Cabinet Painting for Taunton, MA homeowners.

Between 1960 and 1999 the city added 11,660 of its current housing units, according to Census counts by decade, with the 1980s alone accounting for 4,020. If your kitchen still has the cabinets that came with a house from that span, they are now roughly 27 to 66 years old. Age alone does not decide anything. What matters is whether the boxes are solid wood or plywood, whether the doors are still flat, and whether the layout works for you.

Painting changes the color and surface. It does not move the sink, add drawers or fix a corner cabinet you cannot reach. If you like the layout and the boxes are sound, refinishing is usually the less disruptive route. Our refinish vs. replace guide walks through the trade-offs.

Reading the material on your doors

Open-grain woods such as oak show their texture through paint unless the grain is filled first. That texture is a matter of taste; a smooth finish takes the extra filling step. Maple, birch and cherry have a tighter grain and paint more smoothly. Thermofoil and some laminates are plastic skins over particleboard, and they need a specialty bonding primer, or they are better left alone if the skin has started to bubble or peel.

A quick test is to look at the back edge of a door and inside a drawer box. Visible wood layers or solid stock are good signs; crumbly particleboard edges that have swelled near the sink are not.

• Solid wood or plywood boxes with sound doors: strong candidates for paint
• Oak doors: decide up front whether to fill the grain
• Thermofoil that is lifting: usually better replaced than painted
• Water-swollen sink base: repair or replace that box before finishing

Built-ins and pantries in older houses

More than a third of the city's homes (34.8%) were built in 1939 or earlier. Kitchens in those houses may have been redone, but pantry cupboards, china cabinets and bathroom vanities from the original era can survive under layers of old paint. On a pre-1978 house, sanding that paint is regulated work: once more than six square feet per room is disturbed, federal lead-safe practices apply. A cabinet run plus its doors can reach that quickly. See the lead-safe page before deciding how much stripping to do.

What a durable cabinet finish takes

Kitchen cabinets get handled every day, splashed and steamed, and wiped with cleaners. The finish has to bond to a surface that has been degreased, scuffed and primed with a product made for slick or previously finished wood. Ordinary wall paint brushed over doors that still carry kitchen grease has nothing solid to grip and tends to chip at the edges first.

Doors and drawer fronts are removed, labeled and finished flat, either off-site or in a protected area at the house, while the face frames are painted in place. Hinges are cleaned or replaced, and the doors go back only after the enamel has hardened enough to handle. The cabinet painting process post goes step by step.

Rental kitchens in multi-unit buildings

Close to three in ten local housing units (29.0%) are in buildings with two to four units, and 37.9% of occupied homes are rented. An owner updating several matching kitchens in one building can have them done in sequence with one color and one prep plan. Tenants lose access to cupboards for part of the job, so timing between leases helps.

For painting the rest of the room, see interior painting. The East Taunton page describes housing in that section of the city.