Kitchen cabinet painting in Naperville

Most Naperville kitchens we paint are 1990s red oak or maple with twenty to thirty doors and drawers. We empty nothing you do not want to empty, since the interiors are usually left as they are, but we mask every box, appliance and countertop. The doors are sprayed off site while the face frames get the same primer and enamel in place. White, warm white, greige and deep greens and blues are the common choices; we spray a sample door first so you see the color in your own kitchen light before committing.

A vanity is a small version of the kitchen job with one extra problem: humidity. We degrease, sand and prime exactly the same way, then use a cabinet enamel that tolerates moisture and let it cure fully before the doors go back on. A darker accent color such as navy, charcoal or forest green is a cheap way to change a bathroom without touching the tile. Most single vanities are finished in about two days and double vanities in three.

A painted island in a contrasting color against lighter perimeter cabinets is still one of the most requested kitchen updates. It is also where the finish takes the most abuse, from stools, shoes and vacuum cleaners along the toe kick. We give islands an extra coat on the lower panels and use the hardest enamel we stock there. Two-tone kitchens, with darker lowers and lighter uppers, are planned so the break falls at a natural line like the countertop, and both colors are sampled together before anything is sprayed.

Thermofoil and laminate doors can be painted, but not the way wood is. The surface is slick plastic, so it is cleaned, scuffed and primed with a bonding primer made specifically for it. Thermofoil that is peeling at the edges, which is common near the oven and dishwasher, cannot be painted successfully and has to be stripped of its film or replaced. We check every door at the walkthrough and tell you which ones are paintable before we quote the job.