LESLIE: Sherry in Texas, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
SHERRY: We’ve lived in this house for six years and it was new construction at the time and in our pantry, we have a [white-faced] (ph) enamel paint.
LESLIE: OK.
SHERRY: And in our cabinet, we have like a stain with a lacquer base. But we are tasting lacquer or the way lacquer smells in our food.
TOM: What’s it taste like? (laughs)
SHERRY: The way lacquer smells. (laughs)
TOM: Not good, huh?
SHERRY: I didn’t realize it until I took, you know, some crackers – anything that’s stored in a box or a bag, like chips. And I took it to work and somebody said something about how funny it tastes and I didn’t realize it tasted bad.
TOM: Oh, no.
SHERRY: So I was wondering if there’s anything I could do in the cabinets to cover that smell. We’ve tried to keep the cabinet doors open but it’s not working.
LESLIE: Yeah, but you’ve been in there six years. I imagine, at this point, it should have off-gassed entirely at this point.
TOM: Yeah. Yeah.
SHERRY: Yes. It has a really bad taste to it.
LESLIE: And now you notice it in everything, I’m sure.
SHERRY: Yes; except for like canned stuff. But I just wondered if there was something we could paint over it or redo it or whatever.
TOM: Well, there’s no reason that you can’t prime the inside of the cabinets. If you wanted them to be dark in color, you could tint the primer. And if you used a good-quality primer, no matter what’s underneath it’s going to seal it in.
SHERRY: OK, OK. Well, I just was shocked. The builder said, “Oh, just leave the cabinet doors open.” Well, that didn’t work.
LESLIE: No, I would paint them.
TOM: And I think you bought cabinets that you didn’t have to keep open. (chuckles) Right.
SHERRY: Right, exactly.
LESLIE: Yeah, that’s what cabinets are for.
TOM: Yeah. Why don’t you do that to one or two of the cabinets and see if you like it better?
SHERRY: OK. Well, thank you very much.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
We just re-painted our kitchen cabinets. We used high end Benjamin Moore primer and their advanced topcoat. We just left a bag of Open chips in the cupboard/pantry overnight. They taste like you would imagine the new paint taste. Surprised there are not more post out there on the Internet with the same problem. What should we do? Contact Benjamin Moore?
What you are describing is known as “off gassing.” The paint releases/evaporates these fumes as it drys and cures. This process can take some time and is dependent on temperature and moisture and will dissipate over time. Virtually all new consumer products (furniture, carpet, flooring, etc.) have some level of this. Some are almost pleasant (new car smell?) and others more offensive. My suggestion is that you leave the cabinets open as much as possible, and open windows on warm day, to allow for plenty of ventilation. It looks like Benjamin Moore’s Advanced Topcoat is a water-based acrylic, so I’d expect most of this will be gone in a couple of weeks. You can also review the MSDS doc on this product here.