Restoring Peeling Thermofoil Kitchen Cabinets

Anyone else have peeling kitchen cabinets? I used to love our white cabinets and how easy they were to wipe off, but now that they are peeling they are the bane of my existence. One thing with house renovations is that once you think about updating one thing it cascades into a bunch of other things and before you know it you’ve spent a gazillion dollars. Because of our peeling kitchen cabinets, we haven’t been able to replace our flooring, countertops, backsplash since we didn’t know if we would have to fully replace the cabinets and that might change the kitchen footprint. It has basically held up all of our house renovations, so now we have decided we are going to completely peel the thermofoil off and paint them.

Our main goal for our house is to not have any eye sores and these peeling cabinets were eye sores. We aren’t trying to necessarily have an HGTV house just functional house with no eye sores because we have three kids and they are about to go to college. :-p Now, when we have a rental house that generates income that is a different story and HGTV is the goal so that’s fun to get to play around there, but for myself I don’t feel like I need all of that. If by doing our little hacks, our house looks a little more HGTV, well then I’m not going to complain or anything.

So as a quick and potential long term fix if it goes well, we took off and painted the 2 cabinet doors that were peeling. We don’t have much time, in general, with 3 kids. so we figure we’ll fix them as they peel 🙂 Here are the steps we followed:

1.) Buy the paint and supplies (see supply list section). We took an existing door to Home Depot to get a color match. We bought special cabinet paint in this color. I think it’s important to buy cabinet paint because it’s somewhat self-leveling. You could even splurge and get the Benjamin Moore – Advance for cabinets. or Sherwin Williams Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel. I read those are the best but then got in a rush and forgot about it because I was already at Home Depot and I got Behr Cabinet paint which worked out fine.

2.) Prep work: We took both cabinet doors off as well as the handles. We covered our ping pong table in the garage with a paint cloth and setup all our supplies. This was the perfect place to do the painting (height and everything).

3.) Remove the thermofoil completely with a heat gun. I highly recommend buying a heat gun for this because the thermofoil comes off much better so you can avoid messing up the wood underneath. We set the heat gun at 500 degrees and the thermofoil removed very easily and cleanly. I wore some gloves because I was scared to get burned. We even used the heat gun to speed up the paint drying process, but we set it at a lower temp and held it further away. This allowed us to finish the job quicker.

4.) Sand and prep the cabinet doors. After removing the thermofoil fully, you can use denatured alcohol to remove the glue residue. We didn’t do that part, we just sanded the doors with 120-grit sandpaper (wear goggles, and mask b/c you don’t want this stuff to get in your eyes and nose), then 220-grit sandpaper. If you have any indentations in the wood, you can use wood putty to fill those in before painting. We didn’t have any because the heat gun at the right setting and some patience (don’t drink coffee before this process :-p) allowed us to remove the thermofoil very cleanly. Use a tack cloth or vacuum to remove the debris after sanding.

5.) Prime the doors with the Kils3 primer (2 coats). Put your first coat, then let it dry and sand again. Do this twice (total of 2 coats of primer) – sanding after each time. The sanding is important – it really gives it that smooth feel you want for your kitchen cabinets. You don’t have to sand after the final coat. We used a paint brush for the intricate parts of the door and a roller for the flat parts.

6.) After thoroughly priming, you are ready to apply the paint color (3 coats). The paint we got had a satin finish because it will be easier to clean than eggshell and that is what our current finish is so we wanted the best match for that as well. Some people prefer semi-glass for kitchens – that’s probably what I would’ve gotten if I wasn’t trying to match our existing doors. We did 3 coats of the color – sanding after each one, except the final one. For the final coat, we did it with the paintbrush only because we felt that had a better finish. I guess if you got the right roller, maybe that would give you the right finish. We had a foam roller and it was leaving an impression – don’t use a foam roller – use a short nap one.

7.) Once dried – you may have to wait several days depending on the type of paint you purchased (check the cure time), you are ready to put the handles back on and put the doors in place!

We are very happy with the final product. The paint match we got from Home Depot wasn’t perfect but it was close enough – for white kitchen cabinet doors it’s hard to tell the difference. I don’t think any of our company will be looking close enough to tell the difference (if they are, then they won’t be invited back j/k) and it looks so much better than having white cabinets with the brown underneath showing in chunks. I feel confident enough now that we can one day get new backsplash and countertops with this fix (once we get over the price shock of those things – as I mentioned our 3 kids are heading to college one after another :-p). We will just continue to do the rest of the doors and drawers as they start peeling as well – in my opinion it’s so much easier to do it as they peel rather than all at once. We were able to save ourselves like $15,000 – not sure how much kitchen cabinets run these days with inflation. I didn’t even bother to get a quote because I didn’t want to faint or waste anyone’s time.

Supply List: