Let’s imagine that you are a new homeowner who has never done any major renovation projects in your life. As you look through the rooms of your new house, you imagine the ways you would like to change it, all the improvements you could do to make it your own. You might sand down the hardwood floor and refinish it. You might build a second bathroom on the first floor. And you might paint the cabinets in the kitchen.
In that list of three projects, the cabinet painting job might seem the easiest, by far. And while we’ll grant that cabinet painting may be less demanding than a bathroom renovation, and less messy than a floor refinishing, it is by no means simple. Cabinet painting is one of those house painting jobs that requires lots of different skills and great attention to detail. Choosing the right paint colors is the easy part. From there, cabinet painting becomes one of the most challenging interior painting projects you could take on. For this reason, All American Painting Plus recommends hiring the Pros, not just for our sake but for yours. Cabinet painting at home is a headache.
Why is Cabinet Painting So Hard?
Cabinet painting is easy to mess up, and very hard to complete at a high level of quality. There are many more steps involved than you might guess.
In broad strokes, cabinet painting requires 1) removing the cabinets from the wall, 2) placing the cabinets in a confined area like a paint spray booth, 3) sanding all the paint off the cabinets (yes, ALL), 4) (in most cases) using a paint sprayer to give a perfect even coat all across the visible portions of the cabinets, and 5) removing and replacing the cabinetry hardware (handles and such). Each one of these steps requires other, smaller steps to be taken. We’ll cover a few of them.
Removing cabinets from the wall is troublesome, but not impossible for most people. Renting a paint spray booth, or finding a structure that will do the trick, is expensive and/or difficult. Sanding is no fun at all, and requires power tools, respirator masks, gloves, and goggles, not to mention excellent ventilation. Paint sprayers are notoriously finicky, even among professionals. They clog and misfire, often requiring five times as much setup time as spraying time. Finally, buying new hardware is an added expense, one which many people forget about and fail to include in their project budget. While we’re on the subject of project budget, most people pay over $3,000 to DIY paint their 25-30 cabinets and doors. Still want to tackle this project yourself?
Do Yourself a Favor and Hire the Pros
All American Painting Plus does not want you to suffer needlessly. If you need new cabinet colors, we recommend either buying new cabinets or letting All American Painting Plus do the work for you. It’s very difficult for an amateur painter to get excellent results when doing this job for the first time, probably more so than with any other painting project in the whole house.
