Breathe new life into your old pickled cabinets.
Pickling, a two-toned decorative painting effect, involves applying a thinned enamel wash over a solid coat of paint. If you have white pickled cabinets, you can paint over them. First, you will need to clean the cabinets thoroughly, remove the top layer of finish coat and prime wood surfaces so paint will adhere.
Instructions
1. Take out the cabinet drawers and remove the cabinet doors and all hardware, using the screwdriver.
2. Combine trisodium phosphate (TSP) with water in a bucket according to the ratio prescribed on the container. TSP is available at hardware stores and home improvement centers.
3. Scrub the cabinet base, doors and drawer fronts with the TSP mixture and a nylon scrubber to remove grime and grease. Wipe clean with soft rags. Let the cabinets dry completely.
4. Sand the pickled cabinets with 120-grit sandpaper or a sanding sponge. All you have to do is remove the sheen or the gloss from the surface so the paint will adhere.
5. Tape off adjacent walls with painter's tape and cover the floor with a dropcloth.
6. Brush on a thin coat of wood primer made specifically for use with wood enamel. Use a quality paintbrush that does not leave obvious brush marks. Cover all pickled surfaces of the cabinets and let the primer coat dry.
7. Apply a coat of wood enamel to primed surfaces, using a quality brush and working on one door or drawer front at a time. On the cabinet base, paint from the top of the base downward, blending in the brush strokes as you go. Brush in the direction of the wood grain.
8. Keep a "wet edge." This means that--to prevent lap marks--you should not let an area of paint dry before applying paint beside it. Paint an entire section or board at one time.
9. Feather out your brush strokes, using just the tips of the paintbrush bristles and softly pulling the tips along the wet paint in long, uniform strokes.
10. Let the first coat of enamel dry completely, then check the surface for rough patches. If you find any, use a 400-grit sandpaper to polish the surface lightly without removing any of the new enamel.
11. Add one or more additional thin coats of enamel, using the same painting method. Feather out the brush strokes carefully.
12. Allow the enamel to dry completely before reinstalling the cabinet doors and drawers and attaching hinges and hardware.
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