Golden oak from the 1980s becomes a current painted kitchen through oak cabinet painting: tannins get sealed under a shellac primer, the open grain gets filled or stays on show, and a hard sprayed enamel goes over top.
Golden oak is the most common kitchen in London. Oakridge, Westmount, Byron, White Oaks, Pond Mills and Stoneybrook were all built or renovated when it was the builder standard, and the cathedral-arch doors are still hanging. Honey maple and cherry doors hung in the 1990s and 2000s in Masonville and Hyde Park need the same tannin care in cabinet painting without the grain work. Kitchens where the oak is too good to cover belong on the cabinet refinishing page.
Oak Bleeds Through Water-Based Cabinet Painting Primer Within Weeks
Tannins in oak, cherry, walnut and mahogany dissolve in water. Put a water-based primer over raw oak and the tannins rise into it, then through the topcoat, as yellow, pink or brown blotches that start at the edges of the door. On the first day the paint looks perfect, and three weeks on it looks stained.
Oak cabinet painting starts with a shellac-based primer, which is alcohol-borne and seals the tannins where they sit. Within an hour it is dry, it sands to powder, and gives the enamel a sealed, even base. It is the single step that separates an oak cabinet painting job that lasts from one that gets repainted the next year.
Grain Fill Or Leave The Grain: The Oak Cabinet Painting Choice
Oak has an open grain that paint alone does not hide. Filled, the door reads as smooth painted wood, like a new MDF shaker door. Left open, the grain shows through the paint as a fine texture, which some owners prefer because it still looks like wood.
To fill it, a water-based filler is squeegeed into the pores in a couple of passes, left to dry overnight, then sanded level before priming, which puts an extra day on the schedule and an extra line on the quote. Skipping the fill skips that day. Either route is proper cabinet painting, and because the sample door gets sprayed each way, the decision happens in the kitchen rather than from a description.
Cathedral Doors, Raised Panels And The Joints That Move
The arched cathedral doors of a 1980s oak kitchen have a raised centre panel that floats in a frame. In a London house, indoor humidity swings from about twenty percent in furnace season to sixty in July, and the panel shrinks and swells with it. A thin line can open in the paint at the panel edge in February and close again in summer. That is wood moving, not paint failing, and a flexible waterborne enamel or two-part polyurethane handles it better than a brittle lacquer. The quote and the care sheet both say so before the work starts.
Honey Maple And Cherry Need The Primer, Not The Filler
Maple has a tight grain and paints cleanly with no fill, which makes a 1990s honey maple kitchen the easiest cabinet painting job in the city. Cherry paints as cleanly as maple but bleeds tannin like oak, so it gets the shellac primer. Either species goes to the booth with the same thin sprayed coats and the same sanding between them, and the colour decision is the same one covered in cabinet colour consultation.
Get An Oak Cabinet Painting Quote In London
A golden oak kitchen is the job we see most, and the sample door shows the grain filled and unfilled before anything is decided. Book the visit or call +1 (226) 271-3465. The London Cabinet Painting home page covers the rest of what oak cabinet painting sits beside, from islands to vanities.
Oak Cabinet Painting Questions
Why does oak need a shellac primer?
Tannins in oak dissolve in water. Under a water-based primer they rise through the topcoat as yellow, pink or brown blotches within weeks. A shellac-based primer is alcohol-borne, so it seals the tannins where they sit, dries in about an hour and sands to a fine powder.
Should the oak grain be filled?
Filled grain reads as smooth painted wood. Open grain shows through as a fine texture, which some owners like and which costs less. Filling adds a day for drying and sanding. We spray a sample door each way so you can decide in your own kitchen.
Will the paint crack at the door panels in winter?
A thin line can open at the edge of a raised panel in February, because the panel floats in its frame and shrinks in dry air. That is wood moving, not paint failing. A flexible waterborne enamel or two-part polyurethane copes with it better than a brittle lacquer.