Advice needed: Relatively new cabinets with peeling paint

5 years ago

Our newish kitchen cabinets have quite a bit of peeling and worn paint on them.

A year and a half ago we had a kitchen installed by a high end kitchen company. We had them recommended to us by a builder who used them for his own house.

The kitchen company was great to work with and designed and installed a kitchen that I am very happy with.

Now, the paint is peeling and worn. We are not hard on our kitchen, this is from normal use. What can I do about this? Our kitchen needs to be repainted and we have had it around 18 months. We went with solid wood cabs from a local company.

They left us with touch up paint, unfortunately I think they gave us someone else's because it was the wrong colour.

TIA

Featured Answer

millworkman

5 years ago

" I'm sorry to say that you can hit some builders are not on the up and up. Your cabinets are not high-end at all! So I'm not sure why you were told that. Smells like your builder may have possibility even gotten a kick back to sell you on those."

Thats an awful lot of assumptions.................

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Comments (56)

laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
Beth, I have no idea what their process was. All I know is that my friend who builds custom homes has their cabinets in his house with his four children and a dog and they still look beautiful (and their cabinets are much older than mine). And yes, I plan on speaking to the manager, I wanted to get some advice here first. I really appreciate the help! I did not ask about a warranty in part because of how well my friend's kitchen has held up.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
@Peter B. Rice & Co they feel like they have been rounded
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Suzette Sherman Design
5 years ago
All good comments by others above so here is mine. By the looks of the paint the job does not smell right. I'm sorry to say that you can hit some builders are not on the up and up. Your cabinets are not high-end at all! So I'm not sure why you were told that. Smells like your builder may have possibility even gotten a kick back to sell you on those. Having said that you will never know. I would go to the cabinetmaker and complain. A mention of a not good yelp might also help if need be or the BBB. If all else fails in the end the best you can do is have them match the paint color to give you the touchup paint.
paintguy22
5 years ago
Could be a moisture issue as well. Looks like that one door is next to the dishwasher? Also, splashing water from the kitchen sink onto the cabinets can help them degrade quicker. If you have a garbage can cabinet door, that always takes a beating as well even though you may not even realize it.
mark_rachel
5 years ago
These cabinets look like they are 20 years old! I would go back to the company & see what they have to say before doing anything else.
iheartsix
5 years ago
Wow! There’s more than peeling paint here, these cabinets look like they’ve been chewed or scratched on.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
@iheartsix I don't have a dog ):
cat_ky
5 years ago
I would ask that they redo them. I painted my own, and used proper prep, and good primer, and cabinet paint, and its been 3 yrs, and has never had to have a single touch up. Looks like just done. I live alone, but, babysit, many great grand kids, and I have a beagle, who can be pretty darn wild, and has been known to stand up and try to get things off cabinet counters, and not even his nails have made a scratch.
Sammy
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
It’s a bad paint job, simple as that. Had it not been for the way you spelled colour, I’d wonder if we had the same cabinet maker. :/ But I’m in the U.S. and I’m guessing you’re in Canada.
PRO
JudyG Designs
5 years ago
Possibly readers have had a similar experience but without identifying the manufacturer, you may be missing out on some important comments.
Fori
5 years ago
I don't see any peeling. The section at the floor has simply been banged a bit--like all projecting floor trim, it's normal wear and tear.

The drawer face looks worn and chipped from use. Trash fronts tend to get more cleaning and handling so it's not surprising for wear to show up here. I'd still expect more from a paint job!

The panel that looks like it might actually be peeling also has some strange spatter marks on it. Does it get a lot of water or other liquid spilling on it?

