Painted my kitchen cabinets without sanding first and now I'm paying for it

I got so excited about refinishing my kitchen cabinets last month that I skipped the sanding step. Watched a bunch of YouTube videos where people said liquid deglosser works just as good, so I wiped everything down with that stuff and started painting. Three coats of paint later they looked amazing for about a week. Now the paint is peeling off in big chunks right where I grab the handles. The deglosser left this weird waxy layer underneath that the paint couldn't stick to. I learned the hard way that nothing replaces actually roughing up the surface with sandpaper. Has anyone else tried those liquid sanding alternatives and had them fail too?

2 comments

2 Comments

davis.noah25d ago

Did you degloss it right before painting?

phoenix_carter25d ago

Did you check if the previous paint had any kind of silicone or oil based sealer on it first? That stuff can make deglosser totally useless and you'll end up with peeling paint a week later. I ran into that problem on a job last year and had to sand everything down anyway. A quick test with some rubbing alcohol on a rag will tell you if the surface is too slick for the paint to grab. Most people skip that step and it bites them later.