Kitchen cabinet painting, cabinet refinishing, kitchen cabinet refacing. Basic Information

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Painting kitchen cabinets and Refinishing or refacing kitchen cabinets.

Painting or refinishing kitchen cabinets is pretty easy if you take the project in steps and do each part of the refinishing carefully and don't skip anything or the skipped parts will come back and bite you later.

We have a comprehensive section on kitchen cabinet refacing starting with our page, kitchen cabinet refacing contents
The steps for painting kitchen cabinets and refinishing kitchen cabinets are the same up to cleaning the cabinets, then after the cleaning refinishing and painting go their separate ways.
It's always fun to get an estimate of the cost to replace your kitchen cabinets, figure the cost of refinishing, then sit back and chuckle at the hundreds of dollars per hour that you're making to refinish or paint your own kitchen cabinets.
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The steps for painting or refinishing kitchen cabinets

1. Remove the doors, hinges and pulls.

Cabinet doors are lots easier to work on if they're laying flat without any hardware on them. Be sure to label your door and drawer location. more door labeling info.

Each door has it's own location and hinges and other fitting are generally different for each door, especially with older kitchen cabinets.

2. Remove the contents of the cabinets.

If you don't plan to redo the interior of the kitchen cabinets it won't be necessary to remove the contents. You can cover the contents of the cabinet with plastic sheeting, such as cheapy plastic drop cloths.

If you're going to do the inside of the cabinets, then you'll have to remove the contents or if you feel like you're having a klutzy day it would be a good idea to remove everything.

3. Clean the kitchen cabinets and doors.

This type of cleaning for kitchen cabinet painting or refinishing is different than just everyday cleaning. Just one little pin point of greasy residue will cause a dimple in your otherwise perfect paint job. Go to our page about cleaning for painting and refinishing for some additional information.

Refinishers follow steps 4 through 9 and painters hop down to number 10

Refinishers

4. Strip the cabinets and doors.

You will need to strip paint or the old finish from the cabinets. See our page about kitchen cabinet stripping.

If you're painting kitchen cabinets and you fudged and are reading this part about refinishing cabinets instead of going down to number 10 don't strip paint or old finish, use them as a base for new paint. Now, be good and go down to number 10 if you're a painter.

5. Prepare the surface.

To prepare the surface is probably the most important part of cabinet refinishing. If the surface isn't properly prepared you can end up with pits and bumps and a general undesireable finish. See our page about surface preparation.

6. Stain the stripped and prepared cabinets and doors.

After the cabinets are stripped of old paint or finish and the surface prepared you'll need to stain the wood even if you plan to have a natural appearance. If you want a natural clear finish you should pick a neutral stain color somewhere between the lightest color of your cabinet wood natural color and the darkest color and the stain will help to even out the color and make a good transition from light to dark.

If you want to change the wood color, then it's just a matter of choosing the color of stain you want. Be sure to know your type of wood in your cabinets and then check color chips of the stain color you want on that type of wood as the same stain will have a different appearance on different wood species.

For mor information visit our wood stain page

7. Apply a finish to the stained surface.

There are several different types of clear finishes you can use. One of my favorites is tung oil, because it's so easy to use, durable and easy to repair. Lacquer is another good finish that will last a long time.

If you've read much on our web site you've probably figured out that polyurethane isn't one of my favorite finishes, but kitchen cabinets are one place that I think that it could be acceptable. You can read more of my views on polyurethane and make up your own mind about using it.

You can read more about finishing.

8. Rub the finish if you desire.

We use a high gloss lacquer, then rub the finish to get an elegant sheen that brings out the depth of the finish and allows the beauty of the wood to show through.

9. Clean the hinges and Pulls.

Last, but every bit as important to complete the job is to clean the hinges and pulls. Even though they may look completely clean they may have a slight coat of natural occurring stuff that's found in the air in a kitchen and could look better if they were cleaned. Visit our clean metal page for more information.

Painters

10. Prepare the surface of the cabinets and doors.

Surface preparation of cabinets and doors is as important for painting as it is for applying stain and clear finish.

Preparation for painting is a bit different, though. If the old finish or paint is still stuck tight to the wood and doesn't have any chips or nicks, then you should leave the old stuff there and use it for a base, otherwise if you strip you'll have to build up a new base. Take a look here for more information.

11. Rough the surface of the old paint or clear finish.

Part of the preparation for repainting is to rough the surface of the old paint or clear finish to give "tooth" for the new paint to stick to. You can use sandpaper and make it a very laborious job or you could use liquid deglosser, which makes it quick and easy.

12. Brush or spray the new paint coat on.

You can either brush or spray the new paint coat on. When you brush you tend to get a thicker coat of paint on the kitchen cabinet surface, but using spray cans of paint makes the painting job quite a bit quicker. Some people have a problem using spray cans so you should practice on a cardboard box or some scrap wood to perfect your technique to prevent runs or other problems.

13. Cleaning the hinges and pulls.

See number 9 above for information about cleaning hinges and pulls.

14. Refinishers and painters

Refinishers and painters stand back and take a good look at all the good work you've done and listen to the contented snores of your money nestled snugly in your bank account instead of the flap, flap, flap of the money's wings flying by the hundreds or maybe thousands into some contractors bank account.

There's a lot more than just saving money with do it yourself refinishing kitchen cabinets or painting kitchen cabinets. There's the satisfaction of looking at a job well done and the accolades from your friends at your abilities, not to mention the huge sigh of relief, because you won't have to do it again for several years.

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