Outside of the bathroom, people spend the least amount of time in their kitchens. Even the time they spend there is often spent looking at the stove and counters. Even with all of that, cabinets are one of the most frequently replaced parts of a home.

Rather than replace cabinets, it’s best to sit down and decide what some painted cabinets can do to spruce up this overlooked home area.

Replacing kitchen cabinets costs an average of $5,026 a pop. Painting existing cabinets costs a fraction of that.

Elements of Painted Cabinets

While it is obviously cheaper to paint a cabinet than to get a new one, fewer materials, the time factor is roughly the same.

Painting kitchen cabinets well means taking them apart and working with each piece separately. Many a homeowner has tried to paint around the hinges and gaps only to arrive at cabinets they hate.

Given the efforts of disassembling and reassembling, it’s a good idea to make a plan beforehand. This includes looking at some samples and considering the best type of paint and finish.

Prepare the Cabinets

Before you can paint anything, you need to clean up the old cabinets. Grease is notorious for soaking through a new coat of paint and also making it difficult for paint to stick to anything but the grease.

Clean each surface with some robust grease killers before disassembling the cabinets.

If you are expecting to strip and refinish the cabinets, you can skip this step.

Doors and Drawers

Take the doors off and remove any drawers. Take the hinges, handles, and other fasteners off the items and set them aside. Most hardware is neutral and works with other colors but you may need to paint these as well, if so, do that as part of the painting step.

Meanwhile, strip and/or sand each of the surfaces. If you are applying a new coat of the same color, sanding helps the new paint to stick and you don’t have to worry about bleed-through.

Repair any surfaces and then apply a primer if needed. Primer helps paint to stick and also shows off color better. Bright colors will dull quickly and require multiple coats if a primer isn’t used.

Shelves and Panels

Unless you need to redo the interior of the cabinet, it’s easy enough to skip out on painting the interior.

If your previous interior color isn’t neutral and will clash with the chosen exterior, that is another matter.

With the shelves removed you’ll have some space to work inside the cabinet box. If this is too taxing, pulling down the cabinets and working each as if they were the doors delivers better results.

Materials

This guide expects that your cabinets are wood-based. For metal materials, sanding isn’t needed but primer is even for dark colors, otherwise, adhesion of paint becomes an issue.

Get More

A kitchen certainly looks better with freshly painted cabinets, but there’s no way to cut corners and arrive at a satisfactory end look.

If you don’t have the time and the skill to pull apart cabinets, contact us for an estimate on labor and patining costs to get your new kitchen done quickly and worry-free.