time to fix the skirtings and kitchen cupboards, advice needed!

[Travis Edwards]

hi all I am doing some renovations and have just laid new flooring pretty much right through the house and actually just finished laying the floor in the kitchen and dining room today. This brings me to my next project THE KITCHEN CABINETS. The cabinetry itself is okay but the colour of them is attrocious and the benchtops have to go. The bench tops are no problem but the cabinets have been painted (poorly) with what appears to be stained estapol (I guess its estapol as that was the product most popularly used around 30 years ago.) Now the timber appears to be merantii (again the most popular timber around at the time) but the doors I am not sure what the timber is it appears to be a relatively fine grained softwood which was light in colour. As you can imagine it has all been slathered with the same stained estapol and the porous look of the merantii doesn't match the softwoods non porous grain and the darkness of the stain looks dated badly. Now is where I need the advice, what I want to do is paint the cabinets and all the skirtings throughout the house probably with a semi gloss white, and need to know what preparation, paint, etc.would give the most successful result. As you can well imagine completely stripping the estapol is not going to happen, but thorough sanding is totally essential and replacing the woodwork is not an option $$$. I have done a couple of scrape tests and the stain is not a penetrating stain and is basically confined to the estapol coating. Any advice would be much appreciated before I commit the dollars to buying the paint and such. I would guess an oil based paint for the woodwork would be best over the estapol.


Thanks in advance for any advice Travis.

[chambezio]

Hi Travis, its good to see your name on here again.
I have had good success in over coating existing finishes with "Triple Prep" (Could be Taubmans?) after a good sand you just apply this acrylic as an undercoat and then yes top coat with enamel. I was always disappointed with acrylics due to not being able to brush the stuff fine enough with bristle (hair) brushes, until I got onto nylon bristles. Using the triple prep with the nylon brush, it made a mug into a master. The brushes are not real cheap but they do do an excellent job.The brush I used had the bristles cut at an angle and made it really easy to cut in. For wide surfaces I have used a micro mesh .....?(can't remember) 100mm roller to get the paint on and then use the brush to lay off the texture left by the roller.

If you are like me and don't really like painting....I would go with 2 thin under coats followed by 2 coats of enamel. Ask your self when will you do the job again in the future. So my philosophy is, while everything is masked up and ready for painting put on the extra coats now and it will wear better too

[Travis Edwards]

Hi Travis, its good to see your name on here again.
I have had good success in over coating existing finishes with "Triple Prep" (Could be Taubmans?) after a good sand you just apply this acrylic as an undercoat and then yes top coat with enamel. I was always disappointed with acrylics due to not being able to brush the stuff fine enough with bristle (hair) brushes, until I got onto nylon bristles. Using the triple prep with the nylon brush, it made a mug into a master. The brushes are not real cheap but they do do an excellent job.The brush I used had the bristles cut at an angle and made it really easy to cut in. For wide surfaces I have used a micro mesh .....?(can't remember) 100mm roller to get the paint on and then use the brush to lay off the texture left by the roller.

If you are like me and don't really like painting....I would go with 2 thin under coats followed by 2 coats of enamel. Ask your self when will you do the job again in the future. So my philosophy is, while everything is masked up and ready for painting put on the extra coats now and it will wear better too

Cheers mate. I will see what I can find out about the triple prep. And Yes I am only going to do the job once so I want to do it right the first time.

Unfortunately life has become rather busy for me in the last couple years hence my time to get on sites like this has been minimal. At the moment I am on the road working a lot and when I am home I am working on a couple of projects which I am trying to make semi commercial as well as doing pretty extensive renovations on the homestead when I can fit it around everything else and the poor weather.

Travis