Today was the day! The weather is perfect, no rain, no wind. It was time to get those cabinets outside to paint them. We put clear plastic on the driveway and with sawhorses, ladders, buckets and 2x4s, we got everything ready to paint. 

 

But first, we sanded all of the inside of the drawers which are the same crappy contact paper junk. We also used the compressor to bow out any sawdust from the grain in the cabinet fronts. Then we filled in most of the cabinet/drawer fronts with Bondo to get rid of as much of the deep grain as we could. Then we sanded that down with 80 grit, then with 320 grit until it was baby-bum smooth. Then we blew all if the dust off with the air compressor. Just to make sure, we rubbed the tack cloth over it all. 

We used the Kilz primer for the insides and sides of the drawers. As well add the shelves that go inside the cabinets. (Remember, primer is for surfaces that haven't been painted before.) We applied it using our new paint sprayer. We thinned it just slightly with paint thinner. Ryan's uncle taught us a cool trick to know how much thinner to use when using a sprayer. First you stir up the paint or primer. Then you lift the stir stick up and watch the paint stream of the stick. And you count one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four. Your paint/thinner should "stream" for your 1,2,3 cobra but by one thousand four it should start to drip. This is real technical, you see. But this trick really works! So, that's what we did with our Kilz primer and paint thinner. I poured a couple cups of the primer into a separate container and added the thinner about one tablespoon at a time.  Then once I had the perfect consistency, I poured it through a paint filter into the sprayer cup.

Then it was time to tackle the cabinets. My goal for today was to have the cabinet backs primed and sanded twice and painted. Same with the drawers and shelves. So that in the morning I could flip them over and start on the fronts. EPIC GOAL FAIL! Remember the Sherwood lacquer undercoat? The product that I love so much?! Well I still love it, but for awhile today I loathed it! I put that lacquer into my sprayer. It worked for about 20 seconds. Then I thought maybe I needed to add paint thinner to it. Hey guess what!? Did you know if you use a lacquer, you should use a lacquer thinner not paint thinner. Who knew. Seems logical, but I am an idiot. But see I didn't realize this until after I added the paint thinner, and by this point the lacquer had already dried on the sides of my sprayer cup. So I sent the hubby to Sherwin Williams to pick up lacquer thinner. I pulled apart the sprayer cleaned it all out and then mixed the Sherwood laquer undercoat and lacquer thinner together like I did earlier with the Kilz. But guess what else! This made the lacquer dry even faster in the cup. I was livid. I didn't swear, but I REALLY wanted to. So, round two of pulling apart the sprayer and cleaning it thoroughly. I was losing daylight by this point. Like, within minutes. So, I just resorted to the ol' roller and handle and just rolled the undercoat on the back of the cabinets and drawers. I only got one coat on there and that sunshine was gone about 3 minutes later! My goal was not met, but hopefully tomorrow. 

Here is a picture of them all primed. Bad picture, but you get the idea. 

Glad today is over.