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Do-It-Yourself Kitchen Cabinet Re-Painting

Before you decide to do a major kitchen upgrade, you might try re-painting your cabinets to bring them back to their prime. This article will teach you how to paint your cabinets and successfully transform your kitchen.

You have two options when painting wood cabinets: the airless sprayer or the high volume low-pressure spray system (HVLP).

The Airless Sprayer

The airless sprayer is a spray machine that most professional painting contractors use on a daily basis in their businesses. These are powerful machines that can deliver high volumes of paint on both interiors and exteriors of buildings, and they can be quite expensive. If you don't have the money to invest in one, rent one. Just be sure the rental machine is in good condition and serviced well. There is nothing more frustrating than an airless sprayer that wasn't cleaned properly by the previous users.

With airless sprayers, you can paint large areas quickly by using pressure atomized paint systems. This technology can be inappropriate for fine finishing work, as large quantities of paint are delivered with particles less finely divided. Airless sprayers tend to create a large amount of overspray so you will have to protect everything you don't want to paint with masking paper and plastic.

Start with the sprayer's pressure low and work it up until you have a good spray pattern with no fingering or tails on the outside. Airless sprayers are designed to move paint fast, so don't poke along or you'll put on too much paint with runs and sags. The trick is learning to balance trigger control with hand movement.

The High Volume Low-Pressure (HVLP) Spray System

The HVLP is an efficient technology for applying paint to specific work pieces. Such systems operate at low pressure, resulting in a low velocity application of paint. HVLP paint systems atomize paint by delivering high air volume at low pressure (less than 10 pounds per square inch). Because the paint particles are delivered at low velocity to the object being painted, less paint gets lost as overspray, bounce, and blow back. Typically HVLP paint system transfer efficiency is 50 to 65%. Good HVLP spray systems start at $500 and go up to around $850, so you see why the brush method looks pretty good to some people.

It's up to you to be patient and to learn as much as you can about your equipment before starting. All of these details can seem overwhelming, but in the end, you will have greater appreciation for your kitchen.

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