What Paint to Use for Kitchen Cabinets

When updating the look of your kitchen, it's important to know what paint to use for kitchen cabinets.

Kitchen Paint

When it comes to choosing a cabinet paint for your kitchen, your biggest concern should be durability. Creating a durable and attractive finish isn't just about the paint, either. Preparation is important too.

Kitchen cabinets see a lot of unintentional rough treatment. They are exposed to fast temperature and humidity changes. This leads to the wood fibers expanding and contracting. Paint riding on the surface of the wood has to take a lot of punishment. Imagine a bucking bronco with paint as the little rider on top, and you've got the idea.

Kitchen cabinets can get nasty dirty over time. Dirt, grease and grime build-up will undermine any paint job, so your first chore is to clean everything with a wood or all-purpose cleaner. If you haven't done this for a while, it may take as many as three applications of cleaner to get all the grease off. For the best results, remove all hardware before you begin, and pay special attention to the areas over and around the stove and microwave. Be gentle, and be sure to get all the soap off. Remove as much residual moisture as you can when you're done. Let the cabinets dry overnight.

Primer helps paint adhere to wood. With kitchen cabinets, using primer is important because heat and humidity can deteriorate wood quickly. The more you do to protect the wood now, the better the cabinets and paint will look and wear later. Primer comes in a number of varieties. Brushing putty can help conceal flaws and fill the grain of open-grain woods like ash and oak, while a quality oil based primer will act as a moisture barrier, protecting wood from expanding and contracting as the ambient air in your kitchen changes from hot to cold and moist to dry. If you are reapplying paint to an already painted surface you may be able to get away with avoiding the primer step. If the paint is bare in spots, scratched, gouged or peeling, however, filling and priming everything is a good way to insure the end result will be worth the effort.

Prime wood carefully. This seems like a no brainer, but applying primer can be a thankless job, so it's only natural to want to cut corners. Read the manufacturer's instructions about how many coats to add, what type of brushes to use, how long to let each coat cure, and how or even if to sand the wood surface beforehand. Primers usually work in conjunction with specific paint products. Your best option here is to choose primer and paint combos that are made to work together. As you're adding primer, it may occur to you that it looks terrible. Remember, this is just an intermediate step and the finished product will look a lot better than the primer coat.

When choosing what paint to use for kitchen cabinets, you can select either an acrylic, water based paint or an oil based paint. Before you start doing a happy dance, you should know that there are some tradeoffs regardless of which paint you use. While acrylic paint is easy to apply and cleanup is pretty effortless, it's not going to give you as hard or glossy a finish as oil based paint. Acrylic paint will probably also stay tacky longer.

Oil based paint is more of a hassle to work with because you'll have to clean up with mineral spirits, but it hardens fast and you can achieve a slick, high gloss finish easily. Oil based paints typically have more solids suspended in the mixture and can create a thicker, harder layer than acrylic paint too. On the down side, oil based paint has a strong odor that takes a long time to dissipate and is less forgiving if you accidentally get it where it doesn't belong.

• When you paint kitchen cabinets, be sure to use quality brushes. This is a job where brush marks will really detract from the overall effect, so use the best brushes you can afford. Another option is to go with sponge brushes, particularly for the detail work, or spray the cabinet fronts to insure a flawless, even coat. If you haven’t used a sprayer before, practice on something else first to get the hang of applying a thin, even coat.

• Always use proper ventilation and safety equipment, like a respirator when using a paint sprayer, and eye protection when sanding.

• Allow plenty of curing time. Plan on a number of days. It can be inconvenient to be without the use of the kitchen for that long, but proper curing is a vital step in the process, so cut corners somewhere else. Eating out isn't such a hardship, is it?

• When you sand primer, take the extra time to completely remove the dust residue. Remove the bulk of it with the brush attachment of your vacuum and finish off with a tack cloth. Don't forget to get the area all around the cabinets too.

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