How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets: A Step-by-Step Guide From Paint Pros

Painting your kitchen cabinets is one of the biggest changes you can make to a home for the money. Done right, painted cabinets look factory-finished and hold up to years of grease, steam and little hands. Done wrong, they chip at the edges, show every brush mark and peel off in sheets.

The difference is almost never the brush in your hand. It's the prep, the paint and the patience to let it cure. This guide walks you through all three, the way we'd explain it at our counter. It's for homeowners doing it themselves and for painters who want a quick refresher on the products.

Should you paint your cabinets?

If your cabinet boxes and doors are solid and you just hate the colour or the dated finish, painting is a great option at a fraction of the cost of new cabinets. Painting is a good fit for:

• Solid wood or wood-veneer cabinets, including stained or varnished oak, maple and cherry
• Previously painted cabinets in sound condition
• Laminate, melamine and Formica that isn't lifting or chipped
• MDF doors

Painting won't fix structural problems. Skip it, or replace those pieces, if doors are warped, particleboard is swollen from water, or the surface is peeling. That includes thermofoil (the plastic skin on many 1990s and 2000s doors): if it's bubbling or lifting at the edges, no paint will hold it down.

Choose the right paint: Cabinet Coat or Advance

Regular wall paint stays soft and sticky on cabinets. You want an enamel made for cabinets and trim, which dries hard and levels out smooth. These are the two we recommend most:

	INSL-X Cabinet Coat	Benjamin Moore Advance
Type	Urethane-reinforced acrylic enamel	Waterborne alkyd enamel
Finish	Satin only	Pearl, Semi-Gloss or High-Gloss
Primer needed?	Not over sound paint, varnish, polyurethane, melamine or Formica	Yes on MDF, thermofoil and laminate (Fresh Start High-Hiding All Purpose)
Recoat	6 hours	16 hours
Back in use	Treat gently for the first few days	5 to 7 days before loading shelves; up to 30 days for full hardness
Feel	Factory-smooth, hard, chip- and scuff-resistant	Levels like an oil paint for a brush-mark-free finish
Best for	Less prep and a faster turnaround, especially over varnished or laminate cabinets	The smoothest oil-like finish and a choice of sheens

Our take: if you're painting over varnished wood or laminate and want to get your kitchen back quickly, start with Cabinet Coat. If you want a higher sheen, or that classic hand-painted oil look, go with Advance and give it the time it needs. Both clean up with soap and water, both are under 50 g/L VOC, and both can be tinted to any Benjamin Moore colour.

Spraying a lot of cabinets in a shop? Painters and finishers who spray professionally also use Envirolak water-based primers and topcoats, which are built for spray finishing. Ask us which system suits your setup.

Which sheen?

A little sheen makes cabinets easier to wipe clean and helps them hold up. Satin and Pearl are soft and modern and hide small flaws well. Semi-Gloss is the classic cabinet and trim sheen. High-Gloss looks stunning on a smooth, perfect surface, but it shows every dent and brush mark, so save it for when the prep is flawless.

Do you need a primer?

Not always, and skipping an unnecessary primer saves you a full day. Here's how to decide:

Your cabinets	With Cabinet Coat	With Advance
Sound painted, varnished or polyurethaned wood	No primer. Clean and scuff-sand.	Clean and sand dull. Prime any bare spots.
Laminate, melamine or Formica	No primer. Clean, sand lightly and tack off.	Fresh Start High-Hiding All Purpose Primer
Very glossy or slick surfaces you can't sand much	INSL-X Stix bonding primer for maximum grip
Bare wood or MDF	Aqua Lock Plus (or a first coat of Cabinet Coat)	Fresh Start High-Hiding All Purpose Primer
Thermofoil in good condition	Ask us first	Fresh Start High-Hiding All Purpose Primer
Woods that bleed (cedar, redwood) or knots	INSL-X Prime Lock Plus
Dark to light colour change	Fresh Start High-Hiding, which can be tinted toward your colour

Stix is our go-to when a surface is too slick for anything else to stick, like glossy laminate, old glossy paint or even a tile backsplash. Read more in our guide to painting slick surfaces with Stix.

