Painting kitchen cabinets yourself: what it takes and where DIY jobs fail

The honest answer up front

You can paint your own kitchen cabinets, and a patient, careful homeowner can get a good result. But it is a much bigger job than painting a room: the cabinets have to be degreased, sanded, primed, painted with a hard enamel in thin coats with sanding between them, and left to harden before they are used. Most DIY cabinet jobs that chip or peel failed at the cleaning and priming stage, not the painting. If you have the time, space and patience for every step, try it; if you need the kitchen back in a few days and want a factory-like finish, hire it out.

I am Andrey Shelokovskiy, owner of Nomad Painting, and cabinet painting is one of the services we do most. My background is in protective coatings, including six years at PPG Protective and Marine Coatings, so I think about cabinets as a coating that has to survive daily abuse, not just look good on the first day.

Why cabinets are harder than walls

A wall gets touched now and then. A cabinet door gets opened dozens of times a day by hands that have just been cooking. Over years, kitchen cabinets collect a thin film of cooking grease and skin oil that you cannot always see but that paint absolutely will not stick to. Add steam from the stove and dishwasher, water splashes near the sink and knocks from pots and shoes along the bottom, and you have one of the hardest surfaces in the house for a coating to survive.

Many cabinets also come from the factory with a slick lacquer or a thermofoil or laminate face. Paint does not bond to a glossy surface on its own; it needs a cleaned, scuffed surface and the right primer to grip. And the topcoat has to be hard enough to resist chips and scuffs, which is why ordinary wall paint is the wrong product. On our projects we use Benjamin Moore Scuff X, a cabinet-grade enamel.

What a durable cabinet finish requires

Here is the process we follow on cabinet projects. If you do it yourself, this is the standard to aim for, and skipping any step is where the trouble starts.

• Protect the kitchen: cover floors, countertops, appliances and walls, and set up a contained spray area
• Remove doors, drawers and hardware, and label every piece so it goes back where it came from
• Clean every surface to remove grease and residue
• Fill holes, dents and seams, then sand
• Prime, sand again, inspect and seal
• Apply two coats of cabinet-grade enamel, sanding between coats
• Let the finish dry overnight before reassembly, then rehang, clean up and walk the result

Where do-it-yourself cabinet jobs usually go wrong

When painted cabinets fail, the same mistakes come up again and again. None of them are about talent. They are about skipping steps that feel unnecessary until the paint starts coming off.

• Cleaning with a damp rag instead of degreasing, so paint sits on a film of grease
• Skipping sanding on glossy factory finishes, so the primer has nothing to grip
• Using wall paint instead of a hard cabinet enamel
• Brushing on thick coats that sag, show brush marks and stay soft for days
• Rehanging doors and stacking dishes before the finish has hardened
• Losing track of which door and hinge goes where
• Painting hinges and hardware in place instead of removing them

Spraying versus brushing, and the finish each gives

The smooth, even finish people want on cabinets comes from spraying. A sprayer lays down thin, uniform coats with no brush marks, and our crews apply both enamel topcoats that way. The catch is overspray: a fine mist that settles on everything nearby. That is why we build a dedicated spray area and mask floors, counters, appliances and walls with plastic before any paint flies. Spraying indoors without that containment is how people end up with a fine coat of white on their stainless steel.

Brushing and rolling with a high-quality enamel can still give a good result if the coats are thin and the enamel is allowed to level. It takes longer, and you will see some texture up close. Cabinets can also be painted in place without removing every box, and we do that when it suits the kitchen; the doors and drawers still come off and get labeled.

Whatever the method, time between coats is not optional. Enamel needs to dry before it is sanded and recoated, and our process leaves it to dry overnight, which gives a hardened, chip-resistant surface. Rushing that step is the single fastest way to ruin the work.

Fumes, dust and living in the house meanwhile

A cabinet job means sanding dust and paint odor in the middle of the house, often for a week or more if you do it on weekends. The EPA lists paints, varnishes and solvents among household sources of volatile organic compounds and recommends plenty of fresh air and following label precautions when using them. Plan for open windows, fans moving air out of the house, and a kitchen you cannot cook in while the work is underway.

All the interior paints we use are low- or zero-VOC, including the Scuff X enamel on cabinets, which reduces odor considerably. If you buy your own products, read the label and choose a low-VOC enamel where you can. The EPA also suggests buying only as much as you will use soon, since stored containers can keep releasing vapors.

If your house was built before 1978, the old finish on the cabinets could contain lead. The EPA notes that its renovation rule generally does not apply to homeowners working on their own homes, but it still recommends lead-safe practices. Sanding unknown old paint without precautions is the one cabinet mistake that can hurt someone.

The time and tools a DIY job really needs

People usually plan a cabinet project as a weekend. It rarely is. An average kitchen has dozens of doors and drawer fronts, and each one has two faces and four edges to clean, sand, prime and coat, with drying time between every step. Working evenings and weekends, expect the project to stretch across several weekends from the first screw removed to the last door rehung, with the kitchen only partly usable that whole time. Build that into your plans before you start, especially if a holiday or a house guest is coming.

The tool list is longer than for a room repaint too. Plan on a degreasing cleaner, sanding sponges and fine sandpaper, a good primer suited to the existing finish, a cabinet-grade enamel, wood filler, painter's tape, plastic sheeting, drying racks or a clear floor to lay doors on, and either a quality brush and foam roller or a sprayer. A sprayer gives the best finish but has its own learning curve, so practice on scrap boards before you touch a door.

In a Dallas summer, heat and humidity in a garage also affect drying. Read the product label for temperature and recoat times, and give coats more time rather than less.

A quick test: is this a job for you?

Be honest with yourself on these points. If most of your answers are yes, a DIY job is realistic. If several are no, the money you save is likely to come back as rework.

• Do you have a garage or covered space where doors can lie flat and dry for days?
• Can you live without the kitchen, or with half a kitchen, for a week or two?
• Will you degrease and sand every surface even when it feels pointless?
• Do you have, or will you rent, a sprayer and learn to use it on scrap first?
• Are you comfortable leaving coats to dry fully before moving on?

Paint the cabinets or rebuild the kitchen?

Painting makes sense when the boxes are solid and the layout works for you. Cabinet painting costs far less than replacement, and new color plus new hardware can make a twenty-year-old kitchen look current. One of our clients wrote in a Google review about a new coat on walls, cabinets and shelves making a 20-year-old home look brand new.

Painting does not fix a layout that does not work, swollen particleboard under the sink, or doors that are falling apart. If you are considering moving walls or changing the footprint, talk to a designer first. An interior designer's guide on why kitchen remodels stall before demolition is a good place to start, because the decision between painting and remodeling is really a decision about how long you plan to keep the kitchen as it is.

If you are weighing the cost side, my guide on what drives the price of a paint job explains why cabinets are priced differently from walls.

If you decide to hire it out

Ask any cabinet painter how they degrease, whether doors come off and get labeled, what primer and enamel they use, how many coats, whether they sand between coats and how overspray is contained. My list of questions to ask a painter before hiring covers the general ones too.

With us, it starts with a free estimate visit in your Dallas–Fort Worth kitchen. We look at the cabinet material and condition, talk through colors and hardware, and send an itemized estimate. Cabinet projects carry our two-year limited warranty on workmanship, and carpentry tied to removing and reinstalling the cabinets carries a six-month warranty. At the end we reassemble, clean up and walk the kitchen with you.

Questions people ask me