Which Kitchen Cabinet Materials can be Spray Painted?

Contents

Solid Wood

Engineered Woods such as Laminate and Melamine

Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF)

Kitchen cabinets are made from many different materials such as solid wood, wood substrates, wood veneers, other engineered wood and metals such as stainless steel. Each material has its own benefits and drawbacks relating to factors such as durability, price and style. Regardless of which material your kitchen is made from, we will be able to spray paint it for you so long as the material is still in a good enough condition. If the material of a kitchen is untreated, further preparation will be necessary to enable our paint to adhere well.

Solid Wood

Our teams can spray over solid wood kitchens and here is an example of one such kitchen sprayed in colour matches to Lamp Room Gray and Plummett by Farrow and Ball.

We can spray over the top of any wood, from walnut and maple, to cherry and oak.

When real wood is sprayed, please note that the natural wood grain and knots will remain afterwards, as our paint will not fill in those areas. The paint that we use is applied in thin coats so that it looks as though items have been manufactured in the chosen colour rather than heavily painted in it. You can read more about this here.

Engineered Woods such as Laminate and Melamine

Laminate is a resin mixed with paper and then adhered onto a wooden substrate such as plywood or MDF. Melamine is similar as heat and pressure allow a resin infused melamine paper to be bonded to a manufactured wood product, such as plywood. Engineered woods such as these are extremely popular for kitchen cabinet carcasses and most of the kitchens sprayed by our teams are made from one of these materials.

A benefit of the top laminate/melamine layer is that a smooth, knot and grain-free finish can be achieved, making it a perfect base to be spray painted as there are no blemishes. Many customers query whether we can spray over glossy coatings and we can assure you that with the correct preparation, our paint will adhere well. So well in fact that we will guarantee that it will not crack, discolour, fade or peel for at least 10 years! You can read more about painting over high gloss kitchens here.

Below are before and after photos of a glossy kitchen sprayed in RAL 5011 Steel Blue in our standard satin sheen.

Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF)

The majority of kitchen cupboards in the UK are now made from MDF and this is another material that we regularly spray. MDF is similar to plywood, being an engineered wood made from wooden fibres stuck with resin and compacted into kitchen panels.

For treated MDF, our standard preparation is applicable, which includes cleaning and scotching prior to the spray commencing. For quality results on untreated MDF, sanding must also take place as must the application of primer. This is because raw MDF is porous, meaning that paint will soak in quickly and unevenly if the surface is not primed first. By priming, we can ensure that the base is consistent and suitable for proper paint absorption.

You can click here to find out about our standard kitchen spray preparation. Here is the additional preparation that is carried out on raw MDF:

1. Items are sanded so as to remove rough areas and imperfections as much as is possible.
2. Items are then cleaned to remove the dust particles that have resulted from the sanding.
3. The first layer of primer is applied and allowed time to dry.
4. These steps are repeated until the base is smooth enough to be sprayed.

Due to the extra time that it takes to prep raw MDF, we must factor this time in when preparing our kitchen spray estimates. Some of our customers have just a few items where their top layer is coming away and revealing the raw MDF underneath. For so few items, there will only be a little increase, if any, on our estimate as this should not affect the number of days that the spray will take overall. If however a customer has had a full kitchen built in untreated MDF that they would like us to spray or they would like their kitchen to be fully stripped of the vinyl layer for example, our estimate is likely to double as the time spent by our team to complete the spray will double.

The below pictures show a kitchen where the top layer was carefully removed from all of the cupboards and drawers, as it was peeling and warped in places and so the unfinished MDF underneath was sanded and primed prior to the application of our coating. We received such lovely feedback from our customer following on from this spray:

“Fantastic job from start to finish. The customer care from every single member of the team is a true inspiration, and hard to find. Never change this as it sets you so much from any competition. Thank you and wishing you all all the best in the future.”

Whatever the material that your kitchen is made from, you can send across some photos or a video of the items for us to take a look and to provide you with a free, no obligation spray estimate. Here are our contact details.