Surrey · KT22
Oxshott houses carry more bespoke joinery than almost anywhere else I work: hand-built kitchens, walk-in pantries, dressing rooms and panelled studies, often designed together as one scheme. Hand-painting is where that quality either shows or gets lost.
Kitchens in Oxshott
Kitchens here are frequently commissioned pieces — in-frame cabinetry with beaded doors, moulded cornices, dresser units and glazed uppers. There is usually a lot of profile and detail, and profiles are exactly where a sprayed finish flattens out and a brush finish comes alive. Many are paired with a utility, pantry and boot room in a complementary colour.
On bespoke cabinetry the preparation is as detailed as the joinery: beading and mouldings cut in by hand, corners kept sharp, and the paint built up in thin, even coats so the profile still reads crisply when it is finished rather than being clogged.
Several Oxshott projects have run alongside the client’s own joiner — the cabinetry arrives primed, I take it from there, and the finished colour is agreed on a sample door before a full coat goes anywhere.
Typical work in Oxshott
Covering around Oxshott
How it’s done
Every kitchen in Oxshott goes through the same eight-stage process. These four are the ones that quietly get dropped on a cheap job — and they are the reason a properly hand-painted kitchen is still sound in ten years.
Years of airborne cooking grease washed off before anything else — skip it and the primer never really bonds.
Every face, edge and moulding abraded by hand so the primer has something to grip.
Chosen for the actual substrate — high-adhesion over sealed factory finishes, stain-block over oak and knotty timber.
Brushed thin, laid off along the grain, de-nibbed between coats.
Recent work
Guide costs
Quoted individually after a visit — door count, condition and colour all move the figure. These bands are a starting point, not a headline price.
Questions
Yes — I regularly finish newly installed bespoke cabinetry as well as repainting existing kitchens. New joinery is de-nibbed, filled where needed, primed and then built up in hand-applied topcoats, with a sample door agreed for colour and sheen before I start.
That is precisely the reason to hand-paint it. Spray tends to bridge and soften fine beading and moulding profiles, especially over several coats. Brushed on thin and laid off along the profile, the paint follows the shape instead of filling it, so the detail on Oxshott’s bespoke joinery still reads crisply when the last coat is dry.
Properly degreased, keyed, primed and finished, a hand-painted kitchen should look right for a good ten years or more in normal family use. The areas that wear first are always the same — around handles, the edges of the most-used drawer fronts and the ends of an island — and those can be touched in without redoing the whole kitchen.
I’ll come and look at the cabinetry properly, tell you honestly whether painting is the right answer, and follow up with a clear written estimate.
