"Glaze Craze" or "Don't Stress the 'Distressing'" ..Ha!

Thanks so much for your patience in waiting for a post about how I painted/glazed my bathroom cabinets.

First, I need to say that my existing cabinets were already painted so It was pretty easy to just add a coat of paint and then glaze. If your cabinets are wood then you'll need to go through a process that's a little more involved. You can read this post a did a while back about painting the uhh-gly honey oak cabinets in my old kitchen. You would follow that process prior to glazing.

So here's how I painted/glazed my bathroom cabinets. I promise it isn't hard. Seriously, if you can paint you can glaze.

You'll need the following:

Primer (optional)

A can of your base paint color (I used Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue)

A can of glaze mixed with paint (I used the Ralph Lauren brand from Home Depot)

Good Paint Brushes (I used a 1-1/2 inch brush with an angled tip)

Foam Roller

Lint Free Cotton Rags (I bought a package from Home Depot, but a clean old t-shirt would work too)

PREP WORK

Step 1: Clean the cabinets really well. I just used a little dish soap and water, and let it dry completely before painting. You just want to make sure you don't have any dust, grime, grease, hairspray, etc, etc on the cabinets when you paint them.

Step 2-3: Ideally you remove your doors from the cabinet base and prime with a good primer (like Gripper or BIN). I wasn't nearly patient enough to do either of those things, though, so I skipped these steps. I know...I'm such a rebel aren't I :-).

PAINTING YOUR BASE COLOR

Step 4: Paint your base color onto the cabinets. I used Benjamin Moore Wythe Blue (although Stratton Blue would have looked great too....it's a shade darker). I did 2 coats, waiting 4-6 hours between coats. I also used a good paintbrush for the detailed areas (I must emphasize the importance of a good paintbrush...it will help avoid brush strokes!) and I used a small foam roller for the flat areas.

Step 5: I let my paint dry 24 hours before applying the glaze. When painting cabinets (and any other furniture) dry time is key. I KNOW how hard it is to be patient, but allowing the paint to dry (or "cure") completely will save you many headaches in the future.

APPLYING THE GLAZE

I used a Ralph Lauren glaze mixed at Home Depot. They mixed the glaze with a color called Tobacco. I really should have gone a little lighter with the glaze color, but it's not the end of the world. Ideally, your glaze should be darker than your base color, but not super dark. You want it to be dark enough for there to be an obvious difference, but not so dark that the difference screams at you. I hope that makes sense.

Step 6: Use one of those good paint brushes you bought (because you're soooo obedient) and brush the glaze on in small sections. It dries quickly so you don't want to apply the glaze to too big of an area at once. Oh, and a word of advice...once you paint the glaze on and see brown slime over your cabinets you could panic and say "Oh my gosh, I just ruined my newly painted cabinets!" Don't worry, most of it will come off!

Step 7: Use a lint free cotton rag to wipe the glaze off. Gently wipe off most of the glaze, but leave just enough to show a bit of a patina. You'll leave a little more glaze on in detailed areas like edges, and around trim. Keep in mind, the glaze usually dries just a tad darker than it looks when you're working with it. So keep that in the back of your cute little brain when you're deciding how much glaze to leave on. Your goal is to have a patina and some depth. You DON'T want to make your cabinets look dirty, and leaving too much glaze on will make them look dirty.

So the glazing process in a nutshell is: 1) paint on glaze in a small section; 2) wipe off most of it immediately leaving just enough for a patina; 3) move on to next small section....and ta da! You're done! See...I told you it wasn't hard.

I hope this was helpful. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions! Oh, and I PROMISE I'll show you more of my bathroom soon. I still have to put paint cans, hammers, and a whole bunch of junk away. Ahhh...the magic of photography :-).