When Painted Cabinets Are A Bad Idea

Believe it or not, sometimes we have to tell clients that painting their cabinets isn’t the right solution. Here are some of the fringe cases where a coat of paint isn’t going to help.

Your Doors Are Sagging

This image from Suzanne McGrath’s awesome blogpost about her kitchen showing some cabinets doors that no longer close properly is a classic problem in older kitchens. If we painted these cabinets as is, within a few days the paint would start to wear away.

Many times this sort of problem can be fixed with some wood putty, new hinges, adjusting the hinges or a combination of those.

Chipped or Peeling Doors

As Kate over at Retro Ranch Revamp explains, old doors that are peeling or chipped can be saaved, but it’s a huge project – not just a coat of paint.

If your kitchen looks like this, take a minute to read Kate’s blog post about how her doors ended up being 10% wood filler before she started painting. Almost all things are either made beautiful or made so-so during this “prep” stage, so it’s not the right time to cut corners.

Much like the above problem, extra time and effort can cure this problem.

Dog Claws

If you have a dog that jumps up on your cabinets, then paint is a bad decision. Unless you have stainless steel cabinets you’re going to be repairing them on a regular basis.

I wish we had a good secondary solution in this case, but sometimes you just have to hug Fido and let them know you love them even if they do occasionally scratch up a cabinet.