When people want to update their kitchen the first question they search online is, “can I paint my kitchen cabinets”, and according to the internet, the answer is yes! You are then given an overwhelming number of pictures and articles telling you to go for it. The articles that are harder to find however are the ones that give you the truth. Very few articles, videos or blogs will give you an update 2 or 3 years later to show you how their cabinets are holding up. Those glossy, Pinterest pictures that show a beautifully remodeled, painted kitchen aren’t telling you the whole truth. Most of those pictures are take a good distance away from the cabinets, so you aren’t going to see the brush marks, roller marks or drips that you will see everytime you open your cabinet doors, but let’s set those problems aside for the moment.
First, yes you can paint your cabinets! Absolutely you can. You can paint anything, but will that paint hold up is the real question. Of course you aren’t going to get the smoothness of a sprayed finish, that much is obvious, but is paint, whether it is sprayed, brushed or rolled on, a durable enough finish for cabinets in the first place. No, it’s not! Most people who will actually show you how their cabinets look several years later, generally blame the failing finish on their lack of quality prep work. They usually blame the failing finish on not sanding the surface enough, not cleaning enough or skipping some other small step and they then say if they had done that step the cabinets would be in perfect shape. I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but that’s not what is causing your paint job to fail.
The real reason your beautiful paint job is going to fail is something very simple; you’re touching them. Yes, that is the reason! Every time you handle your cabinets, pull the doors open, you are leaving your body oils behind in that spot. Those corrosive oils sit there on the surface of your beautiful paint eating it away. The paint then starts getting soft and in its softer state it starts scratching off easier. It starts looking grimy and dirty and it seems like the more you try to clean it the worse it looks over time. Given a short time the areas around your knobs or where you handle your doors are going to be scratched and dirty and look like they need a new coat of paint.
That is the problem with paint, it is made for walls. You don’t go around handling your walls like you do your cabinet doors, but I’ll bet that the places on your walls that you do touch constantly have the same problem your painted cabinets will have.
When you get new, factory finished cabinets, whether they are wood tone, beautiful, glossy white or rich black, that finish is easy to clean, durable and doesn’t scratch off or get soft. Why?? The simple answer is that it’s not paint! If paint was going to be a durable cabinet finish, the factory would be using paint because it’s cheaper and they would have a higher profit margin.
If you do want that beautiful kitchen you saw on Pinterest, please don’t paint your cabinets, call Wood Doctors and have it done right. Wood Doctors have extensive experience with on-site work. Our clean, safe, state of the art equipment and procedures protect your home and its contents. There’s no need to replace your cabinets because Wood Doctors can give you that special color you are longing for in a durable, easy to clean, beautiful, FACTORY FINISH! It’s a decision you won’t regret........you will regret the paint.
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