Painting kitchen cupboards with Farrow and Ball

Sorry have no specific advice-have you thought about giving them a call and asking for their opinion?

What I can say is that I have Farrow and Ball matt paint on kitchen walls and it is really 'tough'. No splash back behind hob and any splashes wipe clean away, at lower levels dog food, grease from dog rubbing along walls etc-it all comes straight off and leaves the paint work as good as new.

Just to say, we were fitting some phone sockets in a house where they were having everything painted with Farrow and Ball, we spoke to the decorators and they said it was the worst paint to use and they would rather to using something like Dulux or even own label ones. They did not say why it was so bad, but none of the team of decorators was enjoying using it!

A company I used to work for would supply a solid oak door, painted in any F&B colour you wanted. However, these doors were spray painted (not brushed) with 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of paint. The paint itself was acrylic based. These doors looked amazing every time.

I have seen many people try to paint their own doors and only rarely is a finished achieved that looks remotely professional. The majority of the time, they look like a gods dinner. If the doors aren't solid wood, they look even worse.

Personally, I think hand painting kitchen cupboard doors is a really bad idea. Even if you manage to get a finish that looks pretty good, I would say the finish wouldn't last for too long, a few years at most. I'd be looking for a company who can spray the doors, to give an even and professional finish that you know you'll be happy with...

I'm still in the thros of installing a new kitchen. After much looking I decided to make the drawer fronts and doors and panels and paint them myself. Did a lot of research on the net, particularly on carpenters' forums like this:

http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/spray-finishing-mdf-edges-how-i-do-it-t31082.html

The doors and drawer fronts are shaker style and made from mrmdf

I got quotes from two companies to paint the doors - one was £1400 and one £900. So decided to have a go myself. The quotes were for a sprayed finish in acid catalyst lacquer (known as acid cat). This the pretty much the most robust and hard wearing paint available but, after reading the forums I decided to use a waterbourne pigmented lacquer. (not sure if waterbourne is the same as water based) because cleaning up spray equipment is so much easier and there are no fumes which is a problem with acid cat. This particular waterbourne lacquer is apparently nearly as hard as acid cat.

I bought the paint from Morrells who specialise in wood finishes and they have shops nationwide. The waterboune lacquer is called 362 and can be pigmented to any Farrow and Ball colour. It is available in a range of sheens - we went for 20% which is like eggshell. It is best sprayed on and I bought an HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) spray system from here:

http://www.spraygunsdirect.co.uk/product.php?products_id=5588&oscsid=ibia5tso1f9rgffkbuhp6dagf1

The paint and primer cost about £100 (5 litres minimum for each) and the spraygun was £66

It's fairly easy to get a good finish with a little practice and I think it would be difficult to get a comparable finish with brushing. It's also very quick (about 30 seconds to spray a door).

I'm very happy with the results and if I knew how I'd post some pictures.

Going back to the OP's questions, I think a lot will depend on the quality of the doors and what they are made of. If brushing then the F & B Estate eggshell is used quite a lot (according to the forums). One tip that is often repeated is to add a little Owatrol oil to the paint which improves flow and reduces brush marks

I know that what I have done might seem a bit ambitious but it really was easy and the results are good.

The primer is a white water based primer supplied by Morrells. It dries very quickly (as does the lacquer) and is easy to sand back using 320 grit.