Other Tips

I've also learned to wet the brush with water before painting. I used to have a problem with paint getting stuck way up in the bristles and drying that way. Wetting the brush seems to help with the clean up. Jason used bungee cords to hang the brushes to dry. So far this has kept the brushes from spreading out and getting stray bristles.

This may be way too much information for you and hopefully you'll never have to paint as much as we have.

Some of my Favorites

I wanted to share with you some of my favorite painting tools. The brush I've used to paint all of the trim is the Purdy angled 2". It's wonderful for cutting in too. I'm not sure what this other handy tool is called but it's great for cleaning the brush with the tooth edge. The curved edge can be used to wash out rollers (which is my least favorite thing about cleaning up!)

Speaking of cleaning rollers, why do it if you don't have to? I saw this trick on a DIY show. If you're going to use the roller again just store it in the fridge. I keep mine in plastic bags. This is just for latex paint though. And the roller of choice for us is the Wooster Pro Classic 3/8".

I've mentioned the paint colors we're using from Sherwin Williams, but the actual brand is called Cashmere Low-lustre. It's been wonderful to work with, some of the best I've ever used! It goes on smooth (like cashmere, haha) and doesn't leave roller lines.

Painting Cabinets

Finally we're able to paint the cabinets. I put the first coat on today! We're using oil based paint which is not fun to work with, but is the most durable. Sherwin Williams Pro Classic was recommended and the color is Wool Skein. I smell like mineral spirits after working with this all day :) I'm attempting to paint the drawers without removing them. It will go a lot faster this way. I keep a cloth with mineral spirits handy and use it to wipe off any paint that gets where I don't want it. So far so good...

Here's a look at the trim Jason installed. It's all coming together nicely. The final step will be to glaze the cabinets. The color we're considering tinting the glaze is a brown, maybe SW Van Dyke Brown.

I believe I mentioned this in a previous post, but we installed beadboard on the sides of the cabinets. Jason trimmed it out so the cut side of the beadboard wouldn't show. Basically the trim framed the beadboard. On some cabinets you can use a corner piece to take care of this problem but our cabinet doors come all the way to the edge so we couldn't use the corner piece. Just thought I'd mention this solution in case you're faced with the same type of cabinets.