You should definitely contact the company and offer to let them fix this. It's not holding up well, but it does not appear to be the case that the paint is peeling for no good reason. It's taking some heavy use as well.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
@JudyG I'd like to give the company a chance to fix this before naming them. they were lovely to work with when we were building them. I'm really hoping we can work this out but I wanted to get dinner other opinions before I can them. I know it looks like the kitchen had been beat up but it's really only normal daily use.
iheartsix
5 years ago
Laura - you say this is normal use but there’s something wrong here. This is 18 months of normal use yet it looks worse than anything I’ve seen in many kitchens with normal use. It’s all relative I know but you really need to contact your maker and get to the bottom of this. You mentioned you did not have a dog, but it looks like a dog chewed away on your trim. That alone would make me more determined than ever to get someone out to look at your cabinets. Best of luck :)
iheartsix
5 years ago
...and touch up paint won’t help. You’ve got gouges.
ci_lantro
5 years ago
Duplicate picture of that cabinet which makes it look like you have 2x more damage. Most of the damage is to baseboard, not the cabinets. Base takes a beating under best of circumstances. More so when it's on a column or pediment out in the middle of traffic. Even more so when the base is a softwood which this appears to be.

Basically, this kitchen looks like it has lived a somewhat rough life over the past months compounded by selection of materials not cut out for the task....softwood base and opting for paint over stained/ clear finished cabinetry and a design w/ posts & pediments that are projecting into traffic patterns and taking whacks.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
I just sent a message to the builder including pics of the issues, thanks for all your advice so far it has helped me know what to ask for. I think the kitchen needs to be sanded and resprayed and the baseboard trim replaced with harder wood. I have noticed that the wood is very soft and gouges easily. Sigh. I was really hoping to install a kitchen that would last me a lifetime and interviewed several different kitchen companies all who were recommended by people who used them.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
Cabinet guy has replied and we are trying to arrange a time to meet
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
Here are a few more issues that I found while wrong them off today. The cabinet guy told my hubby that he's let us know today when he can come down. The first pic is paint wearing off edges of the cabinet. I'm finding this around the knobs of the high use cabinets, likely from wiping fingerprints off.

The second pic shows paint chips. These cabinets dent very easily and there is no dent by this chip so I do not think it's from misuse.

The third and final pics are cracks in the paint over joints in the wood. The first is the side of the venthood cover and the second, although it looks like a door, is the side of a cabinet. Neither of these spots move.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
*wiping them off, whoops!
Heather N
5 years ago
What are you using to clean the cabinetry?
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
Heather: Water or water with a bit of general purpose cleaner in it. We use either a washcloth or a soft sponge.
User
5 years ago
Local custom guy or national manufacturer?
Heather N
5 years ago
I was just wondering if something in your cleaning product could be eating at the paint and making it weaker? We use a specific cleaner that our cabinetmaker recommended for our painted cabinets. I forget the name of it, but they gave us specific cleaning instructions after install. Your cabinets look much worse than the painted cabinets in our old house which had been there for 15 years and were never touched up.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
@green designs this was from a local company
wilson853
5 years ago
They should have used a post catalyzed conversion varnish for a long lasting finish. I bet they didn't.
wilson853
5 years ago
Here's a bit of info to help you speak their language.

conversion-varnish-advantages-over-lacquer
PRO
User
5 years ago
“They should have used a post catalyzed conversion varnish for a long lasting finish. I bet they didn't.”

Bingo. They probably used a pigmented lacquer. Not catalyzed. Lacquer is succeptible to water damage much more easily. The correct finish from a local custom cabinet maker is 50% of the cost. And 90% of how well the cabinets hold up to wear and tear.

There is no no way to “fix” this that would not end up more expense to the cabinet maker than 100% remaking them. Refinishing is much more labor intensive, because you would need to go down to bare wood and start over.

Perhaps he will refund you, and you can start over.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks so much Wilson853 and The Cook's Kitchen, that explains why my cabinets are wearing so much more quickly than others. Unfortunately I fear that The Cook's Kitchen is right, to repair this will require the doors to be either be sanded down and refinished or replaced. I am afraid that if he resprays them the same issues will reoccur.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
@The Cooks Kitchen do you think he could just replace the doors?
missenigma
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I've been following this thread since the beginning. There are a couple of things that stick out at me. Here are some of the OP's comments:

"So yes, I recognize that the dings are from use but the use is regular wear and tear, not heavy abuse."

