Should I Paint That? Kitchen Cabinets
Doing work on your kitchen is one of the best ways to increase or add value to your home. If you’re in a position to do a full remodel, go for it, because it will offer you some of the greatest returns on your investment in your home. If, however, you’re not in a position to invest a lot of money into redoing your kitchen space, you can make a big change just by adding some fresh paint. There are lots of different ideas that you can consider when it comes to adding paint in the kitchen and you can read about some of our ideas here, in last month’s blog. If you’ve decided that you want to paint your cabinets to spruce things up a bit, we’re here to give you some tips and tricks.
The first thing you need to do is take a good look at what your cabinets are made of and what kind of condition they are in. Solid wood cabinets are going to take paint much better than any kind of composite material or laminate, so you need to make sure that you are prepping them correctly. Solid wood could potentially be painted with minimal preparation, whereas other materials might need a bit more love. After you’ve assessed your cabinets, its time to remove cabinets doors and drawers and remove the hardware from them. If you decide that you want to paint the inside the cabinets also, you’ll want to remove everything from the shelves. This might make the project a lot bigger than just painting cabinet doors and drawers and will likely end up a bigger time and money investment. If you don’t hate the insides of your cabinets, it might be worth it to just leave them as is, since they will not be seen by the public very often.
One of the major components of the condition of your cabinets is any previous paint. If the paint already on the cabinets is not in good shape, you will need to remove it. You can use a paint stripping solution that reacts with the paint and then can be scraped off. You can remove anything that remains afterward by thoroughly sanding the paint away. Remember, it is not necessary to remove all paint from cabinets if it is not in bad condition. Many times, old paint can just be painted over.
Next, you want to clean the surface, as always. Having a clean surface to paint on makes such a huge difference because dirt and grime can cause the paint to chip and flake later on. A simple soapy water solution can sometimes do the trick, but for the best cleaning, you might want to get an old favorite of the “Should I Paint That” series – TSP. TSP does a great job at cleaning just about any surface but can be harsh on the skin and harmful if the fumes are inhaled or come into contact with any mucus membranes, so make sure that you wear protective gear when using this chemical.
Once the cabinets are clean and stripped, you will want to fix any imperfections you can with some wood putty. During this step, you can fill in holes from old hardware if you plan on getting new hardware that requires different positioning. Then you will want to sand the cabinets to get a bit of roughness on the surface for the paint to adhere to. This is particularly important for the laminate cabinets as paint does not adhere to the smoothness of this surface very well. Make sure, when you are done sanding, that you clean the surface again, just wiping away any dust left behind.
Now it’s time for primer and paint! Make sure that your choice in primer goes with your paint choice like if you choose a latex paint, you certainly need a latex primer to pair it with. One good coat of primer will likely be enough, but you will probably want to do two coats of your paint.
The painting process is fairly easy and straightforward, but it’s important to make sure that you take the necessary steps to prepare your cabinets so that the hard work you put in isn’t undone by an unfortunate condition of the cabinets. If you are interested in changing things up in the kitchen but don’t feel like you’re quite up to the task of preparing and painting on your own, Paint Positive would be happy to help bring your kitchen back to life. We are leading experts in Northeast Ohio in all things paint and would love to speak with you on what changes you are looking to make in your home. Call us today for your free consultation.
