How To Choose a Cabinet Painter for Your Home

Over the past five years, I’ve learned so much from my customers. The most important thing I’ve learned is what’s important to them better be important to me too. Here’s a short list of the questions anyone hiring someone to paint their cabinets should ask.

Questions to ask your cabinet painter before you hire them

1. If I change my mind after I give you a deposit, can I get my money back?

   Yes. We are usually booked about 6 weeks out, so for us if something happens and you need to cancel your job we refund 100% of your down payment and you make the jobs behind you very happy.

2. Are you insured?

   Yes. Anyone you let in your home to do work should be carrying insurance. We have a two million dollar liability policy to make sure if the unthinkable happens, you’ll be made whole and we won’t have to declare bankruptcy. I believe all property should be insured making it easier to allow claims like Woolsey fire claim.

3. How quickly will you respond to my calls/text messages/emails?

   Quickly. Maybe it’s just us, be we feel like most trades people don’t value communication as much as they should. I try to over-communicate rather than leave you hanging. Because this is my livelihood and it’s your home, I do my best to respond to texts and calls as quickly as possible (anywhere between instantly and an hour if I’m in the middle of a job). Emails may take a bit longer, but you should expect to hear back within a couple of hours at most.

4. 
   

   I’ll be home with my kids, who will be doing the actual work?

   Women. You can see on our team page who we are. We do use one guy – my 75 year old dad. He often helps re-install the cabinets where his OCD and perfectionist streak finally has an outlet.

5. How long have you been painting cabinets professionally?

   4 years. Although I’ve been refinishing furniture for 20 years, flipped a house and been a DIYer my entire life, we started this business in 2013. Since then we’ve worked in almost 200 homes from Fayettville to Burlington to Knightdale and all points in-between. I believe, that properly painted cabinets are an integral part of any professional kitchen remodeling.

6. What type of prep work do you do?

   A lot! Everyone says they do a good job prepping, but the proof is in the pudding. Skimping on professional prep means you’ll soon be hating your cabinets and the cracks, bubbles, chips and blisters. We remove your doors, de-grease them, sand them and de-gloss them. After that we tack-cloth them and start the primer stage. We tack-cloth between each step to make sure there’s no wayward dust or debris. You can see our whole process in our blog post about how to paint your own cabinets.

7. 
   

   How do you apply the paint?

   We spray the doors and drawers and roll/brush the bases. Because the doors and drawers occupy about 98% of your visible cabinets, we make sure to get those as close to factory finish as we can. We spray those in our shop with between 3 and 7 coats of primer and paint depending on what’s needed (oak is always the toughest). We also send out a team of women to hand paint your bases. They prep your cabinets in-place and then apply at least 3 coats. They almost always finish in 1 day.

8. How durable and washable is the paint you use?

   Cures to a super-hard finish that is completely washable. Over the years we’ve been through about 4 or 5 different paints. We now use McCormick Interlock. We love it because of it’s superior color and gloss retention, it’s also corrosion and alkali resistant and best of all GREEN WISE Certified.

9. How long will this take?

   One week. We usually start by removing doors and drawers on Wednesdays, then the girls paint the bases the following Monday, and re-install the doors and drawers Tuesday. Sometimes we need to wiggle the schedule a little bit, but that’s always our template.

10. Can I use my kitchen that week?

    Yes. We ask you to clean off the counter for the days we come and paint, but beyond that all you have to deal with is having no doors and drawer fronts in the kitchen. The only downside is you’ll become very aware of your need to organize all the stuff in your cabinets.

11. Do I have to empty my drawers or cabinets?

    No. We don’t paint the inside of your cabinets or drawers, so there’s no need to move anything. Sometimes when we take drawer pulls off we may remove some things from a drawer to get the screwdriver in there, but we replace it when we’re finished.

12. Do you have reviews online?

    Yes. We have lots of reviews on the 2 Cabinet Girls Facebook page. We’ve also been reviewed on Angie’s List, Google, Yelp and Houzz. We also have an A rating with the Better Business Bureau.

13. What is your warranty?

    I come back once during the first year if you have any problems. I always stress the care instructions which if followed mean years and years of no-worry cabinets.

Did we miss any questions that you’re wondering about? Let me know if the comments below and I’ll reply as quick as I can.

Like what you’ve read here? Get a ballpark quote for getting your kitchen cabinets painted.