How to Clean Your Cabinets for a Long Lasting Paint Finish
The best way to improve a kitchen appearance is by painting cabinets or restaining cabinets. Refinishing kitchen cabinets is an economic cost effective method to change the look of a kitchen. One thing do it yourself homeowners need to know is they need to remove any grease from existing kitchen cabinets.
Grease or oil residue is the fastest contaminant that will cause a paint or stain to fail. Oil stains can prevent paint or stain from properly bonding to kitchen cabinets. Removing grease and cooking resin from kitchen cabinets will go a long ways in the longevity of new finishes. Also it’s easier to clean your cabinets with the doors removed and put your doors in a safe place.
The first thing to the cleaning process of cleaning kitchen cabinets is to remove all hardware from the cabinets and doors. Removing hardware will prevent grease and water from settling behind hinges and door knows which could pose a problem later.
There’s a few things needed to clean cabinets from main kitchen contaminants. The list of items needed would be scotch pads, any strong degreaser solution, sponges, towels, and a clean 3 gallon bucket.
Scotch pads are needed to scrub the cabinets to help pull the contaminants below the grain. Some people like to spray degreaser on their cabinets and others like to pour some degreaser in a bucket and dilute the solution with water according to the amount of grease deposit buildup on their kitchen cabinets.
Once the cabinets are cleaned with a scotch pad and cleaned, pour clean water into the 3 gallon bucket and soak your sponge. Once the sponge is soaking wet, wringe it out, and wipe all the degreaser away from your cabinets and doors. After you have removed all of the cleaning solution from your cabinets, you want to repeat the cleaning process at least 2 times. Preferably you want to clean your cabinets 3 times as a minimum.
Cleaning your kitchen cabinets thoroughly is the best way to ensure you will have proper adhesion for your paint finish. Using the right cleaning products and removing all contaminants are especially important before you move onto the next stage.
You will need to do a test before you move on to the next phase to make sure you removed all the grease and oil from your cabinets. An oil test kit can be purchased from your local paint store for about 50 bucks at the time this article is written.
