Should You Caulk Cabinets Before Painting? When to Caulk and When Not to!

this christy idaho painter here on paint life tv today we're going to be working on a cabinet job and this is going to be a topic to caulk or not caulk your floating panels it's a subject that gets people all worked up and upset so i'm going to talk about when we when we don't so if you want to know stay tuned for this video [Applause] [Music] so we're just cruising right along just applying your aquacoat on these cabinets and you know this is a job right here you know um should you the panels or should you not caulk the panels and i do um i don't ever cough panels on uh doors anymore myself but um this job right here is michael's got this job and uh so what did you got um what's the reasoning behind caulking the panels on this job did you say you had a designer that yeah i had a client that has a interior designer and she laid out the whole project and they just handed it over to me and said bid this we want it exact to spec and that was in there that was everything sealed and caulked on the cabinetry to give it a seamless look and um so i just took what was given to me and and um i i just ran with it yeah that's so um basically you know michael's got this situation where you know the specifications spec for them to be caulked and so you know if you want to be able to bid the job and do the job then you're going to have to you know caulk them and so you know you just got to be flexible as a painter sometimes you know um even i can sit here and say well i don't caulk them anymore but if i wanted the job then i would have to talk them and then once a bit once again you know to me this is definitely a situation where i would recommend caulking them and with the success i've had even though i don't do it now anymore with the success i've had doing it over the years i think this is you know a um great situation where you will have success it will look good and these cabinets these things are literally like over 30 years old and so the quality of them when they were built wasn't as good of a quality you know build they're a little more not as expensive of a cabinet so you know you just got to take every situation you know and look at the situation and determine you know what should you do in this situation also climate has a lot to do you know with um should you your panels or not caulk your panels so our climate here in idaho is an extremely dry climate and so you don't have a lot of expansion and contraction and you don't have a lot of moisture it's very very dry very area we live in boise believe it or not is high desert so um you know it's we do have success caulking them if you lived in a really wet climate like down by the coast you know maybe caulking the panels wouldn't be recommended so you really have to look at where you're at the climate you're at and um you know what type of doors you're dealing with what type of wood species you're dealing with and um do the panels actually float or not grab these panels even on these doors here i can grab i showed you this panel tight does not float i can grab this panel try to move it around and that thing is tight it is not moving around there's not going to be any expansion contraction in any cracking of the caulking and also your top coat if you're using a lacquer as a top coat if there's any expansion and contraction the lacquer would be more likely to uh crack and break than if you use say like a water-based renner coating that's more flexible like a pu you're gonna have more flexibility less likely that it's going to crack so you it's really just you know every situation you just have to take every situation um evaluate the situation and determine what's the right thing to do and once again i know there's some people out there that just believe that you should never a floating panel ever but my challenge would be you know to ask you know that person that says that have you actually ever seen a floating panel that was caulked and have you gone back and looked at it you know two years later three years later because once again i've i've actually caulked and done full sets of kitchen cabinets lots of them in the boise idaho area and i've never once got a call back on them and i've been doing them for years probably uh 10 years maybe something like that caulking panels and not one callback so you have to go by you know history and record also if you did them and you got called back because they cracked then maybe that's something you shouldn't do but use to me use a good quality caulking like even an elastomeric caulking tower tech elastomeric their lifetime warranty caulking would be a great caulking to caulk floating panels with um doesn't dry as fast as the quick dry um like you do michael you use bolt is it quick dry yeah is that what you said bolt i was using loctite the loctite lock tight and it's it's just like the white lightning and i um and it and it comes in a already pre-cut very small tips so it lays really nice beads and it dries it's paintable in 30 minutes so um this is my uh second project using it my first one that i did last year i used it on and it worked very well so so you've been a professional painter for a long time uh michael and um are you confident caulking the panels um i'm saying from on these panels i'm very confident in the process that we've done um in the in the products that we're going to use but i um will definitely in future when we have jobs like this we'll explain to the client that leaving them uncaulked will could be a uh better option for the panels to be able to move in the climate that we have here yeah i think i think you know you brought up a good point in um speaking to the client and so it's it's really client expectations and um going over them what the expectations of the end result of the job is and and i know i ran into this one this is why i actually started caulking panels on cabinets is i didn't used to caulk them because i said you're not supposed to um you cannot because of the floating panels and so i did this really high-end expensive job the customer was adamant i talked the panels and i convinced them not to and then when we were all done the customer was extremely unhappy with the job and was extremely unhappy that i convinced her you know to not caulk him and if i wasn't going to go back and re-caulk him and repaint all the cabinets she was going to go hire another pain or two and so unfortunately you know i made a client unhappy and that's not what i'm in this business for and so we turned around cocked them re-sprayed them and even i thought they looked better when they were caulked and so i started caulking them after that point but then i always went over with the customer explained you know why i would why i wouldn't and um the drawbacks and what could possibly happen two years from now three years from now and just explained in detail and went over it you know with the customer and um then they always knew what to expect and um knew what they were getting into it's the same with applying grain filler on these oak cabinets you can see the grain what's the client's expectation the end result i mean these would be after they're painted um this is gonna be painted white you would see really dark uh shadows and holes and pinholes in that and 90 of the time the customer is not going to be happy with it so we use aquacode to fill the grain and i go over that with the customer's expectations because i charge more to do that but i make it very known you know what the expectations are that if you don't apply the aquacode this is what they will look like and you know um you may be unhappy with it and then it's good to show them an example of a door that's not aqua coated and a door that is aqua coated so um to or not to that's the question so as a painter you know there's there's a time and a place really for you know everything i guess i'd have to say and you know as a painter it's um i i would say it's probably just be flexible you know you can um be flexible with the rules i mean there's some times that you know you can be flexible do things do it one way or do it not not another way or even if you don't believe you know caulking the panels is the right thing to do um that's okay too you know but be flexible with um whether somebody else believes that you know they should do it or not and once again michael's got to be he has to be flexible with this job because the client wants it you know that's what the client's expectations are and they want these things they want them caulked and that's what um the designers expectations are on this job who's um involved in this who's doing all the specifications for the job and so the designers has probably had experience with cabinets um being caught the panel's being caulked and that's what they want and i think one thing is if the designer specs that and you do it and it doesn't turn out right then um i think that's kind of like on the designer so you have a little bit of a protection there all right so we're just finishing up working on this job and just want to just you know close out you know should you or should you not caulk and we've got two situations here we've got you know a situation where i'm not going to the panels we got a situation where michael is going to caulk the panels and and really is just being flexible you know as a painter and be flexible with what the client wants or even what the designer wants and what their needs are so um you know should you or should you not talk every situation is different um just take it the situation evaluate it and decide on your own and be confident with your decision hope you've enjoyed this video hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell that way you get notified every time i come out with a new video it's free simple and easy to do hit it slam it bang it bang the subscribe button notification bell we'll see you on the next video [Music]