Slick factory faces want waterborne bonding primer rather than any ordinary undercoat, since nothing else holds onto vinyl, melamine or high-pressure laminate. Sound doors take the coating well. Lifting ones never will.
Those three materials account for a great deal of the cabinet painting done in this town, running from 2000s builder stock out in Clarke and Scott through to rental units and older condo galleys. Substrate picks the primer, and primer decides whether a job lasts.
Bonding Primer Is Why Cabinet Painting Holds On A Slick Door
A melamine or foil face is built to shed everything, paint included. Waterborne bonding primer is made to bite into precisely that sort of surface, ready to recoat after roughly four hours and reaching full adhesion across three or four days, which is where cabinet painting on these materials either holds or fails.
Preparation still matters more than the product. Each face is degreased twice over and hand-scuffed, since bonding primer holds on a clean scuffed face and slips off a greasy shiny one. On melamine the edges get extra attention, because chipping always begins there.
Expect that specialty primer to show on the quote. Ontario-wide it adds several hundred dollars to a whole kitchen, the honest price of cabinet painting a substrate nobody designed to be recoated.
Thermofoil That Has Begun To Lift Cannot Simply Be Painted
Thermofoil means a vinyl skin heat-pressed over a shaped MDF blank, and the bond between the two breaks down under heat and steam. Once a corner curls, no amount of paint presses it flat, and cabinet painting across it buries the problem for a single season.
Two answers exist. Heat strips the skin away to bare MDF, the blank gets filled and sanded, and the door then goes through cabinet painting the way any other MDF door would. Or that door is replaced outright and sprayed alongside everything else so it matches.
Which answer suits turns on how many doors have gone and how far. A lifting door or two next to a dishwasher is a repair. A dozen across one kitchen normally argues for fresh doors on sound boxes. Cabinet refacing and door replacement sets that out.
Melamine And Laminate Behave Differently From Foil Under Cabinet Painting
Melamine is resin-impregnated paper fused onto particleboard, and it stays put under a coating. The edge tape is what fails, peeling away at the corners and along door bottoms that have taken years of shoes and knees.
Loose tape is removed and the edge is filled and sanded before priming, otherwise the cabinet painting simply follows the tape when it peels further. High-pressure laminate is tougher again and takes a bonding primer without complaint, provided the sheet is still bonded to the core underneath.
Swollen particleboard is the one thing no amount of cabinet painting fixes. Water sitting under a sink cabinet or at the foot of a dishwasher swells the board permanently, and a swollen door or box floor is replaced rather than coated.
Condo And Rental Kitchens Are Where These Materials Turn Up Most
Compact galley kitchens in apartment buildings and stacked townhouses are nearly always melamine boxes carrying melamine or foil doors, and they make the least expensive full kitchen in town to repaint properly. Owners and landlords alike reach for cabinet painting rather than replacing a unit kitchen that is structurally fine.
Older stock near Milton Mall and the townhouse rows off Derry Road fits that description, as do the basement and in-law kitchens in newer detached plans where multi-generational households are common. The condo kitchen cabinet painting page covers scheduling inside a managed building.
Find Out Which Of Your Doors Can Actually Be Painted
The visit settles it door by door, beginning above the range and beside the dishwasher where thermofoil goes first. A written answer follows, naming which doors take cabinet painting as they stand, which want stripping and which belong in the bin. Call +1 (289) 206-6908, describe what is lifting or look over every service offered here.
Thermofoil, Melamine and Laminate Cabinet Painting Questions
Can thermofoil doors be painted?
Sound ones can, under a waterborne bonding primer. Once a corner curls, paint cannot press the skin flat. That door is stripped to bare MDF, filled and sanded, then painted like any MDF door, or it is replaced. The visit checks doors above the range and beside the dishwasher first.
What goes wrong with melamine?
The melamine face stays put under a coating. The edge tape is what fails, peeling at corners and door bottoms. Loose tape is removed, and the edge is filled and sanded before priming. Coating cannot fix swollen particleboard, so a swollen door or box floor is replaced.
Does the special primer cost extra?
Yes. Bonding primer and the extra prep it needs add several hundred dollars to a whole kitchen across Ontario. It shows as its own detail on the quote. It is the honest price of coating a surface nobody designed to be recoated.