Cabinet Painting Questions Asked By Burlington Homeowners

Sanding is necessary. A deglosser dulls a surface chemically but leaves no mechanical key for primer to grip, and on a factory-cured finish that is the difference between a coating that lasts a decade and one that peels off in sheets. Every cabinet painting job here includes a full scuff sand after degreasing, plus a light sand after primer and between topcoats.

The choice lies between a waterborne alkyd enamel and a two-component polyurethane, and the kitchen decides. Enamel levels beautifully, comes in thousands of colours and is low in VOC content, while the two-component product is harder, cures faster and shrugs off cleaning chemicals. Ordinary wall paint has no business on cabinetry, since it stays soft and marks around every handle.

Intact ones, yes, with a waterborne bonding primer. Doors whose vinyl skin has begun lifting near the dishwasher or over the range cannot be saved with paint, since the coating sits on the skin rather than under it. Those get stripped back to the board or replaced, and we identify them before the quote is written.

Usually a little, yes. A big colour shift in cabinet painting often needs an extra topcoat for full coverage, and on oak or cherry it also demands a thorough shellac seal so tannin cannot bleed up through a pale colour. Both show as their own lines on the quote rather than appearing later.

It is among the requests we field most often, and it is the two-tone look in reverse. Painting the base run and the island while leaving sound upper cabinets alone costs less than a whole kitchen, and it works best when the uppers are a wood tone worth keeping rather than a colour worth changing. Partial cabinet painting is still quoted by the piece.

Either works. Most people choose their own pulls and knobs and have them delivered before the start date, and we fit them as part of the cabinet painting job. We can also supply hardware and list it on the quote, which is simpler when a hundred pulls are needed and consistency matters more than shopping.

Less than people expect, because the sanding that makes the most dust happens at the shop rather than in the kitchen. On-site sanding runs with vacuum extraction attached to the sander, the work area is sealed behind plastic, and floors, counters and doorways are masked before anything starts.

Two to four weeks is typical, and longer in spring and early fall when everyone books at once. Jobs tied to a closing or a listing date get scheduled backwards from that date, so telling us the deadline at the first phone call matters more than booking early does.

Yes, and winter is often the easier season for it. The fronts are sprayed in a heated booth regardless of the weather, and the low indoor humidity of a Burlington January actually helps waterborne products dry evenly. Humid July air is the harder condition, since coatings flash slower above seventy percent relative humidity.

Interior cabinet painting happens only on request, and it is priced on its own line because it roughly doubles the area being coated. Most people leave the interiors alone, since shelves and boxes are rarely visible with the doors shut. Interiors on glass-panel uppers are the usual exception and are worth doing.

Any coating applied before 1980 may contain lead, so cabinets built on site in an older downtown or Roseland house are worth testing before any aggressive sanding for cabinet painting begins. A test kit, or a lab, settles the question quickly. If lead is present, the prep method changes and we explain what that means for the schedule and the price.

Every cabinet painting job leaves touch-up product behind, labelled with the colour and the sheen, and a small chip takes a fine brush and two minutes. Anything larger than that is worth a phone call, because a sprayed repair on a single door is possible without redoing the run.