Faux Painting Tips for Kitchen Cabinets
Kitchen cabinets aren't just a place hold cans and jars. They can also be decorative showcases, allowing you to experiment with decor ideas. ``Faux'' painting is way of putting special visual effects on the cabinets, to suggest age, distress and other finishes that are more interesting than plain old paint or stain. Generally, you achieve faux effects by mixing your paint with glaze, a thick milky-clear liquid that makes the paint opaque and gives it a little more body to allow it to be worked in interesting ways.
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Prepare the Cabinet
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Whatever kind of glazing you're going to do, there are certain preparation steps you'll need to take in advance. Remove the knobs and other hardware from the cabinet. (One exception is the hinges, if you want to leave the doors on, which is generally easier than taking them off for painting projects.) Use a paint scraper to scrape off any loose paint from the cabinet. If your project requires a bare-wood base, use paint stripper to take off all the paint. Even if you don't have to strip the cabinet to bare wood, use 120-grit sandpaper to buff the surface so there are no shiny parts, which will help your finishes adhere.
Pick Your Technique
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There is a wide range of techniques to use with glaze and other faux paint materials. One popular one is ``antiquing,'' in which you apply light-colored glaze all over a bare-wood cabinet, then wipe it away from the flat spans while letting it stay in the corners and lines, which gives the impression of an old finish that's partly worn away. ``Distressing'' cabinets is a similar method in which the excess glaze is pulled off the wood with a dry bristle brush or putty knife, leaving lines and crosshatch marks that give the impression the cabinet has been battered over the years. (Smack it lightly in a few places with a hammer to complete the illusion.) ``Crackling'' requires a special glaze that you lay between two differently layered colors of paint. Chemicals in the glaze cause the top layer to split into wide cracks, giving a peek at the lower layer.
Seal Your Art
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Whatever method you choose to use on the cabinet, it will have to be sealed against moisture and stain that's always a danger in the kitchen. After the glaze dries completely (usually 24 hours, but see the instructions), use a brush to lay a thin, even coat of clear polyurethane gloss over the whole thing. Let the gloss dry for a day, then buff it lightly with 220-grit sandpaper and gloss it again.
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