Prep Work & Repairs

Canvas, Plastic, or Board? Protecting Floors for Kitchen Painting

Cabinet painting is messy in a very specific way. You will not usually dump a gallon of paint on the floor. You will, however, make hundreds of tiny chances for damage: tack cloth lint, primer splatter, enamel drips that cure like rock, and the occasional brush you swear you set down on the paper...

Tack Cloths, Microfiber, and Vacuums for Dust-Free Cabinets

If you have ever finished a coat of paint on your cabinets and felt gritty bumps when it dried, leftover dust is often the culprit. Sanding dust is sneaky. It hides in hinge corners, clings to door profiles, and floats right back onto your surfaces as soon as you start moving around. And to be...

TSP vs. TSP Substitute vs. Citrus Degreasers for Cabinet Prep

If you have ever painted cabinets and ended up with fisheyes, peeling near the stove, or paint that scratches off a week later, there is a good chance the problem was not your paint. It was what was still on the cabinet when you painted. Kitchen cabinets collect an impressive mix of cooking oils,...

How to Fix Sagging and Crooked Cabinet Doors

If your cabinet doors suddenly look crooked after painting, new hardware, or just years of daily use, take a deep breath. In most kitchens, sagging doors and uneven gaps are not a “new cabinets” problem. They are a hinge adjustment problem. The best part is you can often fix it with a screwdriver...

Wood Filler vs. Putty vs. Bondo for Cabinets

If you have cabinets with a few battle scars, you are in good company. Most kitchens I work on have a mix of tiny scratches, corner chips, old hardware holes , and at least one mystery dent that appeared out of nowhere. The good news is you do not need perfect cabinets to get a gorgeous painted...

Strip Peeling Thermofoil and Prep MDF for Paint

Thermofoil cabinets love to break hearts. They look smooth and modern until the day that plastic skin starts bubbling at the edges, lifting around the sink, or peeling off in crunchy sheets near the oven. The good news is you do not have to replace everything. If the cabinet boxes are solid and the...

Masking and Taping a Kitchen for Cabinet Painting

If cabinet painting is the “pretty part,” masking is the unglamorous best friend that makes the whole project look professional. I learned this the hard way in my first honey-oak kitchen makeover, when I thought a few random strips of tape would do the job. Spoiler: it did not. Paint has a way of...

How to Label Cabinet Doors and Hardware

If you only do one “type-A” thing before painting cabinets, make it this: label everything like you are going to forget it all in two weeks. Because you will. And that is not a character flaw, it is just what happens when your kitchen turns into a sanding zone and every hinge suddenly looks...

Liquid Sandpaper vs. Manual Sanding for Cabinet Prep

If you have ever stood in the paint aisle holding a bottle of “liquid sandpaper” in one hand and sandpaper in the other, you are not alone. Cabinet prep is where paint jobs live or die, and it is also where most of us want the biggest shortcut. Here is the honest truth from many kitchen makeovers:...

Fix Cabinet Painting Mistakes: Drips, Bubbles, and Peeling

If you are staring at cabinet doors with drips, bubbles, or a corner that is peeling like a bad sunburn, take a breath. Most cabinet painting “disasters” are fixable without stripping everything back to bare wood. The key is knowing why it happened, then using the right repair method so the same...

Repair Water-Damaged MDF Cabinet Doors

If your MDF cabinet door is puffing up around the sink or dishwasher, you are not alone. MDF (medium-density fiberboard) is smooth and paint-friendly when it is sealed, but it hates water. Once moisture gets in, the fibers swell like a sponge, the “skin” bubbles, and edges turn soft and crumbly....

Fill Old Hardware Holes So They Disappear

If you are changing your kitchen hardware layout, moving pulls from center to lower corners, switching from knobs to longer pulls, or just updating to a modern spacing, you will end up with a few “ghost holes.” The good news: those old holes can disappear under paint. The not-so-fun news: the...

How to Clean and Prep Kitchen Cabinets for Paint

If cabinet paint ever “mysteriously” peels, chips around the knobs, or stays tacky, the culprit is most often prep. Kitchens are greasy by nature, and that invisible film can keep primer from bonding even if the cabinets look clean. (Product compatibility, cure time, humidity, and previous failing...