Looking for referrals for a painter to lighten up our kitchen cabinets. Please and Thank you!

actually same, we're in 77077 and have oil based paint on our kitchen cabinets.

If your cabinets are stained, you might consider replacing the doors. Styles change so if you are updating, new doors and drawer fronts may make a huge impact.

You want the boxes being sprayed or hand painted? Sprayed looks way better, but you'll be taping off your kitchen for 3-4 days.

Highly recommend getting a hotel for a few days and spraying. It looks the best - no comparison.

If you have a couple of weeks, you can DIY for about $100. We used this and are really happy with the final product.

https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/transformations/cabinet-transformations-light-kit

Angel Mendoza -713-875-6926

Recommend him very highly. Did a great job for us.

My painter used Sherwin Williams CabLaquer. He did custom color match to our preference. He may travel to Houston at higher rate. He also will use regular paint, he has a talent with paint mixing and also faux surfaces.

The cabinets were maple. He painted all drawers and doors in garage. He taped the cabinets so that only the front frames were painted, not the interior. Protective coverings on floor walls, ceiling fan, used plastic to wall off the area and used squirrel fan with 6" exhaust hose to remove fumes out thru a window.

Spartan Painting@live.com. Rafael

AgAttorneyWifey said:

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Looking for referrals for a painter to lighten up our kitchen cabinets. Please and Thank you!

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If you want to do it DIY. I taped off my kitchen and sprayed the cabinets. Sprayed the doors in the garage with a tarp down.

The process I did was:
-Clean the filth/oils off the doors/bays first using a TSP based cleaner (not a TSP substitute, wear thick rubber gloves)
-lightly sand everything with a 220 grit sandpaper to cut through the oil finish, tack cloth afterwards
-tape off everything and put the brown cardstock like paper protector on the floor.
-Go buy Zinsser Coverstain primer. Its oil based and works really well. Do NOT use Kilz (any number of it). Its cheap and you could have adhesion issues on a oil finish - especially a high use surface like a kitchen.
-Spray a coat on using something like a Grayco X5 Airless sprayer, let it dry for a day. Sand the next, use white, sandable filler to cover any cracks between moldings that were hidden because of wood color.
-Go buy Benjamin Moore NSL-X Cabinet Coat Satin Finish paint. It goes down extremely even, and is extremely durable. Worth every penny.
-Spray a coat on, let it dry, wait a day. Sand, tack cloth and second coat.

For the doors in the garage I could only paint one side a day at a time. So it took twice as long.

It was a big project, and you're probably not interested in doing it yourself, but I wanted to share how you can and give you good recommendations on primers/paints. Whoever is actually painting your house is going to try to swap out the paints to save money. You want to watch them open cans, mix and pour. Or insist that you buy them and they use them.

WhoopRAB said:

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My painter used Sherwin Williams CabLaquer. He did custom color match to our preference. He may travel to Houston at higher rate. He also will use regular paint, he has a talent with paint mixing and also faux surfaces.

The cabinets were maple. He painted all drawers and doors in garage. He taped the cabinets so that only the front frames were painted, not the interior. Protective coverings on floor walls, ceiling fan, used plastic to wall off the area and used squirrel fan with 6" exhaust hose to remove fumes out thru a window.

Spartan Painting@live.com. Rafael

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The smell is not pleasant but I would also recommend tinted lacquer if you are wanting to paint stained cabinets. Plus is that that it will eliminate the need to sand the clear coat finish off as the lacquer will adhere to it fine. Minus is that It has to be sprayed so touch ups can be a pain and let over paint has a pretty short shelf life compared to oil/latex.

Highly recommend:

http://www.feedingmysoulcabinets.com/

I'm curious if it's difficult to learn how to spray (evenly). I've always wanted to try and been thinking about practicing by painting an old fence. TIA

I've never painted anything with a sprayer before doing the kitchen cabinets. If I can learn it, certainly anyone who wants to can.

90% of it is good prep. Do a good job sanding, do a good job using a tack. Set up a spray area in a kinda enclosed area like a garage. Have a place to lay the pieces flat while spraying and also while drying. Buy the right size tips for the spray width that works best for your project and paint thickness (called a fan width).

For actually spraying, think robot thoughts and make robot motions. Only spray in a straight line. Start with your hand outside of the piece, moving your hand over your piece, starting to spray right before you get to your piece. Move down 2/3rds of a fan width and do it again. Don't go back if you missed a spot. If you can't help yourself lightly spray that 'row' again. You're going to do 2 coats of paint so it doesn't have to be perfect. And if you don't like how it came out you can certainly sand and put a third coat.

Use good paint as it lays flat. Theres a good YouTube channel called Idaho Painter who shares a lot of tips.

Full disclosure, my doors and drawer faces look amazing. I could go toe to toe with the best robot on those once I hit my stride. They look factory new.

The cabinet bays looks really good, but there are two spots that I just couldn't hit with out the paint sagging. Just weird angle on dental molding and I didn't have a small enough tip. Overspray built up and the paint sagged. They're mostly in inconspicuous spots, but I know they are there. If I was paying for this, I would ask them to fix it. But since I'm a DIY guy who was already over my scheduled time (set by a wife) it was time to be done with it.

