Painting kitchen cabinets: how much primer and paint, and why

Why cabinets are different

Walls are touched occasionally. Cabinet doors are opened dozens of times a day, by hands with grease, water and food on them, and their edges are knocked by pans and vacuum cleaners. A wall paint on a cabinet door will feel soft, stick to itself where the door meets the frame, and chip at the edges within months. Cabinets need three things walls do not: a bonding primer that grips the slick factory finish, a hard enamel made for cabinets and trim, and time to cure before the kitchen is used hard.

The quantity, by contrast, is small, and it is counted rather than measured.

Counting the surface

Measuring every door is slow and unnecessary. Count the pieces and use typical areas:

These are the averages the cabinet paint calculator uses; very large pantry doors or tiny drawer fronts can be entered as extra pieces. The back of a door is usually painted too, because an open door shows it, and because painting both faces keeps the door from absorbing moisture unevenly.

A smaller kitchen with 12 doors, 5 drawer fronts, 30 ft of face frame and one end panel comes to 107 sq ft: 2.8 quarts of enamel, so three quarts, and 1.4 quarts of primer, so two.

Prep: where the finish is won

1. Remove and label. Take off the doors and drawer fronts, number each one and its opening with tape, and bag the hinges and screws by cabinet. Painting doors flat on a rack gives a far better finish than painting them hanging.
2. Degrease. Kitchen cabinets carry a film of cooking grease, invisible until paint refuses to stick to it. Wash every surface with a degreasing cleaner and rinse.
3. Repair. Fill dents and old hardware holes if you are changing the handles, and sand the filler flush.
4. Scuff-sand. Sand every surface lightly to dull the factory finish. You are not removing it, just giving the primer something to grip. Vacuum and wipe off the dust.
5. Prime. One coat of a bonding primer. On oak, whose open grain shows through paint, a grain filler or a second coat of a high-build primer sanded smooth gives a flatter finish.

The primer guide explains why bonding primer, not ordinary primer, is the one for glossy factory finishes, and the primer calculator works out the quantity for other surfaces.

Which paint

The usual choices are a waterborne alkyd or a urethane-modified acrylic cabinet and trim enamel. Both level out to a smooth, hard finish and clean up with water. Traditional oil-based (alkyd) enamel levels beautifully and dries very hard, but yellows over time, especially whites, and takes much longer between coats. A semi-gloss or satin sheen is usual; a higher sheen is harder wearing and shows more of the wood grain and any flaws. The paint sheen comparison lists the gloss levels behind the names, which differ between brands.

Drying, recoating and curing

This is the part that tests patience. Enamels are slower than wall paint:

These are typical data-sheet times from the drying and recoat times table; a cool kitchen slows them, and the drying and recoat calculator adjusts them for your conditions. Do both faces of a door on separate days, and do not rehang doors until they are hard enough not to stick to the frame, usually a few days. Treat the cabinets gently for the first few weeks. Dry, recoat and cure explains why the cure takes so long.

Brush and roller, or spray

A small foam or microfibre roller for flat panels and a good synthetic brush for the profiles gives a very good finish with a self-levelling enamel. A sprayer gives a factory-smooth finish, but it needs a spray booth or a well-masked room, a lot of masking inside the kitchen for the frames, and more paint.

The spraying versus rolling guide compares the two methods in general.

Oak, maple, laminate and MDF

The material under the old finish changes the prep more than the quantity:

• Oak has deep, open grain that shows through paint as a texture of lines. Some people like it. For a smooth, modern finish, fill the grain with a grain filler or a high-build primer, sanded smooth, before the enamel; it adds a step and a little primer.
• Maple, cherry and birch are closed-grain and paint smoothly after a scuff-sand and bonding primer.
• Thermofoil and laminate doors have a plastic skin. They take paint only with a primer made for slick surfaces and a careful scuff-sand, and peeling thermofoil cannot be painted over at all.
• MDF paints beautifully on faces, but its cut edges soak up primer like a sponge; prime them twice, or seal them first.

Hinges, hardware and putting it back

Clean the hinges while the doors are drying; a degreaser and an old toothbrush remove years of kitchen grime. If you are replacing handles with a different hole spacing, fill the old holes before priming and drill the new ones after the paint has cured, using a drilling template so every door matches. When rehanging, put a thin felt or silicone bumper on each door corner. Fresh enamel is still soft, and the bumpers keep doors from sticking to the frames while the paint finishes curing.

Beyond the kitchen

The same approach works for bathroom vanities, built-in bookcases and painted furniture. For a dresser or a table, the furniture paint calculator works from the piece’s dimensions and covers chalk-style paint, enamel and spray cans.

Common mistakes

• Skipping the degreasing. Paint over kitchen grease peels.
• Using wall paint. It stays soft and sticks where doors meet frames.
• Skipping the bonding primer on a factory finish. The enamel chips off the edges.
• Painting doors on their hinges. Runs and missed edges; take them off.
• Rehanging too soon. Doors stick to the frames and pull paint off.
• Thick coats to save time. Two thin coats level better and cure harder than one thick one.