Painting Kitchen Cabinets & A Tip For Storing Paint Brushes

My house is in shambles as I have several home improvement projects going on at once. In every room something comes up that puts that project on hold for awhile. Two of the bedrooms are waiting for my husband to fix the wiring (I DO NOT do electrical! Besides, Shelby has a degree in electronics that needs to be put to use every now and then. :-) ), one has spackle drying because whoever put up the drywall decided not to tape the seams so we have big cracks in the walls that have to be fixed before painting, and the list goes on and on.

So while I am waiting on all of those things, I decided to tackle the project that I have been putting off for weeks: painting the kitchen cabinets. I wanted to change the hardware which also meant moving them from the odd center of door placement. To cover up the places where the old holes had been patched, it would require painting them which I kind of wanted to do anyway to brighten things up. The only problem is the ridiculous amount of coats it takes before the wood grain no longer shows through the paint.

I started out with Behr Premium Plus Enamel Undercoater Primer & Sealer. Unfortunately, I have put on three coats and though it is kind of hard to tell in the pictures, the wood grain still shows through:

So we picked up Zinsser B-I-N Shellac Base Primer & Ultimate Stain Sealer and tried it on a different side. It is extremely watery but that seems to make it soak in and seal it better. So far, it is pretty promising. Here it is after one coat:

And after the second coat:

I am hoping to be able to put a coat of the Behr Primer over this and be ready to paint after that. We will see how it goes. If anyone knows of some miracle primer that would work for this, PLEASE let me know! I am really dreading putting half a dozen coats of primer and paint on all of these cabinets!

Now my tip for storing paint brushes in between uses: put them in ziploc baggies!

I know it seems kind of obvious, but I never knew it would work this well. I had once heard that you can freeze brushes in between use and it does work but you have to make sure nothing touches them while you are waiting for them to freeze, then they take up space in your freezer, and lastly you have to wait for them to thaw before you use them again. I can't remember where I heard about using ziploc bags but I am so thankful because it works so much better.

I think I may take a break from the home improvement projects and work on some crafty stuff the next couple of days. I'm getting tired of all of these unfinished projects and need something that can be completed quickly and give me some instant gratification. :-)

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting Polish The Stars.