Q: How do you repaint wooden cabinets, and what paint do you recommend?
A: Paint is magic when you want to refresh a kitchen — or really any room with a lot of cabinets — without spending too much. But to get good results, you can’t take shortcuts on preparation, and you need a smart work plan and the right paint.
Begin by prepping the area:
- You don’t need to empty cabinets if you are just painting the exteriors, but do clear away nearby clutter.
- Remove the hardware so you don’t smear paint onto the metal, and so you can paint the doors and drawer fronts while they are flat.
- Remove the doors and drawer fronts, and label them so you will be able to get everything back in the proper place when you’re done. Put the notes where you won’t paint over them, such as in hinge indentations or on edges — the top edge of doors for upper cabinets, the bottom edge of doors for lower cabinets, the inside surface of drawer fronts.
- If you have an older kitchen where hinges might have sagged over the years, label those, too, because they might not work as well in different locations.
- Figure out what supplies you need: drop cloths, sawhorses or worktables, and support devices for doors while you are painting them, such as Hyde Painter’s Pyramid ($8.59 for 10 at Ace Hardware).
Then comes cleaning:
- Start by wiping away dust and cobwebs.
- To remove oily debris on kitchen cabinets, dampen a sponge or cloth in warm water and hand dishwashing detergent, wring it out, and wipe.
- For more stubborn residue, put on gloves and add baking soda or vinegar to the washing solution or switch to a degreaser detergent, such as Simple Green All-Purpose Cleaner ($10.98 a gallon at Home Depot).
- Rinse by wiping with a clean cloth or sponge moistened with plain water, and wipe dry.
- Don’t soak the cabinet parts, especially if they are made of a manufactured wood material, such as MDF (medium-density fiberboard) or particleboard.
- Let the surfaces dry.
Prep the surfaces:
- If you plan to install new handles or other hardware, use a paintable wood filler to plug any screw holes you no longer need.
- Also fill any deep scratches or other damage.
- Paint manufacturers traditionally have recommended scuffing up the surfaces with sandpaper to help paint grip better, regardless of whether the cabinets have a clear finish or are painted. Use 100- to 150-grit sandpaper, just enough to make the surface evenly dull. A sanding block works well for flat areas; a sanding sponge or flexible pad is ideal for molding. Don’t worry if you sand though the paint in spots, but that’s not the goal. Wipe off all the sanding dust, then prime everything.
- Using a special primer might allow you to skip the sanding step. Test by painting part of a door and part of an end cap — they might be different materials — with a bonding primer such as Extreme Bond Primer from Sherwin Williams ($83.99 a gallon from Sherwin Williams), Bonding Primer from Behr ($55.98 at Home Depot) or Insl-X Stix from Benjamin Moore ($64.99 a gallon at Ace Hardware). Wait two days, then scrape with the edge of a nickel (because its edge is smooth, unlike the edge of a dime or a quarter) or press on regular masking tape (not painters’ tape) and yank it off. With either test, if no paint comes off, you’re ready to prime all the surfaces. If the test fails, sand them instead.
Then it’s time to paint.
It’s possible to refinish cabinets by spraying on paint, but the process is messy and not really necessary. You can get a virtually blemish-free surface by applying the primer and later topcoats quickly and whisking away any drips or puddles.
Purchase paint specifically formulated for use on furniture and cabinets, because it is designed to withstand wiping clean (once it has cured) and it is better able to resist blocking, the tendency that many water-based paints have to stick to themselves. If you use ordinary paint, you might find that some of the paint on a door comes off when you close it against a cabinet frame, for example.
