Touching up paint for prepainted cabinets


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Old 05-20-16, 06:36 AM
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Touching up paint for prepainted cabinets

I've installed some kitchen cabinets I bought online (***, mostly an "OK" experience). The cabinets are a flat white finish. There are a few places that the joints are not perfect, or other issues. I'm wondering about using wood filler and sanding, and then touching up the joints. Will I be able to get a nice looking result? Obviously getting matching paint will be important. The online place is recommending I just color match a door at a "Sherwin Williams" store, but it seems like that implies a latex paint. (A little more reading on the web suggests there are other options like water based lacquers available)

Im just looking for advice about this - is attempting to touch up in spots going to work? I'm considering something like the Preval sprayers or possibly a Preval "vFan" airbrush. Any advice?

A few pictures at https://goo.gl/photos/htzNgQEf14gNndTP9

Thanks!
Marvin
 

Last edited by Shadeladie; 05-20-16 at 09:32 AM. Reason: Company name removed
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Old 05-20-16, 09:13 AM
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Welcome to the forums Marvin!

Personally I wouldn't want a flat white finish on cabinets. Flat paints get dirtier quicker than paints with a sheen and can be difficult to clean. I'd consider repainting the cabinets with a waterborne enamel - either white or a color of your choice. You'd just about need the same brand/line of paint that was originally used to get a touch up that wouldn't show.
 
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Old 05-20-16, 09:23 AM
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Painted cabinets are not my favorite. I have installed cabinets with a similar finish, it was called Chocolate White. Every time a customer chose Chocolate White, I would cringe a little, knowing the finish is very touchy.
Touch up doesn't work well. It's like touch up paint for a car, it's very hard to apply without a blob.

I had a customer in a very nice home (60K kitchen) that had the same complaints as you. The solution was to either leave it alone or to repaint brand new cabinets once they were installed. Customer chose to have cabinets painted after installation. Just the face frames were painted, not the doors.

Personally I am very picky about the finish, but I think I would have let the finish be.
Whatever you do I would not recommend any type of caulk to hide the joints, that will look worse down the road.
 
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Old 05-23-16, 07:42 AM
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Thanks for the responses. I'm probably going to try some experiments with some scrap pieces of trim, and see what kind of results I can get. Repainting all the face frames would obviously be a bunch of work.
 
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Old 05-23-16, 07:49 AM
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It's been awhile since I used a Preval sprayer, but they work pretty good. It's much better than trying to touch up with bottled paint.
 
 

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