Use This Genius Clothes Hanger Hack To Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets With Ease

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By Jacqueline Delibes/Nov. 4, 2023 7:30 am EST

Whether you're on a kitchen renovation jag to satisfy your own creativity or are plotting to put your home on the market, doing a stellar DIY cabinet paint job is wonderfully satisfying. DIY tips abound on social media platforms — it's smart to gather best practices so you can prep thoroughly. Protect your floors, furniture, and yourself, and prime any surfaces sufficiently. Then, look to this painting hack that involves suspending your kitchen cabinets in mid-air by screwing in cup hooks and hanging them from suit hangers. The trick allows you to spin the hanger around to coat the entire cabinet using a sprayer. And unencumbered air drying makes the whole process easier.

Top-level pros are expensive because delivering impeccable work is an involved, multi-step process. But you can do it if you don't skip any steps! Aside from removing the cabinets before painting them, which is a necessity if you're going to DIY it, plan to use a spray painter rather than brushes or rollers — which can leave behind a textured look. Also, to get that gorgeous professional finish, pick a stunning kitchen cabinet color, but make sure it's a water-based lacquer for your sprayer, not paint.

How to use clothes hangers for cabinet painting

@thenightingalehall
Replying to @whydidtictocdeleteme how to paint a cabinet door in 30 seconds 🤗 We had a lot of doors to paint, and I wanted to get a smooth finish on them so we had to use a spray gun. Attaching hooks to your cabinet pieces and hanging them to paint speeds things up a TON and helps prevent mistakes while painting your cabinetry. No badly painted cabinets here! After youre finished painting, you just remove the hooks and either fill in the hole with wood filler or compound ~or~ you can just paint over it (but this works better when your hole is completely hidden, like near the foor). Our cabinets are painted in dark shades so the hole will be completely invisible! This method would work for unpainted cabinets as well as painted cabinets that need repainted. My only recommendation is to use really sturdy hangers as cabinetry tends to be quite heavy. But if done right this should speed up your workflow and give you a smooth, professional-quality result! #diykitchenremodel #paintedcabinets #budgetkitchenmakeover #historichome #renovationtok
♬ Like The Seasons - Onra

For this, you'll need a rack, such as a garment rack, from which you'll hang your doors, 1-inch cup hooks, suit hangers, wood filler, a power drill, and your spray painter and lacquer. Also, your lungs will thank you for fitting an industrial strength mask over your nose and mouth. First, cleaning, sanding, and priming your cabinet doors is crucial. Then, drill two holes a ½-inch deep, 2 inches from each edge of the bottom of the cabinet, and insert your cup hooks. Hang your cabinet on the hanger and go to town, swiveling the hanger to spray both sides. Once dry, remove the hooks, fill the holes with wood filler, and voila! For great results, take care to avoid typical spray painting mistakes.

Additionally, having individual Ziploc bags to organize all the cabinet hardware and door pulls you're about to dismantle will be your best friends in this process. On a photo printout, you might label your cabinets by number. Then, keep hinges labeled "top" or "bottom" and cabinet pulls in a baggie labeled with the cabinet number. Another excellent organizational tool is to draw an arrow pointing up on the top inside of the cabinet door to remind you which side is the top. If you have two rows of cabinets, you might also write "T" or "B" to indicate the top or bottom row. Finally, over your Sharpie marks with painter's tape so it won't get painted over!