None of these three has wood on the surface, so none of them takes a wood primer. A waterborne bonding primer grips them when the face is intact and properly degreased, and a lifting vinyl skin rules a door out.
Burlington has a great deal of this stock, mostly in condo and rental kitchens and in the builder cabinetry that went into Alton Village and the Corporate area from 2005 onward. Telling the three apart on sight is the first job of the visit, because cabinet painting each one differs from the next.
Thermofoil Is A Vinyl Skin And Cabinet Painting Depends On Its Bond
Look at the back of the door. Thermofoil is usually white and smooth on the reverse with a visible seam at the edge, while the front carries a moulded profile that no solid wood door would have.
Heat and steam attack the bond, which is why the skin always goes first next to the dishwasher or over the range. Paint cannot re-bond a lifted skin, so cabinet painting a peeling door only postpones the same problem by a season. The door gets heat-stripped to bare board or replaced.
Melamine Is Resin-Saturated Paper Bonded To Particleboard
Melamine is the standard box material in almost every Ontario condo and rental kitchen, and it also turns up as fronts in kitchens built before about 1995. The surface is hard, slick and completely non-porous, and it chips along the edges where it has been knocked.
Cabinet painting melamine is entirely routine with the right primer. The face is degreased, scuffed just enough to dull the sheen, and coated with a bonding primer that is left to reach adhesion over three or four days before heavy handling. Chipped edges are filled and sanded level first.
Laminate Takes Cabinet Painting Like Melamine With A Tougher Face
High-pressure laminate is the same idea built heavier, and it was common on 1980s and 1990s kitchens as well as on counters. It takes a bonding primer readily, and it holds colour as well as wood does once that primer has cured.
Bonding primer on laminate or thermofoil generally adds $150 to $400 to a cabinet painting quote depending on the piece count, which the written quote names as its own line rather than burying it. Kitchens in the Orchard and Tansley Woods from the late 1990s often mix laminate boxes with maple fronts, and the two halves take different primers on the same job.
What Cannot Take Cabinet Painting Is Said Before The Quote Is Written
A door with a skin already lifting, a box bottom swollen from a slow leak, and particleboard that has absorbed water and gone spongy are all beyond cabinet painting. Coating any of them wastes the money spent on the rest of the kitchen.
Replacing a few fronts onto sound boxes and matching them to the painted run is usually the cheapest honest answer, and cabinet refacing and door replacement covers how that is priced. We put this in writing at the quote rather than discovering it on day two.
Booking Cabinet Painting For Thermofoil Or Melamine In Burlington
Call +1 (289) 206-6890 and send a photograph of a door front and back if that is easier than describing it. We will say which pieces are candidates for cabinet painting and which need replacing, at no cost and with no pressure. The contact page takes photographs directly, and the home page covers the rest of the services.
Thermofoil, Melamine and Laminate Cabinet Painting Questions
Can thermofoil doors be painted?
Intact ones can, with a waterborne bonding primer. A door whose vinyl skin is lifting beside the dishwasher or over the range cannot, because paint cannot re-bond it. Those doors are stripped to the board or replaced, and we say which before the quote.
How can I tell the three apart?
Look at the back of the door. Thermofoil is usually smooth and white on the reverse with a seam at the edge. Melamine is a hard, slick, non-porous face, and laminate is the same idea built heavier. We identify each one at the visit.
What does bonding primer add?
On laminate or thermofoil it generally adds $150 to $400 to the quote, depending on the piece count, and it is listed as its own line. The primer is left to reach adhesion for three or four days before heavy handling.