PSA: I painted my kitchen cabinets without sanding them first and it worked perfectly

Everyone says you have to sand everything down to bare wood for paint to stick, but I was on a tight 3-day timeline for a client in Austin. I used a liquid deglosser, wiped everything clean, and then applied a bonding primer. After two coats of a good enamel paint, the finish is rock solid 6 months later with no chipping. It saved me at least 8 hours of labor. Has anyone else skipped the sanding step on a big project and had it hold up?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenixp302mo ago

But what kind of cabinets were they? That's the real key. If they were old, real wood with a varnish, that's one thing. If they were the cheap laminate ones from a builder grade house, that's a whole different ball game. The deglosser might not bite into a factory finish the same way.

susan_henderson2mo ago

Good point, mine were the cheap laminate kind. I used a liquid deglosser and it worked fine, but I had to really scrub each door with a green scouring pad to rough it up first. The key was letting the deglosser sit for the full time on the label before wiping.

finleybutler15d ago

Eight years ago I refinished my kitchen cabinets with a deglosser and ended up with a weird sticky film on half of them. Turns out I bought the kind that was meant for real wood and my cheap laminate doors just laughed at it. I had to sand everything down and start over with a primer that cost more than the cabinets did. Still ate cereal off the floor for a month because I had no doors on my cabinets.