Spray paint a wooden kitchen in Cheadle
Traditional Painter Scot Hindley took an enquiry to spray paint a wooden kitchen in Cheadle. Emails were sent back and forth and it became apparent that the client wanted him to respray rather than hand paint the finish. Scot is an expert paint sprayer, and over a couple of visits he discussed the processes and procedures, timings and a start date.
Hand Painted Kitchens Manchester, Cheshire & Lancashire Contact Scot Hindley Traditional Painter Tel: 0798 902 52 12 For More Information.
mailto:enquiries@traditionalpainter.com
Before
As you can see from the photograph, the client likes to keep the kitchen in A1 condition but…
…unfortunately the painted coatings were starting to fail.
Do you paint everything?
It is a common question early on in discussions. Rest assured, when we paint a kitchen, we deal with everything you see when the doors and drawers are shut, and most important, we paint the details you see when you start to use the kitchen.
We paint both sides of the doors and drawer fronts, and invariably we paint all frames, cornices, pelmets, kickboards, end panels and open shelving, wine racks, plate racks too.
As you will see below, the internals of the glass cabinets were painted too. This is common practice, and is an opportunity to turn a functional storage cabinet into an eye-catching illuminated display. It is also feasible to add some fun details, painting the backs of cupboards in a strong contrasting colour.
Natural wood finish details
Some items can be treated differently, not painted.
Kickboards can look good left in natural timber and lacquered, to contrast with the doors and frames.
You can paint the back of a plate rack, but leave the actual racking in natural oiled or lacquered timber for a good combination of looks and durability.
We generally do not paint the inside of regular kitchen cabinets.
The most practical approach for interiors is veneered laminate – fit and forget.
Pine kitchens from Christchurch and similar wooden kitchen companies often come with bare pine cabinet interiors. Priming and painting a bare pine interior is pretty much the worst of all solutions. There is a LOT of surface area in a cupboard, and as a rough ready reckoner, painted interiors would double the cost of painting your kitchen. And paint doesn’t do well in the long run being in constant contact with cans of soup, saucepans etc.
Best solution for new pine interiors is oiling. It is simple to do but time consuming, making it a feasible DIY task, leaving the specialist painting to the specialist painter.
Down to work
I labelled and removed the doors and drawers, handles were stored in a safe place and everything was transported back to the workshop for preparation, priming and topcoats.
The carcass was also thoroughly prepared, failed paint removed, gaps to the in-frame filled, and the units were masked ready for priming and top coats.
The carcass was then primed.
Next day I denibbed the primer with a fine grade abrasive and wiped thoroughly with a tack rag, leaving the surface perfect for top coats.
Once topcoats were dried off, I went through the kitchen removing masking protection, leaving a workable kitchen for my clients. I then went off and worked on the doors in the workshop.
It wasn’t too long before I was back installing the newly painted doors and drawer fronts.
The kitchen is an in-frame construction. I removed the traditional butt hinges and stored them out of the way. The clean hinge looks stunning against the new painted doors.
Overall, the kitchen came out really well – a factory quality spray finish, exactly as specified by the clients.
Scot can be contacted via his profile page on the Traditional Painter website, where there are more examples of his work, and business credentials and more examples of the extent of his trade knowledge and expertise.
Trade tips if you are spraying
Compared to brushes and rollers, good spray kit costs a lot to buy and maintain! For this reason, we hope that our spraying tips will inform DIY and trade readers dipping into spraying for the first time.
Is there a demand for sprayed finishes?
I have been paint spraying a long time now but spraying is not really in the UK decorating mindset, trade or public! Most of our clients would never consider having a decorator spray paint in their house, and it is rare to even be asked about sprayed finishes on kitchen cabinets.
But part of our job as professionals is to provide best solutions. If you view spray guns as another form of paint applicator, along with brushes, rollers and paint pads, then you have a full deck of options to choose from on the job and you can also can provide well informed and balanced advice to meet the client’s expectations.
We specialise in hand-painting, but as this client has demonstrated, there is a small demand for “factory finishes” on refurbished kitchens. And I expect that demand will grow along with raised awareness of what is possible with spraying.
Spraying is faster than hand painting?
Occasionally a client will ask for a sprayed finish on the premise it must be faster and more convenient than painting by hand.
In general decorating scenarios it seems obvious that spraying ceilings and walls with an airless rig will be much quicker compared to painting with conventional brush and roller. As an example, if painting a big new property, spraying is king, and if you have a new triple garage door, spraying is faster than brushing and should be flawless too.
In general though, the speed advantages of spraying over brushing and rolling will only apply if the sprayer is experienced, has a freed up work space and /or has a long run of say doors or trim woodwork racked up to accommodate their speed and efficiency.
Once the conditions for spraying become awkward, the speed advantages disappear. For instance, with the sort of kitchen painting we do, refurbishing kitchens in situ, it is harder to make the case for spraying on speed grounds. I spray because the client wants the “factory spray finish” and I work around the disadvantages of spraying, so I can deliver that finish.
Spraying still requires full preparation processes
Of course I can spray a coat of paint on a kitchen door in seconds, but especially when refurbishing an older pine or oak kitchen, there is a lot more to it than painting! The same preparation process applies whether spraying and brushing. Sanding, filling, sanding, cleaning, it all requires the same process and attention to detail.
When spraying a kitchen there is quite a lot of work that you don’t have to consider when brushing.
– Masking up for spraying takes way longer than running a piece of tape around inside edges of cabinet frames when hand brushing. When spraying, as you could see in the photo, the cabinets need to be protected with masking film.
– Cleaning up and maintaining spray equipment takes longer than cleaning and looking after brushes and rollers.
– We use more paint when spraying.
– And consider maintenance of the paint finish too. A hand painted finish can be touched in with a brush. Try using a brush to touch up a sprayed finish. Don’t, the end result is less than ideal. Therefore maintenance and touch up of sprayed finishes has its downsides.
But sprayed finishes must be perfect compared to brush work?
The hand paint specialists are starting to bristle here! The level of brush skills and paints used nowadays deliver fantastic results, appreciated by anyone who sees the end results up close.
Back to the question, yes, good spray work should indeed be flawless, but not all spraying I have seen is that good! Spraying is like hand painting in terms of being a skill, and some operatives are more skilled than others!
– Sprayers are not immune to paint misbehaving in unexpected ways and can end up with their version of amateurish brush marks! Spattering and sags.. It is not unheard of for even the most skilled of sprayers to get some contamination on the surface and end up with pin holing. Then there are other pitfalls:
– coverage issues if paint isn’t correctly prepared for spraying;
– drying issues because of draughts or excessive heat
– rough finishes from overspray settling back down on the painted surface;
– a gun misfires for “no reason” and leaves a run or uneven application.
Keep practicing and recording results and mixes and spray happy ever after.
We have plenty more information and answers to common paint spraying questions on the TP forum
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