"We are not hard on our kitchen, this is from normal use."

"All I know is that my friend who builds custom homes has their cabinets in his house with his four children and a dog and they still look beautiful (and their cabinets are much older than mine). "

I wonder why the friend's kitchen still looks beautiful?

People have very different perceptions of what constitutes "regular wear and tear." I look at some of these pictures and see things some things I would call classify as "hard living" including: the chips, dents and dings out of the base trim, and; residual "dirt" and splashes that have been left on the surface. Look at the dried contamination on the bottom of what I think is the black dishwasher toe kick as well as the bottom of the cabinet with the chip on the edge. I'm guessing that's a pull out trash bin.

That's not to say that the cabinet maker may have used a less robust finish. But, regardless of the finish used, the family is hard on the kitchen. A more robust finish may take more abuse, but it would definitely be seeing abuse.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
@Mssenigma most of those marks are not dried on food but water marks, (although it does look like I could have rinsed.my sponge better) that is a close up of a toe kick beside the dishwasher. Regardless of how clean a person is there are always going to be splatters on a team kick even just from washing the floor. Take a close up of any toe kick you see and it will look similar. I realize it looks like we play hockey in our kitchen (which we don't) but the baseboards in the rest of the house, where the kids are allowed to play, look so much better than the kitchen trim. If you don't look to closely at the trim or the paint wear it still looks nice, but considering this amount of wear in 18 months what will it look like in 5 years? Considering the amount we spent on this kitchen it's going to need to be our "forever" kitchen.
missenigma
5 years ago
So why do you think your builder friends kitchen looks better than yours with his four kids and a dog? Did the builder get the better paint? That would be a great question for the cabinet maker.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
@missenigma that's a great question. My friend has four kids and a dog and it still holds up well! I wonder if the company changed some of their paint or finishing products since she had her cabinets installed.
laurahahe
Original Author
5 years ago
Our cabinet guy came by this morning. He is going to repaint all the affected doors for us, give us the correct type of touch up paint as well as trim paint. (The Cook's Kitchen was correct, they used pigmented lacquer instead of a conversion varnish). If the whites from the repainted doors are off he will repaint all of the doors.
PRO
User
5 years ago
A repaint will NOT be successful unless all of the previous coatings are 100% stripped to bare wood. That is more labor than making new cabinets. If they don’t strip to bare wood on both the doors and faceframes, then you don’t want them to touch it. It will continue to fail long term.
Sue
5 years ago
Read this thread with interest considering I am having my solid cherry cabinets painted! I saw examples of painted cabinets and they do look nice but now I’m worried!
tuesday_2008
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I would ask two questions:

1. Exactly what primer was used if any? Primer is what your paint bonds to and should be appropriate for kitchen cabinets.

2. Exactly what paint was used (brand and type).

I am NOT a painter, just a housewife, and I painted an oak vanity plus the oak trimmed mirrored medicine cabinet (that was a nightmare) TEN years ago and there is not ONE ding or scratch on this paint job. I used one of the good primers recommended here (can’t remember the name) and SW Proclassic paint. I cleaned and lightly sanded the grungy looking finish, primed, light sanded again, and applied two or three coats of paint, lightly sanding between coats.

This is in DH’s bathroom, used daily, leans against the vanity, opens and closes his cabinet which houses all his bathroom junk many times a day with wet or dirty hands probably. He stands in front of the toe kick with work boots at times. Not a scratch even on the toe kick. It might get wiped down every two or three months, not weekly when I clean the bathroom.

It just looks like you have a very bad paint job, probably the products used.

Edited to add: Look at the post down page from Marky Mark...no primer was used and poster has some problem, just not as bad as yours.
Andrea Findley
last year
Hi I was just reading through these posts because I am experiencing a similar issue with some grayish brown stained cabinets in our kitchen which had a expensive remodel about four years ago. The cabinet company that our contractor used came out to look at them yesterday and said it’s all because of water damage. And that it’s normal if a drop of water gets on the cabinet and stays there for a day. He said to avoid this we should be ensuring that at all times or cabinet faces are dry. The damages all near and around the sink in the dishwasher but it extends to our island even.

