Painting - Kitchen Cabinets, Trim, & Doors

Doing some painting this coming weekend. Need to repaint kitchen cabinets, All doors, and trim inside the house.

Trying to decide what type of paint to use. It will all be white Just need to decide whether to use oil base or latex semi gloss. House was built in the late 60's 0r early 70's , not sure which, and the kitchen cabinets are the old "thin" wood cabinets, nothing like todays cabinets. They are painted white right now, but get dirty easily and don't clean well.

All doors are painted white as well.

What do you all suggest or prefer?

Thanks in advance for any opinions

First you need to know what type of paint is on the woodwork and cabinets. Applying latex enamel directly to oil base enamel can be disasterous.

Have the cabinets been repainted at some time? If they were painted with flat wall paint they wouldn't clean well at all.

If you currently have oil base enamel on the woodwork you need to continue with oil base unless you first sand and coat with a solvent based primer. it could thne be painted with latex.

They say you can use waterborne enamel [not latex] over sanded oil base enamel but have not done so myself.

IMO oil base and waterborne enamels are the best paint to use. Both SWP and Ben Moore have quality paint of each type.

Yes, they have been repainted before, but not by us. The people that lived in the house before us did it. We have been there for 5 years

There is a sticky at the top of this forum that will help you determine what type of paint is on your cabinets and woodwork.

1st. Quick and dirty way to determine if your cabinets are oil or latex. Get a q-tip and put it in some rubbing alcohol. Rub in an area not seen, if the paint comes off, it is latex. Oil will not be bothered buy this test rub.

2. It would be best to take off the doors and spray the cabinets for best finish. Remove hardware, as spraying around is not practical, nor is leaving old hardware on new wood. If your going to spruce it up, do it whole hog.

3. Clean the heck out of them. Simple Green is an excellent non toxic degreaser that will help prep the surface. Stay away from TSP and the like. Tend to leave a film/deposits that are hard to remove. After washing the cabinets, NOW sand. DONT SAND until you have washed. If you do, you just grind all the crap into the old coating.

4. Prime. I would use either BIN (shellac) or a product like SWP PrepRite Bonding Primer (water base). By spraying you will give yourself a much smoother surface. If spraying is not possible, at least remove doors and paint on a flat surface. Roll them with a mo-hair roller as it is very smooth and will give a nice finish. On a side note, before rolling, please roll your roller up in some masking tape. After rolling up, slowly pull the tape off the roller. This will help remove any loose roller hairs, and will not deposit them on your doors.

5. Paint. Either use a good quality latex ENAMEL paint. The ENAMEL is key, as it denotes a hardness similar to oil enamel. A great product to add to your latex ENAMEL is XIM Latex-Extender. This extends the dry time by 15-30 minutes. This is important because it allows the paint to "FLOW" and level. By doing this step, the finish will not show any "Roller Tracks". If you use oil enamel, forget the extender, it is for latex only. BTW water is not a substitue for the extender. This product also is non-yellowing. Very important if you want white cabinets. There are other extenders on the market, but they yellow.

Oil enamel also yellows, so keep that in mind.

After 1st coat dries, you may apply another coat (advisable) for better gloss, and durablility.

Hope that helps.

[QUOTE=marksr]First you need to know what type of paint is on the woodwork and cabinets. Applying latex enamel directly to oil base enamel can be disasterous.

Have the cabinets been repainted at some time? If they were painted with flat wall paint they wouldn't clean well at all.

If you currently have oil base enamel on the woodwork you need to continue with oil base unless you first sand and coat with a solvent based primer. it could thne be painted with latex.
QUOTE]

Actually, latex over oil is much preferred. As oil is the harder coating, it will be better under the latex (that is softer). Oil over latex is a bit more touchy. However this is an interior job, and expansion/contraction is not really an issue.

With the right primer, and prep work the arguement of oil over latex or latex over oil is irrelevent.

I would agree that you should prime before painting however.

Latex enamel has a tendency not to adhere well to oil base enamel, that is why I always recomend using a solvent base primer prior to using latex over oil base.

This is not to be confused with exterior painting where often it is ok to coat weathered oil base paint with latex.

Latex enamel has a tendency not to adhere well to oil base enamel, that is why I always recomend using a solvent base primer prior to using latex over oil base.

This is not to be confused with exterior painting where often it is ok to coat weathered oil base paint with latex.

I would agree with the principal of priming, however there are waterborne primers that are designed to adhere to oil/slick coatings. A couple that jump to mind would be XIM UMA (urathane modified acrylic) and SWP PrepRite Bonding Primer. Both of these offer excellent adhesion to previously painted coatings Oil OR Latex. The UMA is also noteable for its ability to be topcoated with some solvent based epoxy coatings. Surface prep is the same, however instead of a solvent wash (I dislike solvent washes anyway, and prefer waterborne cleaners such as simple green) use a water based cleaner.

Solvent based is old technology. It still has its uses, but is being supplanted by newer more friendly coatings. (Friendly to the environment, and your lungs :) )