Whether you plan on painting your cabinets yourself of hire a professional, there are definite do’s and don’ts if you want the smoothest finish when painting cabinets.

It is common knowledge that any professional paint job is 70% or more prep work. Painting kitchen cabinets is no different. The typical set of kitchen cabinets will take about a week start to finish. About three days or so of that week will be prep work.

We won’t go into great detail on the prep work here but focus mainly on what will give you the best finish.

We will assume all the necessary masking has been done.

You want all the doors and drawers removed. All hardware removed as well. Door and drawer silencers should be removed. The felt or rubber pieces that keep the door from banging into the cabinet.

Solvent clean everything. Denatured alcohol works great. Everything should be sanded down well. Remove all the dust by vacuum and hand wiping.

Now the most important factor. How the paint and primer are applied. The smoothest finish when painting cabinets can only be achieved by SPRAYING. You cannot brush and roll the finish on the cabinets and have it look like a professional did the job and you can’t brush or roll the primer and spray the finish and have it look right either. Everything must be sprayed. Spraying eliminates brush strokes and roller marks. The best painter in the world cannot brush a cabinet and have it look like it was sprayed. Unless they have a magic brush!

That may seem like common knowledge but there are painters out there that do exactly that. Brush and roll cabinets. There is one company in Omaha that takes the doors to their shop to be sprayed but brushes everything else in the customers kitchen.

The Big downside to spraying is the extensive prep work involved. Everything has to be protected. The walls, countertop, backsplash, appliances, floor, ceiling, sink.

I can only assume this extensive prep work is why this critical step and spraying is skipped but it is necessary for a professional job/finish.

The paint being sprayed is very important as well. There are fantastic and durable coatings for cabinets and paints that have no business in your kitchen. A high-end coating will be very durable to daily wear and tear and lay down nice when sprayed to give a beautiful finish.