At Noah Painting one of our areas of expertise is cabinet painting and refinishing.
Today we are going to specifically focus on cabinet painting/repainting with a brief overview of our systems and processes.
Every cabinet painting project starts with an in person estimate of approximately 1 hour. During this estimate we will explain the process that is to follow, provide you with an exact price for your project, consult on colours and answer any questions you might have.
KEEP IN MIND every kitchen is different and some kitchens require slightly different processes to refinish, for example a kitchen that was previously repainted improperly and requires the existing coating to be completely stripped will have additional steps to what is shown below. In this overview we will focus on a typical painted or stained kitchen that is in reactively good shape.
Now, lets get to it.
Step 1. Door Removal
All cabinet doors and drawers will be removed and hardware taken off. We will label each cabinet door with it's corresponding spot in your kitchen to ensure a smooth re-assembly.
The doors are transported back to our workshop to be prepped and painted after we complete the painting of the cabinet boxes.
Step 2. Dust and Paint containment
Our team will block off all doorways and openings to your kitchen (or cabinet location) to ensure any dust/paint is contained and does not spread throughout your house. This is done by covering any openings with masking plastic and tape, from the floor to ceiling.
Step 3. Surface Prep
Whether the surface being painted is currently a stained or painted finish the process is the same. We will clean all surfaces with a tsp (soapy) solution to remove any grease and grime buildup, sand by hand with a light sanding block and finally all surfaces are wiped down with a liquid de-glosser to further help the primer adhere to the cabinet surface.
Step 4. Masking
Masking is the most time consuming step to take place in your home. Here we will cover absolutely every surface that is not to be painted. This includes floors, cabinet box openings, countertops, appliances, walls and ceilings. Masking is accomplished with the use of tape, masking paper and masking plastic.
Step 5. Prime and Paint
This step consists of one coat of primer and 2 or more top coats. All coats are applied with a fine finish sprayer to achieve a factory finish. First a coat of Shellac primer is applied. The primer ensures proper adhesion and prevents stains and wood tannins from bleeding through. Once the primer is dry we re sand all surfaces by hand and remove all dust with tack cloths. Next at least 2 (more for some colours) coats of Renner water borne lacquer are applied.
Step 6. Clean Up!
Once all paint is dried and sufficiently hardened all masking is removed and area cleaned up (typically the next day)
Step 7. Door Painting
After we finish painting your cabinet boxes we return to our workshop to paint the doors. The doors go through the exact same surface prep and painting as your cabinet boxes.
Step 8. Assembly
Once your cabinet doors are all painted and sufficiently cured we will return them, re-install doors, hardware, adjust doors so everything is level and attach new rubber bumpers to backs of doors.
Of course there is more to painting cabinets than these 8 steps, but I hope this has given you a good quick overview on the process we follow. A typical kitchen take one and a half weeks to paint, with us being in your home for 2-3 days total over that time period.
