Over the past eleven 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
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If I change my mind after I give you a deposit, can I get my money back?
Yes. The contract may be cancelled at any time up to 7 days prior to the job start. Any deposit, minus supply fees (any supplies purchased) & the $100 consultation fee, will be refunded.
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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.
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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. We try to over-communicate rather than leave you hanging. Because this is my livelihood and it’s your home, we do our 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.
I’ll be home with my kids, who will be doing the actual work?
Women & Men. You can see on our team page who we are. We have a great team of men & women working for us. Prior to Covid, we exclusively had female painters. It seemed to work well with their home schedules. After Covid, many women didn’t return to the work force & we have hired some male painters as well.
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How long have you been painting cabinets professionally?
11 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 excess of 500 homes from Garner to Pittsboro, to Chapel Hill/Durham to Knightdale and all points in-between. I believe, that properly painted cabinets are an integral part of any professional kitchen remodeling.
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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 & bring them to our shop and we de-grease them, sand them and de-gloss them. After that we tack-cloth them and start the primer stage. All door & drawer panels are sprayed in our professional spray booth. The booth removes all dust particles from the air so they don’t land in the went paint! We sand in between coats & tack-cloth between each step to make sure there’s no wayward dust or debris. After 2 coats of primer, we spray the finish coats. You can see our whole process in our blog post about how to paint your own cabinets.
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. We also send out a team to hand paint your bases. They prep your cabinets in-place and then apply at least 3 coats. We also now offer an option to fully spray your cabinets bases in your home. So if your cabinets have a lot of detail or if you just don’t want to see any brush or roller marks, then this option is for you!
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How durable and washable is the paint you use?
Our lacquer cures to a super-hard finish that is completely washable. Over the years we’ve worked with about 4 or 5 different paints. We now use Sherwin Williams Kem Aqua Plus. We love it because of it’s durability and finish. It is a professional grade water based lacquer intended for use on cabinets and furniture. To clean, simply use a mild dish soap, warm water and a soft sponge. Please no harsh chemicals which will wear away at the finish.
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How long will this take?
10-12 business days. We start by removing doors and drawers & bring them to our shop for prep & painting. Then the paint crew comes to your home to paint the bases. Once the bases and doors are completed, we re-install the doors and drawers, hinges & hardware.
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Can I use my kitchen that week?
Yes for Option 1 (hand painted bases): 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.
- For Option 2 (sprayed bases): Once the tent or “bubble” is up, we ask the homeowners to not enter the space so that dust is not tracked in or out of it.
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Do I have to empty my drawers or cabinets?
No. For hand painted bases (Option 1), you will only need to remove the contents of any interiors behind glass doors or open shelving. We don’t paint the inside of your other 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.
- Yes. For sprayed bases (Option 2), you will need to remove all of the contents so the cabinet interiors can be masked off. The drawer boxes will need to be removed so we can mask them off off as well.
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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.
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What is your warranty?
I always stress that customers read the care instructions which, if followed, means years and years of no-worry cabinets. Just keep in mind, any painted surface will last longer if it’s treated well. But after we finish with your cabinets, if you notice an issue with our work, please contact us and we will handle it on a case by case basis.
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.
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