Answers to paint questions

Hello people.  Rather than reply to every email I thought I would post what I learned about painting cabinets previously coated with varnish or oil based coating.  First I will list the products you asked about.  Then I will bitch.

There are a lot of options for painting over oil base paint or varnish.

1. You can go with Benjamin Moore’s oil base Impervo (best self leveling on the market) over what you have with just a light scuffing.  If you’re going real light though, the oil eventually yellows. 
2. You can use Moore’s Advance which is water borne oil paint.  Tough as oil, easy as latex, great self leveling. Goes right over oil, no primer needed.  I found it too thin.
3. For light colors only, you could use latex Cabinet Coat which contains Stix and needs no priming over oil.  Not tacky or sticky and made for cabinets.

4. You can use Stix, tinted a little, and prime the cabinets with no sanding, followed with your latex choice.  I sanded because I wanted the wood showing.  

5. Benjamin Moore claims you can use their new latex Aura over oil if you lightly sand, no primer, or use a primer if you’d prefer.  There is also a deglosser that softens oil and you can paint over it. 

And yes the latex is tacky which I did not expect, but it's highly rated for durability.  The furniture pieces I used to make years ago NEVER dried tacky, but with all the regulations and changes to formulas with VOCs, it is now.  It's not like flypaper, but if something is set on it for any period of time, you will hear a snap when lifting it off the paint. The sticky snap.

 

Thinking that a clear coat would solve this, I emailed Rustoleum to make sure their water based polyurethane could be used over newly painted cabinets.  After a week, the reply came back that it could.  Good.  Love the product and the ultra smooth feel,  it's a clear coat armor for scrubbing, and provides a hard finish over the slightly tacky latex.   

 Yesterday - a week later -  I received another email from Rustoleum.  Seems the first responder didn't tell me everything I needed to know. First, you need to wait a week before applying over fresh paint.  Mine was next day.  Second, it makes it yellow/amber even though it is water based.  Great.  And it did.  The color has changed to a typical yellow based tan instead of the grayish putty that I worked so hard to formulate.  These photos look more like what was intended, and not as yellow as they are in person.  Too bad the first reply didn't mention this.

Now what?  Do the rest the same and have what I didn't want?  Repaint the polyurethaned ones and not have a protective clear coat?  Enter the dead paint can room and search for Aura in the darker shade I didn't want?  I talked to the BM guy this morning and he said the (latex) Aura would not remain tacky as do most latex and to expect 30 days for it to harden fully.  Forums have it 50/50 on the finish and my sample board is very smooth.  After setting a book on it overnight, this morning it snapped.  But has it cured long enough?  If this project was a sampler, it would have been burned long ago.  The cabinets are vertical surface and nothing will be set on them, the insides are not painted.  So it shouldn't be a problem and I may just leave it as paint with no sealer and hope tomato sauce comes off easily.  But if you are painting shelves with latex, count on sealing them with some sort of clear coat unless you like that snapping sound.

 

Painting my dark oak cabinets years ago was the best thing I ever did in the house.  It makes a huge difference and well worth the effort.  All I did was lightly hand sand and paint oil based Impervo over, they have held up great.  Caromal and Sloan's chalk paint will stick to anything, but must be waxed or sealed for cabinets.  Should I just choose a darker color and get the oil?  Choose a lighter color and get the Cabinet Coat?  Leave it alone and see how they hold up?  Paste car wax?  I will need a bag of Dove to contemplate.  Am I over thinking this?  Of course I am.  But I want to make sure the outcome will be good for a well used kitchen with a careless cook who uses a lot of spaghetti sauce, and never done again.

I hide the Dove in the basement and even though spiders scare me, if I encounter one, God help him.

 

 

 

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