Painting your cabinets will typically always be a more affordable choice than purchasing new custom-built cabinets or even stock units. Painting and refinishing your cabinets is also an excellent investment for your house's value, with many residents in Wichita, KS reporting an ROI as high as 70%. Upcycling your existing furniture in this way offers you the ability to customize your kitchen and stay up-to-date with present design trends, as well as follow through on your commitment to sustainable living.
The price of new cabinets fluctuates in Wichita, KS, but may be up to 300% more expensive than painting. This is also considering that cabinet paints are usually more expensive than wall paints because they contain more resins that protect against fading, scratching, and stains.
Employing a professional for your project instead of doing the task 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 manufactured with and how to apply different techniques to ensure they come out the way you've imagined when finished. If your cabinets show small damage like chips and cracks, contractors can use wood filler and paint to cover them up. Painting cabinets is a harder task than it seems, but a vetted painting contractor will be an invaluable resource in helping you stretch your investment further.
A frequently asked question pertains to the kind of paint used for cabinets and if there is any difference between it and that used on walls. There are differences due to the fact that cabinets and walls are very distinct surfaces, and the type of paint preferred for home walls will encounter many difficulties when trying to apply them to kitchen cabinets.
Many kitchen cabinets have slick surfaces due to the materials used in their design to give them their elegant look. Common wall paints will not adhere sufficiently to cabinets and can begin chipping or flaking off prematurely. The kind of paint contractors utilize for cabinets contains adhesives that allows it to stick to these slick surfaces better, and is also usually thicker to guarantee longer durability. The chemicals and structure of cabinet paint also necessitates extended time to dry and cure than those usually used on walls.
Vetting cabinet painters to find the most suitable one for your specifications and vision takes a substantial amount of effort. The first place to start is by knowing precisely what aesthetic you're trying to achieve with your kitchen cabinets. You should ask candidates to see samples of their past work similar to your vision beforehand to get a feel for their experience and skill. Professional 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 in-person or online.
You should have a set budget in mind while choosing professional cabinet painting contractors, as prices sometimes fluctuate significantly. Ensure that any contractor you consider gives written statements of all equipment and labor costs and gives clear verbal communication throughout the project about it's timeline. What you don't need is for any surprises to occur after the project begins that will raise costs above what you planned for.
Pay close attention to the professional's reliability by evaluating any online client reviews. Most professional painters will have comments and reviews from past 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 immediately begin dipping brushes into paint and get your home improvement project going, but there is some prep that needs to happen first to ensure your cabinets look great and are protected from the heavy-use they will likely see in the future. Cabinet painting can quickly become an overwhelming task when attempting it alone, but a professional will quickly and efficiently bring your vision to reality beginning with the most important prepping steps of cleaning, sanding, and priming:
- Cleaning: It's very important that all dirt and grime are completely cleaned from cabinet surfaces before painting or staining or it might hinder their adherence. The cleaning phase is also a good time to disassemble the cabinets and their components, including doors, knobs, hinges, etc., to make the next stages easier and more efficient.
- Sanding: The good news is that efficiencies in home improvement have made notable leaps, and there are products that contractors use to make some of these prepping steps a breeze. Deglossers, also known as liquid sandpaper, is a chemical product that quickly removes gloss from cabinet surfaces so that the long method of sanding in the old way is virtually obsolete. Deglossers can also reach those edges that are exceedingly difficult to get to with regular sandpaper.
- Priming: Priming is necessary in most cases, as it serves many important purposes for the painting that follows, such as enabling better adhesion, preventing stains and imperfections from bleeding through, and providing a protective layer over the cabinet surface. If the current paint is oil-based and you cover it with a latex paint without priming, it will only flake off and require repainting sooner than expected.