How to paint joinery & cabinetry- featuring our stockist Cloisters
When painting interior cabinetry and joinery, your chosen paint finish should be durable, hard-wearing and provide a beautiful finish.
Preparation
When painting cabinetry, preparation is key.
Cleaning and de-greasing the surface will ensure that there are no dust particles or anything else which will get caught in your new paint surface, spoiling both the final look of the project, and affecting the potential adhesion to the surface.
The next step would be to lightly sand the surface, creating a key. This enhances the adhesion of the paint. We’d then recommend giving the surface another wipe, to remove any dust or debris created by the sanding.
Make sure you calculate how much Aluminium Wood Primer, Intelligent All Surface Primer and whichever topcoat you choose. You can get an approximation of how much you’ll need by using our paint calculator, which features on each paint product page.
Choosing primers and undercoats.
If you’re painting new, knotty, or resinous wood, this can be sealed with one coat of our Aluminium Wood Primer. This will prevent any resins from bleeding through the topcoat of your chosen finish.
After applying one coat of Aluminium Wood Primer or if your woodwork is sealed or you are opting for a lighter colour on a dark wall, you should apply one coat of quick-drying Intelligent All Surface Primer (ASP). Although the ASP is Intelligent and therefore water based, it has been formulated to work in conjunction with both our Intelligent and Oil based finishes beautifully and is tinted to half the colour of your chosen topcoat, to ensure an efficient coverage and base layer for your surface.
MDF
MDF is extremely porous and should be treated slightly differently during the preparation stage. We’d usually recommend rubbing the surface down and applying one diluted (by 10%) coat of Intelligent ASP (All Surface Primer). Following this, we would suggest lightly sanding the surface again, to avoid the grain showing through.
Topcoats
Our Intelligent, water-based paints which are ideal for painting interior woodwork. They’re very quick-drying and child-safe, which makes them suitable for use throughout the home.
For a traditional finish, you could consider our long-lasting oil-based paints, which use naturally occurring vegetable oils to significantly lower the use of solvents.
For a water-based paint, you could opt for our self-priming Intelligent Satin or Intelligent Eggshell and for the more traditional oil-based finishes, you could choose either Interior Oil Eggshell or Traditional Oil Gloss.
These four options are all durable, but have different sheen levels and drying times, so you can select the perfect finish for your project.
All our finishes are featured in our ‘Colours of England’ colour card in the ‘Finishes’ column, all painted in French Grey, so you can accurately compare the finish itself and see how it affects the colour and appearance.
Click here to ‘Request a colour card’
To discover more about each finish individually, simply follow the links below.
For full technical and preparation advice, please refer to our technical data sheets.
