@Matthew Pritchard, it’ll be fine.

If your cabinets were coated in grease you would have noticed when you sanded them. It totally gunks up the sand paper and smears on the sanded wood. That clearly didn’t happen or you would have noticed. Using denatured alcohol on bare wood before you paint is also fine. It’s a reasonable way to eliminate dust from sanding, and if there’s any trace of grease, it should get that too.

What a nice brother! You get extra points for painting.

How is Behr Kitchen, Bath, And Trim primer? I purchased a gallon of it and the label claims that it is stain blocking and that it will even adhere to stained or glossy surfaces (even though I went the extra step and power sanded everything).

If you use the Behr, it’ll look good for a few weeks, then the tannins will begin to bleed through the paint. BIN Shellac is an absolute must. And LWO is right - you need time between coats - any good cabinet paint requires that. Some even require a full day.

Agreed, BIN primer is what you use. Without it your coatings are not going to last..

Prep, prime, and let your brother rent a sprayer and do the rest. You can only do what you can do.

I went ahead and used the Behr before reading the other comments. Prior, we had wiped down everything with the Denatured Alcohol very aggressively. We had noticed some grease left on the cabinet doors that were above the stove and spent extra time on those as well. It is now the next day and we are going to be applying the paint. He is trying to get his house ready for sale. The paint that we were opting to use is Spec-Pro Buildermax Trim-Pro, but i am beating to buy him an enamel cabinet paint. I have used behr for years and feel that there is a lot of bias against it. Paint usually requires a 4 hour wait time between coats and i was planning on applying one coat to the inside of the cabinets and two coats to everything else.

Well, if he's selling, it'll be someone else's problem anyway, so you dodged a bullet. Do your research first if you decide to embark on the same project in his new house.

Going to Sherwin Williams for a cabinet paint.

I don't usually use SW products so I can't comment, however, I know their Emerald is used often.
Behr's paint is crap across the board.

I second LWO's recommendation of joining that FB group - lots of very experienced pros (and "ams") there who can give you good information. I have used General Finishes paint with great success on a set of cabinets (in a secondary kitchenette in the basement) but I also have BM Advance on a built-in, which has been holding up well. There is also a GF group on FB too (General Finishes University, I think?)

We are going with a SW Classic Pro enamel at the suggestion of the Sherwin Williams rep. She told us to go with a very light grey to minimize the appearance of bleed through if there is any. There is bleed through though, but the rep at SW was more concerned with the grain that showed through than the tannins.

following

They have already been sprayed. Too late to refinish. The house just needs to sell and anything is better than the crappy finish that was on there prior. I will take your advice into consideration on future projects. I went out and got an airless sprayer and a Graco 417 spray tip. I applied one coat to the inside of the cabinets and two coats to the face frames, drawer fronts, and cabinet doors. And, yes, I did use the correct sprayer (for the paint at least. If you are going to get tanin bleed through you would notice it as soon as the next day after painting the cabinets. I needed a little help, not criticism. Thank you for attempting anyways.

I accidently got a little overspray on the ceiling though, but my brother is going to be repainting the ceiling anyway. Will post photos of finished project.

Tannin bleed is not always immediate, it can happen over time too - especially if you have a previous finish on there. As I said above, it'll be someone else's problem soon enough, so glad it worked out. I stand by my recommendation to join that cabinet painting FB group - lots of good information there for projects down the road. There is a bias on Houzz against DIY cabinet painting, but it can be done and done well.

Oh man, you didn’t tell us they were oak cabinets. You need a grain filler and I would have gone for an oil based primer. Actually, as you were in a rush I would have recommended you finish with oil based polyurethane, not paint.

What @User is telling you is good information, not criticism. Learn from it or don’t. What you see bleeding through the “primer” in a single day will bleed through even great paint faster than you can close on a property. You’re not going to be able to sell this mistake. It’s time to start planning your next move.

One positive - you won’t have to clean the cabinets before you sand them the next time.

My job is not quite DIY (but not quite a pro painter) since I am a handyman by trade (for the last 16 years) and do similar projects and do recommend much higher end materials, but my brother is on a budget since he is just trying to get the house sold and he lost his job roughly 8 or 9 months ago and has not been able to find a job since the holidays or COVID. Times have been tough and he is incapable of getting results like this on his own. I usually rent all my equipment and he does not even have the budget for that so I finally decided to purchase my own airless for his project. Everything was done the exact way a pro painter would have done it on the exception of the materials and not having layed the cabinet doors flat while spraying to allow the paint to self level. We used the cup hook and coat hanger method to save time even though you run the risk of having the paint run or not have proper coverage if you don't run the sprayer at the correct speed. Thank you wiscokid and eam44 for your input on the matter. Live_wire_oak, at some point everyone was not a professional and did not know how to paint, even you; you have to start somewhere and should be educating people without making them feel bad about their decisions. I did not expect a high end professional job, but neither did I expect a DIY result either.

Okay, what's your problem; aside from not liking my primer and paint? Why don't you detail the process or post a link to a pro process? I have watched over a hundred hours of videos posted by pros granted I slipped up with a step or two. I feel as if you are doing nothing more than attacking me right now. These cabinets need to be replaced anyways, we are just trying to make it look a little more appealing than how they looked previously. Most homeowners end up replacing outdated cabinets anyways as these are from the 70s and are Jerry rigged as it is without me having even touched them.

eam44, is oak really that finicky? And, doesn't oil based paints normally take much longer before you can topcoat and second coat?

Point taken, it just needs to look good enough to get the home sold. If I would have spoken with you before I would have done it the way you are detailing, but I am in a time crunch and have other projects on the schedule already. I will take a look at the sources that you provided.