I'll probably go sand those two trouble spots flat if I ever do anything in the kitchen/living room again with a spray gun.

I've saved your posts when I get ready to give it a shot. Very helpful information / guidance - thanks again. Spraying is very expensive (Contractor) and I have the kitchen, 2 bedrooms with paneling, and 10 French doors. Thanks again!

Jorge did ours at 77382. Did a decent job and price was good

(832) 250-3861

My cabinets are already painted, I just want to repaint them. Do you think your strip/prime steps would be different for that project?

I've never painted anything except walls.

Best practices say to still wash with cleaner (TSP), lightly sand, prime and then paint. You'll never regret doing it right a few years down the road when you'd start to see paint failure. Also depends on the finish, the higher the gloss you're painting over, the more prep you need to do. You have to sand semi and high gloss. You're going to need every bit of help you can get so be prepared to prime. I've never got good results trying to skip sanding/priming on semi/high gloss trim.

I'd always recommend priming when painting cabinets because you're going be really wear on the paint over the years. And if it fails, there's no easy way to fix it without striping now failed paint off.

From the people at the paint store (both sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore) I talked to, the prime+paint in one can isn't the best at either, but workable. I never asked them if they'd recommend it for cabinets because when I asked them about it I was trying to paint walls.

You can paint over oil based with water based, but not the other way around. And if you're trying to skip priming I would definitely pick a good oil based paint.

The only thing that sucks worse than having to prime, is skipping it watching it fail, having to strip, prime anyway, and repaint.

How much does a standard job cost for something like this?

I have an idea but sometimes I am just want off in my expectations.

We have a lot of kitchen cabinets but just got a quote north of $4k. I almost choked.

Alright bruh, we got our Graco X5 sprayer, zinsser primer, Benji Moore paint ready to go. TSP cleaned the cabinets and doors already, working on sanding them with the 220.

Fingers crossed.

sounds good man! When you're cleaning that gun out afterwards if you're using oil based paint you need to run it with denatured alcohol as water won't clean it.

Keep your tips clean and don't be afraid to buy another tip to fit your job.

Make sure oily rags aren't balled up as they are a combustion risk. Lay them flat, get them wet, get them out in the open.

Super excited for you! Don't get discouraged if something goes wrong. It can always be sanded and repainted.

Pure White from Sherwin Williams

thank you !

one MEEN Ag said:

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sounds good man! When you're cleaning that gun out afterwards if you're using oil based paint you need to run it with denatured alcohol as water won't clean it.

Keep your tips clean and don't be afraid to buy another tip to fit your job.

Make sure oily rags aren't balled up as they are a combustion risk. Lay them flat, get them wet, get them out in the open.

Super excited for you! Don't get discouraged if something goes wrong. It can always be sanded and repainted.

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I'm on the last leg of this journey. Your advice was excellent and was the thing that pushed me over the edge to go ahead and do it.

I used everything you suggested - sprayer, primer, paint.

I don't think my results were quite what yours were, but far better than other DIY I have seen. My thoughts probably weren't robot thoughts ;-). Challenges I had: my cabinet doors have prominent molding around the outside edge, then another ring of molding inside that - they are like nested picture frames mounted to the flat door. I couldn't find the right spray technique to evenly cover all that molding, edges, and the flat part inside. Just really very difficult.

My spray tips started "spitting" halfway through, which is apparently a common issue but I never could resolve it
.. just had to work around it by starting my stroke far outside my target (spit happened right at trigger pull) which led to a lot more overspray and wasted paint. I really tried to keep the tips very clean, was hard. I think the spitting may have been due to my storing the paint sprayer fill and return tubes in mineral spirits overnight, but who knows.

My paint booth setup in the garage was pretty good - sheeting stapled to the ceiling all around 3 sides and underfoot. But it was a hair small for the number of doors and drawers I had to do. They all fit, but not where I could walk comfortably between them, which negatively affected my ability to get good spray strokes... I was contorting weirdly at times... not robotic. Also dealing with that damn sprayer hose is a beeyotch. It kept wanting to pull my hand the wrong way.

Lastly, I had issues with paint buildup on the underfoot sheeting. As I flipped doors, walked between them, etc, eventually flakes started kicking up onto my project. Son of a gun that is frustrating. Replaced the underfoot sheeting once but eventually the project started getting too expensive.

As I'm re-mounting the doors (which is a ton of work!!!) I'm noticing some sagging paint spots and imperfections that I didn't see before, but I'm right on top of it. Not visible from a reasonable distance but I know they're there.

All in all, I don't ever want to do this again. Ton of work. But definitely worth it compared to what I would have paid a pro!

Also, holy hell. Masking off the kitchen was ridiculous. We probably spent 10+ hours doing that, and could have done a better job.

Last thing - I sprayed my fireplace mantle since we had the stuff out... Looks awesome. Nice unplanned bonus to this project.

Hello! If you are still in need, my company, Envision Renovations, has painted a ton of cabinets for TexAgs users over the years. Please feel free to give us a call at 713-425-3799 to set up a free estimate. Also please feel free to check out our Facebook page or EnvisionYourHome.com for pictures of some of our projects. Thanks, Vince Grainger, Class of '08.