Vetting cabinet painters to discover the best one for your needs and style requires a substantial amount of effort. The first place to begin is by knowing exactly what style you want to achieve with your kitchen cabinets. You should ask contractors to see a sample of their past work aligning with your vision beforehand to gain a sense of their experience and skill. Reliable contractors would be more than happy to accommodate this request, and many retain a gallery of pictures for potential customers to browse through on their website.
You should have a set budget in mind while choosing professional cabinet painting contractors, as costs often fluctuate significantly. Ensure that any contractor you hire gives documentation of all equipment and labor costs and gives clear verbal communication during the process about it's expected completion. The last thing you want is for any surprises to occur after the project commences that can raise costs higher than you planned for.
Give attention to the professional's reliability by evaluating their online client reviews. Most professional painters will have feedback and reviews from previous customers available online, and these can be a great way to find out if they have a history of delivering the services you expect on time and within budget.
It's may be tempting to quickly start painting and get your home improvement project moving forward, but there is some prep that needs to happen beforehand to ensure your cabinets look great and hold up to the heavy-use they will likely see in the future. Cabinet painting will quickly turn into an overwhelming project when doing it alone, but a professional can quickly and efficiently bring your vision to reality starting with the most common prepping stage of cleaning, sanding, and priming:
- Cleaning: It's critical that all dirt or grime are completely removed from cabinet surfaces prior to painting or staining or it might hinder their adherence. The cleaning step is also a good time to take apart the cabinets and its hardware, such as doors, knobs, hinges, etc., to make the following steps easier and more effective.
- Sanding: The good news is that innovations in home improvement have made great strides, and there are products today which contractors use to make some of these prepping steps easier. Deglossers, also called liquid sandpaper, is a chemical abrasive that easily removes gloss from cabinet surfaces so that the dusty process of sanding in the old way is virtually obsolete. Deglossers will also reach any edges that are exceedingly difficult to get to with traditional sandpaper.
- Priming: Priming will be necessary in most cases, and it serves many important purposes for the painting that follows, such as enabling better adhesion, preventing stains and imperfections from bleeding through, and providing an added layer of protection over the cabinet surface. If the previous paint was oil-based and you apply a latex paint without priming, it will only peel off and require repainting sooner than expected.
Figuring out if your kitchen cabinets can be painted or not mostly comes down to their quality. Nearly all solid wood cabinets can be painted several times throughout their lifespan, though the process may be a bit more advanced for “open grain” woods such as oak. Solid hardwoods adhere to stains or paints better than most other surfaces and can undergo repeated sandings to eliminate imperfections that develop over time with use. Manufactured woods like fibreboards, wood laminate, or even metal models can also undergo painting comparatively easy.
The most difficult kind of kitchen cabinets to paint are economical thermofoil cabinets, which is a manufacturing process of applying a thin sheet of PVC over manufactured wood. Some professional painters will recommend against painting these as the surface repels the paint trying to adhere to it, and even after scuffing and priming techniques are employed, the paint will likely peel off much faster than a high-quality material like hardwood.
A more straightforward question some people may want to consider is should my cabinets undergo painting. If your cabinets are too old and worn down, it might be more cost-efficient to buy new models.
Painting your cabinets will likely always be a cheaper alternative than buying new custom-built cabinets or even stock models. Painting or refinishing kitchen cabinets is also an excellent investment in your house's value, with many residents in Apopka, Florida reporting an ROI as high as 70%. Refreshing your existing furniture in this way offers you the chance to beautify your space and stay up-to-date with present design trends, not to mention follow through on your commitment to sustainable living.
The price of new cabinets fluctuates around Apopka, Florida, but may be up to 300% more expensive than painting. This is even when taking into account that cabinet paints are typically more expensive than wall paints due to them containing more resins that protect against fading, scratching, and stains.
Employing a contractor for your project rather than do the job yourself will add labor costs, but it will still likely be much cheaper than replacing them. An experienced contractor will know what your cabinets are constructed with and how to apply different materials to ensure they come out the way you've imagined when finished. If your cabinets show minor wear like chips and scratches, they will use wood filler and specialized finishing techniques to cover them up. Painting cabinets may be a more difficult project than it sounds, but a qualified painting contractor will be an invaluable resource to help you stretch your investment further.