I’m just having a hard time believing there isn’t a better more protective finish to put on cabinets that cost so much. I never had this issue in any other kitchen including our cabin which has original cabinets from 1970. It’s kind of shocking. They said that they could completely sand and refinish, which is the only way to fix the problem… But then I will likely be experiencing the same issue in a few years again unless I meticulously dry off any drops of water.

So I’m curious to know if the solution that was discussed above- using post catalyzed conversion varnish is what needs to be requested?
PRO
Beth H. :
last year
Adrea, please start your own post w/pictures and I'll be glad to help you.

water damage? without pics of what you're talkign about, I can't guess. (were the wood cabinets something like mahogany or another dark wood?)

in any case, you'll get more help on your own dilemma post.
PRO
Debbi Washburn
last year
I am guilty of not reading all the comments so I apologize if repetitive.

The first door/drawer picture you posted looks like it is the garbage pullout unit. It always seems to be the first cabinet that gets beat up in the kitchen and everyone says the same things " we aren't hard on our kitchen " . That will most likely be able to be touched up and will probably need it again over the life of the kitchen. The chips and scrapes around the post remind me of damage from a vacuum cleaner. You may think you are just running close to the leg but if you hit it and hit it again, eventually the paint will chip. Mopping with too much water will also cause damage around the toe kicks.

Hopefully you can get some touch up paint and take care of these issues or see if the company can order you a replacement door.

Best of luck.
Andrea Findley
last year
Here are a few pictures of our kitchen cabinets where the finish is chipping off. It’s happening on the bottom of the upper cabinets as well as the lower cabinets. All around the sink and dishwasher and even stretching over to the island. I understand that it’s water damage but I am surprised that it doesn’t wear better.
PRO
Beth H. :
last year
Need more info. More pics. How they were finished. What stain was used. What’s the wood. Stain shouldn’t chip since it absorbs into wood. So we need to know what’s going on with the wood u have and the process used to finish them
bry911
last year
last modified: last year
I missed this thread when it was originally posted, but it looks like a problem with the coating application.

@Andrea Findley - your coating could have the same problem. This happens in corners when coats are put on too thick or recoated too soon and it is fairly common.

Coatings adhere to themselves (crosslinking) and to the substrate. When applied too thick, the crosslinking is strong enough in corners and edges to lift the paint. In corners this rounds off the corners by forming a bridge. On edges it often forms two bridges (one on each face). Since these bridges are lifted from, or poorly adhered to, the substrate they often chip just like this. However, non-protective stains don't usually crosslink, but toners and varnishes will.
Andrea Findley
last year
I will see if I can gather more information. I was told that the cabinets are maple. The cabinet company was very clear that this was water damage and it happens when water sits on the surface and then gets under the seal/ clear coat.
bry911
last year
@Andrea Findley - I don't know what I am looking at in your pictures as the perspective is just off. Can you back up and give us a more complete picture of the cabinet and where the damage is?
Andrea Findley
last year
Thank you for your note. I am away from my house for a week which is why I haven’t responded with more photos! But I will as soon as I get back. The damage is all within the vicinity of the sink in the dishwasher. So on the island which faces the dishwasher and sink, and on the drawers to the right of the sink area. So it makes sense to me that the cabinet person indicated it was water damage. I just don’t understand how an expensive remodel would have such poor seal on the cabinets.
Andrea Findley
last year
Here are more photos of our issue!
PRO
Beth H. :
last year
last modified: last year
Andrea, you've been asked to start your own post. this is a 3yr old post belonging to someone else w/a diff problem.

start your own w/these pics and you'll get a ton more help.

I have some questions to ask regarding your cabs, but I won't do it on this thread. (I will tell you that what you have is not normal staining, and it shouldn't 'peel' like that. that's why I need more info.
Andrea Findley
last year
Thank you for the advice. I will start my own post!