A note on oak. Oak has an open grain that shows through paint. Many people like that texture. If you want a perfectly smooth, slab-like look, the grain has to be filled before you prime, so talk to us before you start. Oak can also bleed tannin through white paint, especially where the old finish is worn, so test a door first and use a stain-blocking primer if you see yellowing.

Priming something other than cabinets? Our primer guide shows which primer to use on walls, trim, bare wood, stains and slick surfaces.

What you'll need

Prep

• Drop cloths, painter's tape and masking paper or plastic
• A screwdriver or drill, plus zip-top bags and a marker for hardware
• A degreasing cleaner like Saman TSP-Eco and clean rags
• Fine sanding sponges or paper (we carry Mirka sanding sponges for pros)
• Timbermate wood filler for dings and old hardware holes
• A tack cloth or damp microfibre to remove dust
• Painter's Pyramids to hold doors up while they dry

Painting

• Primer, if your surface needs one (see the table above)
• Cabinet Coat or Advance
• A quality synthetic brush for profiles and edges, like the Corona MiniPro BOSS Chinex or the Wooster Shortcut for tight spots
• A 4-inch mini roller with a fine, lint-free cover for flat panels, like Bennett Micro Pro or MooreMAXX mini rollers
• Or a sprayer (see step 8)

How to paint kitchen cabinets, step by step

1. Choose and test your colour

Cabinets are a big, permanent-feeling surface, so test before you commit. Paint a sample on a spare board or the back of a door, and look at it next to your counters, floor and backsplash in morning and evening light. A Benjamin Moore colour tester is perfect for this.

Going white? White Dove, Dove Wing and Cloud White are three of our favourite cabinet whites. See why in Our Top 10 Benjamin Moore Whites.

2. Empty the kitchen and set up a workspace

Clear the counters, cover floors and appliances, and mask walls, counters and the inside edges you don't want painted. Set up a separate area for doors and drawer fronts, like a garage, basement or spare room, where they can lie flat and dry without dust. Both Cabinet Coat and Advance should go on between 10 and 32 °C, so avoid a cold garage in winter. Keep the space ventilated.

3. Remove doors, drawers and hardware

Take off the doors, drawer fronts, hinges, pulls and knobs. Label each door with a number on a piece of tape in the hinge hole, write the same number inside the cabinet box, and bag each door's hinges with its number. This saves a lot of frustration when you rehang everything.

You can paint doors in place, but you'll get a much better finish with them off and lying flat.

4. Clean and degrease

This is the step that decides whether your paint sticks. Kitchen cabinets carry years of cooking grease you can't always see, especially near the stove and around handles. Scrub every surface with a degreasing cleaner, rinse with clean water and let it dry completely.

Always clean before you sand. Sanding a greasy surface just drives the grease into the scratches, and paint won't stick to it.

5. Repair and fill

Fill dents, gouges and any hardware holes you won't reuse with wood filler, let it dry and sand it flush. If you're changing to new pulls with a different spacing, now is the time to fill the old holes and drill new ones.

6. Scuff-sand and remove the dust

You're not sanding to bare wood. You're dulling the old finish so the new paint has something to grip. Sand until the shine is gone, using fine grit; Benjamin Moore calls for 220 grit or coarser under Advance. Feather any rough paint edges and scrape off anything loose.

Then remove every bit of dust with a vacuum and a tack cloth or damp microfibre. Dust left behind ends up in your finish.

7. Prime, if you need to

Use the primer table above. Apply one even coat and let it dry: Fresh Start can be topcoated after 1 hour, Stix after 3 to 4 hours. Lightly sand any raised grain or bumps with a fine sponge and dust off again.

8. Apply the first coat

Work in this order: backs of doors first, then fronts once the backs are dry. On the cabinet boxes, do the insides and edges first and the face frames last. Apply thin, even coats:

• Brush the profiles, edges and corners of each door.
• Roll the flat panels with a mini roller, then lightly brush in one direction along the grain to level it.
• Don't overwork it. Cabinet enamels start to set quickly. Lay it on, smooth it once and leave it alone. They'll level out as they dry.

