Kitchen Cabinet Painting Help

Where to start with this reply?

First off, when you painted the cabinets the first time, what kind of prep work did you do prior to putting on the paint?

If it is cracking and chipping then you will have a good bit of prep work to do this time to make it look good once fresh paint is applied since every defect will be magnified.

First thing you should have done is mixed TSP (Tri-sodium Phosphate) with warm water and wiped down the cabinets to remove any grease accumulated, especially from cabinets near the stove. Then, after they dried, you should have sanded them to break the surface of the previous finish for better paint adhesion.

I would have used a stain blocking prime in oil base like Kilz and after that dried, lightly sanded it again with fine sandpaper to get it very smooth, then wiped down to remove any dust before applying the top coats of paint.

They make great latex products now and if it were my job, I'd use one of their exterior eggshell paints that have a slight gloss when dry. That will help make future cleanings easier----I'd NEVER use a flat paint on cabinets.

The key to making a paint job look good is all in the prep work and using good products. You can have $100 a gallon paint, but if you do a $1 prep job, it's still going to look like shite.

Another tip is to use GOOD brushes to apply the finish, not those cheap brushes you can get for $3 at Home Depot.

Better yet, it you have access to a sprayer, that is the best option, but that would mean removing the doors and drawers so you don't have overspray everywhere in the kitchen, and you'd still want to brush the face frames.

Yea you have to sand them down good before applying a new coating. It's a good bit of work to get them looking good but not all that difficult

I rolled mine when I did it. I used a super smooth small roller.
A hard paint is vital, too. I went with Behr Alkyd and have been quite pleased.

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TSP wipedown, then uses our power sander with a medium grit followed by a fine grit to get the surface smooth. Then another good wipedown to remove all dust. She uses a Shellac based primer, sprayed on in a fine thin coat, then a light sanding with fine sandpaper. Follows it up with eggshell enamel sprayed on thin. Another sanding and a final spray. Then she buffs it with a cloth rag.

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This but I went with gloss on my cabinets

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This but I went with gloss on my cabinets

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I think she's used everything from eggshell to gloss, depending on what people wanted. Most were painting over originally stained cabinets, and a couple were repainting. It is almost easier to paint over stain, since there usually isn't any paint to chip off. Just sand it down and prime/paint.

We also have 3 paint sprayers now. One is a POS that we shouldn't have bought, but it was pretty cheap. We have the Wagner with the two sprayers, one for large projects and one for fine detail spraying. That is the one she uses on cabinets, especially those that have some detail in them and aren't flat doors. She bought the upgraded/updated model of that one, and it has the metal can instead of plastic, so cleanup is a little easier. Well worth it to spend $120-150 on the HVLP sprayer if you're doing a kitchen. By the time you buy brushes/rollers/trays you're halfway there anyways, and all of that stuff can't be reused like a sprayer can.

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Where to start with this reply?

First off, when you painted the cabinets the first time, what kind of prep work did you do prior to putting on the paint?

If it is cracking and chipping then you will have a good bit of prep work to do this time to make it look good once fresh paint is applied since every defect will be magnified.

First thing you should have done is mixed TSP (Tri-sodium Phosphate) with warm water and wiped down the cabinets to remove any grease accumulated, especially from cabinets near the stove. Then, after they dried, you should have sanded them to break the surface of the previous finish for better paint adhesion.

I would have used a stain blocking prime in oil base like Kilz and after that dried, lightly sanded it again with fine sandpaper to get it very smooth, then wiped down to remove any dust before applying the top coats of paint.

They make great latex products now and if it were my job, I'd use one of their exterior eggshell paints that have a slight gloss when dry. That will help make future cleanings easier----I'd NEVER use a flat paint on cabinets.

The key to making a paint job look good is all in the prep work and using good products. You can have $100 a gallon paint, but if you do a $1 prep job, it's still going to look like shite.

Another tip is to use GOOD brushes to apply the finish, not those cheap brushes you can get for $3 at Home Depot.

Better yet, it you have access to a sprayer, that is the best option, but that would mean removing the doors and drawers so you don't have overspray everywhere in the kitchen, and you'd still want to brush the face frames.

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buy new cabinets.

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Thank you so much for that thorough help of advice.

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You're welcome, and good luck.

Just refinished some furniture and painted a board and batten wall using this exact advice from this board. I have a Rockler HVLP sprayer that is good for small jobs and I used it here. Zinsser BIN Shellac primer thinned with a little denatured alcohol to spray better. Then Sherman Williams Emerald Urethane thinned with a little water and the Sherman Williams version of Floetrol. It took a couple sprays to figure out the right consistency of primer and paint, but after that, it's a very smooth finish. I do woodworking on the side and would love to redo my cabinet doors, but we just paid 3k to have out kitchen repainted a year ago. I now have the confidence to paint new doors myself when I decide to do it.

It really was an auto correct. I thought I fixed it. I must have missed the S, because it was originally corrected to Herman Williams .

We did this over the covid break last spring. Clean and degrease, two step sand (we had re-painted ours previously so I sanded down to wood in some trouble spots) and painted with Sherwin Williams Urethane Trim Enamel applied with sponge roller. Was an 8 hour process for the wife and I. Looks great and extremely durable finish (much better than we had previously).

ETA - doors were originally oil painted in 1991, we latex primed, painted and tea stained mid 2000's and back to almost the original color in 2020 .