Kitchen and bathroom painting Canberra
Cabinetry, doors, wet-area walls and ceilings, in systems chosen for the two rooms that get hotter, wetter and cleaned more often than anywhere else in the house.
Wet areas
Standard ceiling paint in a bathroom is the most common failure there is. A kitchen and bathroom formulation resists the moisture, but no paint fixes a bathroom that is not being ventilated: the exhaust fan and how long it runs matter more than the tin.
Kitchen doors and drawer fronts are grease before they are anything else. They get degreased, sanded and primed for adhesion before any topcoat, and the finish is chosen for how often the surface is handled.
Walls behind basins, around baths and beside cooktops take more cleaning than any other paintwork in a house. A washable finish there is worth the small extra over a flat.
Paint does not fix rising damp, a leaking shower base or a failed silicone joint, and covering them hides the problem for a season. If the substrate is wet we say so before quoting, not after.
The honest constraint
Direct answers
Usually yes, and it costs a fraction of a new kitchen. It works well on timber, MDF and most factory-finished doors. It works poorly on anything with a peeling or bubbling laminate face, because paint will not re-bond a laminate that has already let go.
The result depends almost entirely on preparation. Degreasing, a thorough sand and an adhesion primer are the difference between a kitchen that still looks right in three years and one that chips at the handles in three months.
Doors are best done off their hinges and laid flat where there is room, which is slower but avoids runs on a vertical face. Expect the kitchen to be partly out of action while it happens.
A kitchen and bathroom formulation on both the ceiling and the walls, in a low sheen or semi-gloss rather than a flat. Those products carry more mould resistance and a tighter film that copes with condensation and with being wiped down.
Sheen matters more than most people expect. A flat finish in a bathroom holds moisture and marks the moment anyone cleans it, which is why bathroom ceilings in flat white are the surface that fails first in most Canberra homes.
Trims, door frames and the back of the door take an enamel, since they are touched constantly and need to wash rather than scuff.
Almost always moisture behind the film rather than a bad tin of paint. The usual causes are an exhaust fan that is undersized, ducted into the roof cavity instead of outside, or simply not run long enough after a shower. Repainting without fixing that buys you about a year.
The second cause is painting over a surface that was never sealed or was still damp. New render, patched plaster and previously mouldy areas all need treating first, and mould needs killing rather than covering.
Three things worth checking before you repaint anything: does the fan vent outside the building, does it run for fifteen minutes after the shower, and does the window get opened. If all three answers are no, the paint is not the problem.
The fan photo is not a joke. It tells us whether a bathroom repaint will hold, and it is the single most useful picture you can send for this kind of job.