Kitchen Cabinet Painting

Have a look at Houzz.com, Pinterest, and home TV shows, you’ll find painted kitchen cabinets. Why? Probably because cabinet painting is a fraction of the cost compared to cabinet refacing and outright replacing your cabinets. The challenge is getting a factory like finish on your cabinets. This requires advanced skills and a tedious process.  Most painting contractors aren’t prepared to tackle a project like this.

Preparation is Critical

Painting kitchen cabinets require specialized skills. There is a correct way and wrong way to doing this home improvement project. Many of the cabinets we’ve seen painted are not done the correct way. Kitchen cabinets are a unique place in your home that you utilize a great deal. Since your cabinets are touched, opened and interacted with constantly they require special treatment.  They are not like the walls in your home that are typically untouched. Therefore, you need to have your cabinets painted the right way.

When you are painting kitchen cabinets, the foundation is very important.  Here’s an overview of the preparation we follow when painting kitchen cabinets:

• Cover and protect all surfaces
• Remove all hardware
• Label all doors and drawers
• Remove all doors and drawers
• Buff sand all surfaces with sandpaper
• Wipe all surfaces with a de-glossing agent
• Apply one coat of bonding primer
• Apply one coat of primer (needed only if wood is an open grain like oak or cabinets have a dark stain)
• Buff sand in-between primer coats

First, we’ll clean, buff and de-gloss the cabinets with an exceptional cleaner. This separates the old finish from the cabinets and creates the optimal surface for our primer. In some instances, a bond primer is required. It is not okay to utilize any old primer. Primers all have a special purpose and you must apply the correct one. For the best results, two primer coats should be applied. If your cabinets are dark they may require a third stain blocking primer coat.

The Top Coat and Finish Coats

The next stage is to paint the kitchen cupboards with a great inside trim product.  We utilize an oil altered acrylic paint that dries quick and cures strong with a smooth finish. Spraying all the door and drawer fronts enables us to get a near factory finish on the surfaces that are seen the most.  It’s better to apply a few light coats than a single heavy one. The heavier it’s put on, the messier it will look.

We utilize an HVLP sprayer that is specifically intended for trim and gives the best finish. This sprayer is not for newbies but brings about the best result. The door and drawer covers are finished in a spare room at the home, in one of our shops or in one of our mobile spray booths (where available). In many cases, we will hand brush or roll the styles and rails. We try not to spray in the home that you may occupy. To accommodate this, we will brush and roll the styles and rails.

Finally, the door and drawer covers are reattached, many times with new hardware. The result is an extraordinary transformation that will last for many years.