The average American kitchen today has about 30 linear feet of cabinets, and they’re usually made of wood. Those cabinets need durable, glossy (read: easy to clean) hard enamel paint.
Painting cabinets can completely transform a dingy old kitchen into a bright, inviting space. The same goes for another room that gets a lot of abuse: The mudroom. We recommend the same process and paint for mudroom cabinets or lockers as we do for kitchen cabinetry.
It used to be that the smelly, long-drying oil-based paint was the only durable way to go. But now we take advantage of the newer technology of paints like Benjamin Moore’s Advance. This is a water-born acrylic enamel that dries very hard and flows for a smooth finish like oil, but has a huge advantage over oil: very little odor and low VOCs. The smell of oil paint can last for months, and oil paints gas off dangerous VOCs for long periods of time. Nobody wants to prepare a meal while immersed in the lingering stench of oil paint!
But getting a smooth, even finish can be very difficult if you’re not a pro. And if you want a higher sheen, it will call attention to any imperfection of the underlying surface. So before going near any paint the wood needs to be sanded particularly carefully and prepped with a top-quality primer.
Our process gets cabinetry looking like it’s fresh from the factory: We remove all the doors and hardware, thoroughly clean off all dirt and grease, and then sand all the wood with our Festool sander, which is attached to a HEPA vacuum to keep dust out of your home. Only then do we prime with the highest-quality primer, then spray with our professional grade paint sprayer so that each coat is completely uniform. We also sand several times between each coat, with increasingly fine grit sandpaper, ensuring that perfect coverage and finish.
So whether it’s a dirty boot being kicked off by a 5-year-old, or hot tomato soup splattering out of your blender (not that this happened to me recently or anything!), you’ll know your cabinetry’s finish can stand up to it.
Advance is just one of the paints we love to use to help our clients feel more comfortable and confident in their homes!