Adding Painted Cabinets in a Laundry Room

Today I am sharing the latest update in our laundry room, where I recently added cabinetry above our washer dryer. I wanted to show you how you can easily add affordable cabinets in any space simply by using unfinished stock cabinets and painting them with the HomeRight Super Finish Max paint sprayer.

Our laundry room has come so far over the last few months. Here's a look back at the before, when we basically had walls, a washer /dryer, and a practically useless metal shelf. I know not everyone cares as much about a utilitarian space like a laundry room, but when you spend as much time doing laundry as I do, I think it matters!

Above you can see where we started, an empty space that held our washer and dryer. Last fall I showed you how we built this easy folding shelf to go over our washer and dryer. . Once we wrapped that up, the next project was to add some cabinets above the shelf so I could store extra detergent and other household items out of sight. Since this is not a public space and is just a laundry room after all, this was not a project I had a big budget for.

I used inexpensive, stock wood cabinets from our local home improvement store, which were just what I needed for a utilitarian room like this. I knew that I'd change the color, because a little paint can go a long way not to mention the room needed some brightening up!

I used the leftover paint from another project and the color is Boothbay Gray by Benjamin Moore which is a pretty pale blue/gray. On one not-too-cold day we had recently, I popped open my HomeRight Medium Spray Shelter in my garage and got out my HomeRight Super Finish Max Paint Sprayer. As the cabinets came unfinished, I didn't even need to prep them other than a quick wipe down for dust.

Spraying cabinets in this manner goes very fast. I sprayed on several coats, letting the paint dry well in between and keeping a close eye out for drips. If you have time, I think that the fail-safe method of painting cabinets would have included taking the doors off the cabinet and laying them down on the floor (elevated from the drop cloth) to paint for best results. I did have to watch more carefully for paint drips in this situation but it worked out fine this way too.

I gave each cabinet two coats of paint on the outside and sides. I didn't paint the inside as the laminate coating on them that makes it impossible for paint to adhere. They dried for a few hours in between coats, then we moved them inside to cure for about a week until they were hung. We got them installed and now my laundry room really feels like a finished space.

Eventually we will add molding at the top of the cabinets and tile the floor, that is the next round of projects but for now getting laundry done is so much easier.

I can't stress enough that this is not a hard project. The key is having a top quality paint sprayer like the Finish Max which makes it easy to get a factory-looking paint finish on furniture, cabinets or a wood surface. I was a little apprehensive about using such inexpensive cabinets but the paint makes all the difference in the world, plus the hardware jazzes them up too.

To see more about our laundry room and other DIY projects, please visit us at 11 Magnolia Lane.