How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets
If your cabinets are in good shape and you like the style, a fresh coat of paint will be the most cost-effective way to transform your kitchen. A team of quality cabinet painters that uses the best equipment with high-quality primers and paint can breathe new life into your old cabinets.
Painting kitchen cabinets can be daunting. Like many other things in life, there’s no single “right” way to do it, but there are a lot of ways to mess it up. If you want to save money, you can do it yourself. But because it can be a tiring and difficult job that requires special equipment and tools, you should hire a professional to do it for you.
Wood, wood-laminate, formica, and previously-painted cabinets can be painted so it can look new again, and it can last for many years. Cabinet refinishing requires special paints and techniques, and the results can vary. If your cabinets have plastic laminate surfaces, you should speak to a knowledgeable paint dealer. You might be able to remove a door, so you can bring it to the paint store. You can also test a sample of the paint you want to use in an inconspicuous area, so you can make sure it will bond to the material.
Flat-front doors and drawers can be easily repainted. But woodwork with raised panels, routed profiles, or any kind of architectural detailing will need more time to prep and paint. If the wood is warped, badly worn or damaged, or is coming apart at the glued joints, the person you hire can buy a new set of unfinished doors and/or drawers. The new items can be matched to your style and can be painted along with your existing cabinets.
Our 18-Point Process for Painting Kitchen Cabinets
Cabinet Painting Guru has a unique 18-point process that will save you up to 75% over replacing or refacing. That means less money and dust. You also won’t have waste weeks or months for new cabinets to arrive. And because professional cabinet painting is all we do, you’ll be surprised at the quality of your finished cabinets. Every part of our team, products, and process is different. Because the founder of our company is an artist, we see our work as an art form. And we treat your kitchen refinishing project like it’s our own.
Our 18-point process will help you to understand why the Cabinet Repainting Guru’ process is different. It will help you to understand why we exceed our customer’s expectations every single time. Here are the steps we follow for painting kitchen cabinets:
- Idea Session — Our initial 15-30 minute zoom or in-person dialog will give you a basic idea of your options for cabinet refinishing and what separates us from our competitors.
- Professional Design Services — We schedule an in-home visit, where our professional home designer will help you map out and create a new look for your kitchen cabinets. Because it’s where you spend most of your time, the kitchen is considered to be the heart of your home. Your kitchen design project is more than just a matter of painting kitchen cabinets. That’s why we take the time to plan it right. We’ll get you in touch with our trusted partners who are experts in granite, sink, backsplash, floor tile, appliances, and kitchen islands.
- Pick Your Cabinet and Trim Color — Once we come to your home, we will take pictures of your kitchen so we can digitally color the walls and cabinets. This will help you pick the perfect color and come up with the best way to paint the kitchen cabinets in your home.
- Advance Your Project — We finalize the design, come up with a schedule, and collect a deposit so we can get you on our calendar.
- Day One of Your Project — We carefully remove and package your cabinet doors, drawer fronts, as well as any hardware. Then, we safely transport them to our paint shop so we can start the cabinet refinishing process.
- In-Home Painting — While we refinish and repaint the cabinets (and while the paint is curing), we will work with you for the in-home painting of your cabinet structure, islands, moldings, and other areas that need to be addressed.
- Cabinet Refinishing as Our Shop Begins — You just relax as we work on a process that we think is the best way to paint your kitchen cabinets. And once we’re done, they’ll look better than brand new.
- Clean and Degrease — We pride ourselves on how much time we spend on surface prep, because we believe it’s one of the most important steps in the process. Before we start sanding, we use trisodium phosphate (TSP) cleaner to remove any debris, oil, and grease. This process will take off years’ worth of cooking splatter and kitchen oils, so your new paint color will stick and harden to a clean, scratch-free, and smooth surface.
- Sanding — Sanding scuffs up the surface of the cabinet and opens up the pores of the wood for primers to sink in, creates the necessary adhesion, and gets the surface ready for the finishing coats.
- Repair — We take the time to repair any imperfections. We’ll fill them with professional-grade wood filler while making nicks, holes, gouges, and scratches disappear. After that, we sand some more.
- Caulking — Some cabinets have an inner panel that can become slightly disconnected from the outer frame. We use caulk to permanently seal that gap. This will make your cabinet doors look more professional and is just another extra touch offered by the Cabinet Painting Guru.
- Priming — The process starts to get fun for us as the cabinet refinishing process continues. We prime your cabinets with a high-tech, industrial-grade primer.
- More Sanding — Once we sand again, your cabinets will be very smooth.
- The Finishing Coats — Things will start to transform as we paint your kitchen cabinets.
- Multiple Coats of Paint — We will apply 2-4 coats of paint until we achieve a smooth, even-colored, factory-grade finish. Our team will inspect and ensure perfection after the final curing process.
- Hardware Options — You can either use the hardware you have already, or you can talk to us about new hardware options. We would also encourage you to install soft-close hinges on all of your cabinets (if you don’t have them already). A soft-close hinge has a hydraulic mechanism built into it. When you close your cabinet doors, the hydraulics take charge and ease the door closed in a gliding motion that’s completely silent.
- Install — After we install your cabinet panels, we’ll put the finishing touches to make sure your entire kitchen cabinet refinishing project is perfect.
- Make Sure You Are Smiling – We will pay attention to every detail and will guarantee that you will be smiling when we’re finished!
If you’re looking for the best way to paint kitchen cabinets, be sure to get in touch with us. We would be happy to speak with you!