Spraying gives the smoothest, most factory-like finish. Benjamin Moore prefers HVLP for Cabinet Coat: thin with 8 to 10 oz of water per 3.79 L and use a 1.8 tip at 20 psi. Advance can be sprayed without thinning, by airless at 1,500 to 2,500 psi with a 0.011 to 0.015 tip, or by HVLP at 20 psi with a 1.8 tip. Not sure which sprayer to get? Our best paint sprayer for cabinets guide compares the Graco QuickShot II and the Fuji Spray Mini-Mite 4 HVLP. New to spraying? Our spray or roll guide helps you decide whether it's right for your job.

9. Sand lightly and apply the second coat

Wait for the recoat time: 6 hours for Cabinet Coat, 16 hours for Advance at 25 °C. Cool or humid weather takes longer. Lightly sand with a fine sponge to knock down any dust nibs, wipe clean and apply your second coat the same way. Two coats is the norm. A third may help with a dramatic colour change.

10. Let it cure, then put it back together

Dry to the touch isn't the same as hard. Paint keeps hardening for days after it dries, and that's when chips and sticking doors happen. Handle doors gently for the first few days. With Advance, wait 5 to 7 days before loading shelves, and allow up to 30 days for full hardness. Rehang the doors using your labels, add the hardware, and stick small clear bumper pads inside the doors so fresh paint doesn't stick to the frames.

How long does it take?

Plan on a long weekend for an average kitchen, plus curing time before heavy use.

	With Cabinet Coat	With Advance
Day 1	Remove, label, clean, fill and sand	Remove, label, clean, fill and sand
Day 2	Prime if needed, first coat, and a second coat 6 hours later	Prime if needed, then the first coat
Day 3	Backs or fronts, whatever's left, then rehang carefully	Second coat, 16 hours after the first
After	Gentle use for the first few days	Rehang when hard to the touch; 5 to 7 days before loading shelves

How much paint do you need?

An average kitchen, with about 18 doors, 8 drawer fronts and 20 feet of cabinet boxes, works out to roughly 290 square feet of surface. Two coats is about 580 square feet, so plan on two 3.79 L cans of Cabinet Coat, which covers 350 to 450 square feet per can. Advance covers 400 to 500 square feet per 3.79 L. Most kitchens need one 3.79 L of primer, if you need primer at all. A 946 mL can is plenty for a bathroom vanity.

Painting laminate, IKEA and thermofoil cabinets

Laminate and melamine cabinets, including many IKEA kitchens, can be painted if the surface is intact. Cabinet Coat sticks to melamine and Formica without a primer: clean and degrease, sand lightly with fine paper and remove the dust before painting. For extra insurance on very slick or glossy doors, prime with Stix first.

Thermofoil doors can be painted only if the plastic skin is firmly attached everywhere. Benjamin Moore calls for Fresh Start High-Hiding All Purpose Primer under Advance on thermofoil. If the edges are lifting or bubbling, paint won't stop it. Those doors need to be replaced or refaced.

Common mistakes that ruin a cabinet paint job

• Using wall paint. It never gets truly hard, so doors stick and edges chip.
• Sanding before cleaning. It pushes grease into the surface, and the paint lets go later.
• Skipping the dust removal. Every speck shows up in a smooth enamel.
• Heavy coats. Thick paint sags, drips and takes far longer to harden. Two thin coats beat one heavy one.
• Overbrushing. Going back over enamel as it sets leaves drag marks. Lay it on and leave it.
• Rushing the recoat. Recoating too soon traps soft paint underneath.
• Rehanging and loading shelves too early. Fresh paint marks, sticks and chips until it cures.

For contractors

If you paint cabinets for a living, we carry the pro side too: fine-finish airless with the Graco QuickShot II, turbine HVLP from Fuji Spray, and Envirolak spray-finishing systems, plus Cabinet Coat and Advance tinted to any Benjamin Moore colour. Read our QuickShot II review for how it handles cabinet work.

FAQ

Product details are from Benjamin Moore and INSL-X. Always follow the directions on the can and the product data sheet.