Spray Painting Cabinets - Yes, You Can!

I'm getting sick of the builder's grade oak cabinets that populate my bathrooms and kitchens. I've seen a lot of pins and such about repainting them, and to be honest, it seems like quite a chore. Take off hardware. Remove doors. Tape. Sand. Prime. Flip. Prime. Flip. Paint. Flip. Paint. Flip. Paint. Flip. etc. WAY too many steps to mess up.
I know the issue is getting the paint to stick to the cabinets, since they aren't new wood. Then I thought about spray paint.  This Rustoleum Metallic that I've been digging on lately seems to stick to anything.
I decided to start with the sink cabinet in the powder room, because frankly, it's the smallest project, and if this didn't work, I didn't want a huge mess on my hands. The hardware in the bathroom is like a hammered black, so I was going to go for a flat black (as opposed to glossy), but then at Home Depot I saw this:

Who knew?

Paint AND primer. Hammered. That would look cool.
So I started taping and papering. In my opinion, the only downside to spray painting is overspray.  I can't really take my sink out onto the lawn to spray paint it there. So I got my roll of kraft paper out and my tape, and got to work. Powder rooms are tiny, which makes it a little tricky to tape and paper, especially with the toilet right there in the way. But I didn't want black paint all over the wallpaper or floor. I papered all the way into the hallway, and covered the toilet.  It looked like this

Ignore that piece of paper popping out from under the sink. I slipped the paper between the sink and the cabinet, and it popped out right before I took the picture.  Believe me, everything was safe and secure before I started spraying.  That little brown spot on the side? We had a cabinet lock on there from when Caveboy and Cavegirl were babies, and when I took it off, that's what we were left with. I sanded it down and hoped for the best.
Confession: I didn't sand anything else.  Even though the can said to sand.  I ignored it and went right to the spraying. I tested it on the inside of the cabinet, and when that looked all good, I continued on.
Even, light coats. I cannot stress this enough. Keep moving that can. Even if it looks like it's not all covered with the first coat. I made the mistake of spraying a little too much at once and got some drips. It was fixable - I used a foam brush to gently smooth out the drip, and let it dry. Once I didn't notice a drip until it was dry, so I used a sanding sponge to gently rub off the bump.  Once I covered these boo boos with another coat, it wasn't too noticeable.  But try to avoid if possible.

This is after one coat.  See how it looks uneven? Don't panic!
I did about three coats, letting them dry about 30-45 minutes in between each. I considered a clearcoat, but I didn't want it too shiny, and all I had was gloss clearcoat.
Another trick I learned is to wear a pair of cheap white socks while painting. Last project, I made the mistake of wearing flip flops, and wound up tracking paint dust all over the floor.  Here, I wore the socks while painting, then took them off before stepping off the kraft paper. When I went back in to do another coat, I put the socks back on.  They were black when I was done (I told you about that overspray!) so I just threw them out.
I even sprayed right over the handle. Didn't even take it out.
The only downside was that despite all of this papering, there was a dusting on the small part of the floor and baseboard I didn't paper.  Next time, paper everything! A little 409 and a rag took care of it. But it was another annoyance that could have been avoided.
The amount of overspray has me nervous about trying this in the kitchen, where there are way more cabinets to paint. I might try in the master bath. Here's the finished product:

Sweet!