Brush vs spray painting kitchen cabinets? What’s the difference?

Designing a bespoke kitchen brings with it a whole range of decisions, many of which allow you to introduce a personal touch to your space. You get to choose the style of the furniture and the finish of the taps, the shape of an island and the appliances you can’t live without. Another of these key decisions is the finish you’d like to achieve on your painted cabinets. Spray or brush painting kitchen cabinets are the two main options – but which should you choose?

Painted doors give you the opportunity to select any colour you wish for. At Davonport, we offer our customers the choice of spray and brush painting, so it’s worth understanding the difference between them to enable you to make an informed decision, as part of the design process. All our kitchens are exclusively handmade in our own workshop, and this means we can maintain the highest standards of craftsmanship and quality. The way we finish the cabinets is no exception.

Spray painting

Spraying cabinets will give your cabinets a refined and uniformly smooth finish – and contrary to popular belief is a slightly more cost-effective option. The fact that this is done by machines, or a hand-held machine, means you’ll get a very even look – with a consistent result and no brush strokes visible. This can be high on the list of priorities for those choosing slab fronted cabinets and more sleek, contemporary designs.

While spraying is fast, less labour intensive and delivers a more factory-like finish, once your kitchen is in place, any touching up or maintenance is a little more complex. Masking and prepping areas to enable spraying to be done in your home takes time – but done by our team of professionals, is completely achievable. However, the good news is that with a spray painted, the paint is smooth and flat which means it is less likely to chip or damage whereas the small ridges in the brush painted could break and chip even if a hardwearing paint is used.

Brush painting

A slightly more expensive option from Davonport, brush painting is often perceived as superior as it’s done by hand and takes more time – whereas, in actual fact, it’s simply a matter of preference. At Davonport, we carry out the brush painting of our cabinets in our workshop to enable us to achieve the best possible results. Hand painting delivers a marginally more rustic finish – perfect for traditional style kitchens and those with moulding or detail, to complement their a more artisanal look. There is also the added bonus with brush painting that if there was ever any damage to the paint, it is easier to blend in and touch up by matching the existing strokes.

Once your kitchen has been installed, we touch up by hand on site, with an additional 1ltr paint pot sent out in case you need to touch up anything yourself. We also offer a yearly maintenance service with our brush painted kitchens – and if there are any areas which need attention, we can touch them up during this to keep your bespoke kitchen looking its very best.