of the door, about 13″ wide x 18″ tall. This allowed me to get a good visual representation of what the finished product would look like and easily adjust scale.

I also have designs in Photoshop for a coffee cup and a flamingo. I think I’ll be doing them both on something else very soon! I really like the way this looks! So, I was then able to print out a hole pattern in the exact size I wanted to do in real life. The pattern really makes this easy!

Simply place the pattern on the door where you want it and tape it down.

Then grab a hammer and a good sharp nail or a screw with a good point.

A single solid strike with the hammer in the center of each dot punches through the paper and creates a nice indent in the wood, clearly marking the pattern. A smallish hammer helps avoid using too much force.

This is what it looks like when all the holes are punched and the pattern is removed:

It looks almost done already!

If the first step is done properly, the part with the drill is much easier, because the point of the drill bit will rest inside the recess created by your punch. I used a small bit, about 1/8″ thick. It’s only necessary to drill about 1/4″ deep to get the desired look.

After all the holes are drilled, I sanded the surface lightly to knock off any little rough edges around the holes, then ran shop vac over the holes to remove any dust inside them. Don’t want that to come out right when the paint is wet.

And that was it! Just prime and paint carefully to avoid filling the holes with paint and you’re all set! (I wasn’t worried about the inside of the holes, but you could paint that with an artists brush if you want to seal the wood completely.) After it was primed, it looked great:

I’m going to include the exact pattern I used for this as a free download in the April Newsletter, coming up in just about a week!

To learn about the painting process, take a look at yesterday’s post:

Painting Kitchen Cabinets Part 1 – Sanding and Priming

So… what do you think? Like it?

That’s a song right? I mean, there is a jingle in my head to go along with that line, so somewhere in space and time I’ve been exposed to a song that goes Bird, Bird, Bird, bird is the word… Somebody tell me what it is!

The Votes Are In

And the winner is:

The Bird!

So, as promised, I will be making a cabinet door I have to look just like this and I’ll paint it a color of the winner’s choice! You’ll love the pictures and I’ll show you a great easy method for painting your cabinets!

Tammy, you’re the winner and I know you’re watching, so please contact me by email and I’ll go over color with you and find out where to ship your finished door!

I’ll probably do something with the other two designs as well! I really like them both very much. I actually thought the Flamingo would win! I was a little off… maybe y’all don’t like pink as much as I thought. Maybe I should be giving away a teal tool belt instead to the Pink Toolbelt Giveaway. (I know, I know,  the door isn’t teal, somebody name the color for me)

Thanks to all for playing!

Take a look at this! My wonderful wife, Kim, found it!

I thought it would be a funny story to hear what happens when your husband comes home and finds you painting your cabinets a bright color.

Well, I think this one would be even better! He comes home and you’re mad at it with the cordless drill punching holes in the cabinet doors!

But, you have to admit, the look is kind of cool. I think I know one blogger in particular who would like this one!

Let’s do this…everyone and their sister and mother give me a suggestion as to a great “drillbit design” for a cabinet door and I’ll do it! I’ll drill all the holes and then do a post on “how to paint your cabinets” with it. I’ll send the door to the creative soul who chose the winning pattern!

This is going to be fun…I finally get to bring out my tools! Tell your friends!

Update - After 24 hours of great ideas, there isn’t a clear winner yet!  This whole thing was spur of the moment last night.  I think what I’ll do is pick my three favorites (in addition to the Palm Tree), Photoshop up renditions of them, then put them up for a vote to decide the winner! 

I have a smallish solid maple cabinet door that I’m going to use for this and we’re going to paint it very nice!  I’ll even let the winner pick the color!  This will be something you’ll want in your house!  I’m going to keep this giveaway open for another few days to see what other great ideas we get….simple designs have a better chance!

Use the ShareThis button below to spread the word!