Project 2016 -- Florida or Bust: Kitchen Makeover Day Five

What do nails, plastic wrap, and toothpicks have in common? Give up? They are all things that can make your painting easier.

As you can see, I have started painting the cabinets. When I first opened the can of paint, my first thought was, "Oh, this is way too light and way to grey." But I had to remind myself that it is a two step color process which includes a brown glaze which will warm up and darken the look. So for now I choose to not panic. But what I would like to talk about is some things that can make painting easier that were not necessarily made for painting.

Before you start sloshing paint around, one trick is to take a hammer and nail and punch at least 4 holes around the rim of the paint can. These holes will be under the lid when the lid is on. When you pour paint from the paint can, there is always paint that ends up in this crevice. The holes allow the paint to drain from this crevice and back into the paint can when you push the lid back on. Without these holes, you often end up with paint being squeezed out and over the edge making an even bigger mess than when you poured the paint.

Kitchen plastic wrap that you use to keep food from drying out in the refrigerator also keeps your brush and paint tray (paper plate) from drying out during a lunch break. In dry areas, latex based paint can start drying pretty quickly. A long lunch is enough to end up with a thickened layer on your paint and hard to clean paint brush. In the past, plastic wrap has even kept paint and paint brush wet enough for me overnight.

Sometimes when painting over small holes where hardware needs to be replaced, the hole gets covered with paint. Using a toothpick, you can easily
clear the hole of the paint. You can use other things too, like pencil tips, nails etc. But I have always found toothpicks to be plentiful and always available in a kitchen.




Happy painting!!