How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets

What's the best paint for kitchen cupboards? Can I paint laminated cabinets? What primer should I use on my kitchen?

Sound familiar? These are some of our most frequently asked questions, so we wanted to make things easier for you.

Watch our guided video below or read on to learn more.

Prepare

Step 1

Remove doors and drawer fronts from your cabinets, including hardware like handles and hinges too! Put down dust sheets to protect other parts of the room as necessary.

Step 2

Clean the cabinets. We recommend using our cleaning agent Mallipesu, an alkaline solution that removes dirt, grease, oil and wax. Make sure to wash off any residue with water and a damp cloth afterward.

Prime

Step 3

When the cabinets are dry, sand them with fine paper (you can skip this step if you have melamine or high gloss surfaces.) Fill imperfections with a quality ready-mixed filler and sand again. Helmi Furniture Filler is great for filling in gaps on kitchen cabinets and cupboards as it's ready-mixed, easy to sand, dries white, and won't shrink or crack.

Step 4

Apply primer. The type of primer you should use will depend on what your cabinets are made of:

Solid wood

A good quality indoor wood primer will work here. We recommend Helmi Wood Primer, a water-based, high-opacity acrylic primer.

Previously painted wood

If your cabinets have previously been painted, there may not be a need for a new primer - just a very good sanding! Especially if your new colour choice is close to the existing shade. However, if the existing paint needs some TLC, we would recommend priming with Otex Akva before moving on to your topcoat.

Veneer, laminate & tricky surfaces

A lot of modern kitchens are laminate, which can be shiny or have a matt finish, usually very smooth, and can be difficult to get paint to stick to. In this instance, we recommend using our adhesion-promoting primer, Otex Akva.

Paint

Now for the fun part!

For this stage, we recommend using our Helmi water-based paint. It comes in three finishes to ensure you have the perfect finish, every time. We have Helmi 80 (gloss), Helmi 30 (satin), and Helmi 10 (matt).