How to Touch Up Chipped Paint and Maintain Painted Cabinets
by
Thrifty Artsy Girl
(IC: blogger)
A year after painting my kitchen cabinets with Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations they still look great! For the most part. They have a couple minor chips all the way down to bare honey oak. Of course I don't want that to show and I've figured out an easy way to fix these chips.
Here is a picture of the island. It gets beat on the most and surprisingly has only one small damaged/chipped corner.
This bad boy and one small toddler (you would think we had a clumsy elephant that smashes everything in his path living here) named Jackson are the culprit for the nicks and chips. Jackson circles around the island about 50 times a day on that motorcycle and sometimes his car. So really we have put cabinet transformations to the ultimate test and in my humble opinion a couple small chips as the result of continuously running a motorcycle and other toys onto the painted surface is pretty amazing!
Here's a picture of a small chip on the cabinet door below the kitchen sink. I'll show you all how easy it is to fix this so you can't even tell it was there!
First I grabbed my paintbrush with white paint on it out of the fridge.
Before you do anything with paint you could lightly sand the chipped area with very fine sandpaper. Maybe it's because mine are glazed, but I find that I don't need to. If you don't have glazed cabinets, I would highly recommend sanding!
I let that dry for a couple minutes then I grabbed my foam brush with glaze/stain on it from the fridge (yep, I put that in the fridge too). Of course f you don't have glazed cabinets, you would skip this step.
I just put a dab of stain right over the fresh white paint and wiped it off almost immediately (just enough time to snap a picture) with cheesecloth.
Here's the finished product, before the protective clear coat of course. You can't even tell it's been repaired or that a chip was even there! It really is such an easy fix (made easier by having my brushes ready to go in the fridge!). I discovered how to repair any chipped paint on the cabinets when I was initially painting them. Before the clear coat is painted on the surface is extremely delicate. You can scratch the paint off with a fingernail. I had a couple areas that I had to fix because I was apparently reckless and handled the cabinets with wild abandon or well, who knows really, but after that I handled the cabinets with kid gloves until the clear coat was dry.As for maintenance, honestly it is the same as with unpainted cabinets. I wipe up any spills with a damp sponge. That's it, nothing special. I almost feel like painting these cabinets made them more durable because of how hard the protective clear coat dries. You can even paint on an extra clear coat and that would make your cabinets even more durable! To see more on this post check out my blog :)
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Published August 7th, 2015 5:59 PM
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4 of 9 comments
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Yvonne Smith Angus on Mar 23, 2018
I read to put them, wrapped in plastic or foil, in the freezer, but you do have to let them thaw. Think I'll try the fridge next time.
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Carol Engelmann Davenport on Nov 29, 2018
I have left a brush in the fridge for literally months(forgot it was there), and it was just fine.
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Harry Andersen on Feb 27, 2019
Buy paint brushes from the Dollar store and throw them away-no cleaning !!!!
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Frequently asked questions
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What is the name of the clear coat you used?
How can I repair divots on my hardwood kitchen floor created from accidentally dropping heavy objects like vans, lids, etc. I don’t want to replace boards since it is floored throughout the first floor. Our floor color is a light winter washed color with a light clear coat that gets many complements. Attached picture.
Thank you for any help!
Deborah T.
I painted my kitchen cabinets the exact same color as above. It has been a year now and I would like to remove some one the glaze. It looks like it has darkened more over the past year. I have went over them with dish soap and warm water to remove any dirt but that didn’t help lighten the dark areas any. Do you have any ideas?
Thanks