The paint I chose for this project was Benjamin Moore’s Advance, a waterborne alkyd. It’s a latex paint that acts like an oil based paint. I first cleaned the cabinets with TSP and then sanded with fine sandpaper to scuff up the surface before painting. I wiped off all the sanding dust and then painted. On the upper cabinets and doors that were new, unfinished wood, I first primed with BM Fresh Start primer. When I ran out of BM primer I used what I had, Kilz.

I applied the paint with Purdy brushes and sanded between coats with a sanding block.

BM claims that Advance paint is easy to clean up with soap and water, has low VOCs,  outstanding flow, and  is self leveling. It’s low odor and available in unlimited tinted colors and dries to a hard durable finish.

My experience has been that it is easy to clean up with soap and water, but not on your skin. I tweeted about cleaning my hands after using Advance and someone suggested using a magic eraser. It worked great. Magic eraser was the only way to get it off my hands. I definitely didn’t want to use smelly turpentine.

The flow of the paint was fine with the proper amount of paint on the brush, but the leveling was hard to get right. I have a definite love/hate relationship with this paint. It was hard for me to determine the right amount of paint to put on the brush. Too little made brush marks and streaks and too much left sagging and brush marks. A small roller left an orange peel look. You can’t brush back over it or it will gunk up.  I wish I had researched paint techniques for using Advance before I started painting. I’ve since found youtube videos on brush techniques when using Advance and lots of mixed reviews.  Seems I’m not the only one who had problems getting a streak free finish with this paint which claims to be self leveling.

As far as odor, I didn’t really notice much at all.

This is how it looks as it’s drying. The streaks almost look like they are raising up, but they do level out a bit.

I call this the orange peel finish.

It doesn’t look that bad in person. Thank goodness! And the finish is tough after it cures. There’s a definite leaning curve and I got better as I got further into the project. Some areas are perfect and others are not.

Progress continues a little every day and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We decided to add another set of doors on the pantry wall and I’m excited about the extra storage space. There are a couple of doors to finish and then the cabinet painting is finished! Yippee! I still have to touch up the walls where the blue tape failed. I finished up the project with Frog tape after that.

Chugging along but Almost done!

As far as Benjamin Moore Advance paint, it’s hard to work with so I honestly don’t think I’d use it again.

Thanks for visiting! Debra (((xx)))