How to Chalk Paint Kitchen Cabinets – 4 Month Update

We painted our kitchen with Annie Sloan’s chalk paint last fall, a bit over 4 months ago, and I thought I would share a quick update with ya on how they were wearing!  (You can see exactly how I first painted them here.)

How to Chalk Paint Kitchen Cabinets, a 4 Month Update

First up I am impressed with the wear and tear they’ve taken regarding abuse by kids.  Our 4 kiddos are not gentle with anything and the cabinets definitely don’t get it easy.  The kids are responsible for loading and unloading the dishwasher daily and you can imagine the amount of banging and dinging they do with pots and pans, etc.   Having said that we did have some chipping around the most heavily used base doors and drawers.  (garbage doors, silverware, pots and pans cabinet, etc)

This is NOT the fault of the chalk paint.  I had decided to go against their directions and do a spray on finish.  As I opted to mix water with the sealer for all 3 coats (see the post here!).  They recommend doing the first coat mixed with water and then a subsequent full strength coat.

This was when I initially sprayed them

I knew that this would be somewhat experimental as I opted not to roller on a full strength coat so I was willing to deal with any issues that might arise from not following the instructions.

Since we had some chipping on the most used areas we decided to go ahead and try out touch ups followed up by 2 full strength coats of finish.  (I still had some leftover of both)  And like a terrible blogger, I forgot to take pics to show you some of the chipping.

We covered the counter with a plastic sheet and then busted out the Antoinette chalk paint along with the clear gloss laquer.

It was easy!  First, we washed everything down really well.  Which is another thing I want to mention, the cleanability has been phenomenal.  Absolutely no issues wiping things down with a wet cloth.

Then I snagged a cabinet paint roller and and a small brush.  I went around touching up the areas with the chips all the way around the base.  Shockingly the fridge doors only had 2 tiny spots.  As it was drying it was easy to gently brush it with my finger to get a smooth finish and blend it into the rest of the paint.

We removed the knobs, washed them down and got crackin.  We left them in place just pulled them out/opened them to get all the edges and the fronts.

Then we went back with fresh rollers and applied 2 coats of the clear gloss Annie Sloan laquer.  It’s incredibly dry here so by the time we made our way all the way around we could go back and apply the second lighter coat.

I made sure to be diligent about getting nice coverage on those areas that I had touched up, as they get the most banging on them.  I must say, they feel like they have a really solid finish now.

Here is the finished product!  We did all the base drawers and doors.

It takes 2 weeks to fully cure so we will be extra careful with them for awhile to let it sit and do it’s thing.  But with how simple it was to go back, touch up and do sealer I have no worries about any dings down the road.  I think we did all we could to mitigate any future chipping but realistically…..kids.  So I’m sure even with a bulletproof finish they would find a way to chip it.

This area was beat up being right next to the dishwasher.  The upper right is silverware, the upper left is cooking utensils, then glasses and bowls.  Basically this area is heavily used!

We would absolutely do this project again!  We were quoted over $6k to paint our kitchen, by doing it ourselves we saved all that money and if it involves a couple of touch ups now and again.   I’ll take it.

Have you used chalk paint for a big project like this?  What was your experience?

I always love to hear from ya so hit me up in the comments!

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