Kitchen advice: splash out on new kitchen or paint/makeover

[AnnaRose75]

Hi, we’ve recently moved house and house has a lovely, big but very dated kitchen. It is solid oak with black granite worktops and brown tiles. It is the nicest sunniest room in the house and we’d love to make it really beautiful but wonder is it crazy to pull out perfectly good cupboards?

DH things we should just use our savings (about 25k) to get kitchen of our dreams but I think we should try painting the cupboards and new worktop, tiles. Problem is there are big long handles on all the doors which we hate and we really want the small ‘knob’ style handles. If we remove old handles surely it will leave traces of holes that will show through paint? I think I’m just so scared of spending lot of money revamping and then still end up being unhappy and ending up still wanting new kitchen. Has anyone any advice, would really appreciate your stories.

You can remove handles, sand and fill holes then paint and put knobs on. Frenchic paint is supposed to be good

The decision really is whether you want to spend 20k or not

You can definitely fill and sand the holes left by handles so they are invisible. Take a look here.
It sounds like a good quality kitchen so painting it properly and maybe a slight rearrangement of units would really update it. You can also replace drawers or add interior fittings to make it more useful, we have converted cupboards to pull out units before.

I'd be inclined to think you'll probably regret not getting the new kitchen. Painting doors can work (and the problem of the handle holes can be sorted, as PP said) as a quick, cheap fix. But if you're thinking of getting new worktop and tiles too, factoring in the cost of fitting these, you're still going to spend quite a bit of money.

For me it would boil down to the way the doors look (do they have any mouldings? Anything other than simple shaker would still look very dated, even if painted), the state of the carcases and whether I would be spending savings money that is actually earmarked for something else.

Wouldn't you keep the granite worktops? Seems a shame to throw out something half a billion years old.

I think it depends on the condition of the cupboards and drawl.

The kitchen in the house we bought was ok but totally impractical so a new kitchen meant not just more space and colours we liked but so much more uselfulness.

We have a company nearby specialising in revamping kitchen. They look at the bare bones of cupboards and drawers, advise what you can do and how cost effective it is.maybe look if you can find something so,klar to see if your doors and drawers can actually be painted over and if you want to do the work or source it out and pay for it.

You can get cabinets professionally sprayed. The one I've seen done looked amazing.

I’d remove the handles, fill the holes, sand it back and paint the units first.

I’d keep the worktop if it’s not damaged.

The cost of hiring a sander, a tub of internal wood filler, primer and paint will only cost a small sum so worth trying.

If you don’t like it you just wasted a small sum.

However if you do it and think it’s really nice you’ve saved £25k on a new kitchen and saved a whole pile of un-environmentally friendly landfill.

Oh and once you’ve done that you could think about what to do with the tiles. No point in spending hundreds on them if the kitchen unit paint job doesnt do the trick. So only splash out on replacement glass or tiles once you’re happy. Get new taps too, ones you love.

Some brilliant advice, Thank you for all the replies... knew mumsnetters would be the ones to ask. Really interesting that some of you say holes from other handles can be hidden. A joiner told me they’d be impossible to hide with the smaller knobs we wanted so I’m really pleased it seems otherwise. I would definitely get it professionally done so hoping they’d have repaired similar before.

To answer a few questions the granite has been badly chipped and cracked ( don’t ask me how!!) in sink area but we planning to reuse most of the granite in our utility. Although we have the money I’m reluctant to spend it especially in the current climate... rather keep as much as a safety net if we can. DH thinks we’ve saved hard for years and years for this house so now let’s get house way we want. Loads to think about.

We did a facelift, work tops, painted doors, handles, moved a few bits around. Ended up costing 4k in the end.
Now 4 years down the line and it looks dreadful so we're pulling it all out and putting in a new kitchen. Wish I'd saved the 4k or put the new kitchen in then!

I'm guessing this sort of style. It would definitely paint well and you could update appliances, trims and even get one or two extra doors and still have change from £2k.

I would go fro doing up the kitchen for now at least ,

I did mine early last year , total cost was probably under £250 , ( my kitchen is only small ) most of the stuff I used came from Wilkos which I know is never going to give you the kitchen of your dreams but it allows you to experiment with colours
Have a look at this life.wilko.com/how-to-give-your-kitchen-a-makeover-for-less-than-100/
I actually used the white / grey marble effect one that they have in one of the pictures on here .

I did not use the vinyl on my cupboard doors I used this
www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-duck-egg-quick-dry-satin-furniture-cupbo-ard-paint-750ml/p/0341957 .
And this on the floor
www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-granite-quick-dry-floor-paint-750ml/p/0341964

Be aware both of the paint have a VERY high VOC and you will need to work with the windows open and pref DCs and pets out of the house .

A few months ago my kitchen was replaced ( rented ) and I picked colours that I would not of considered if I hadnt had a chance to play around with them.
You have not really got a huge amount to lose by trying to spruce it up first .

Not me can I ask how you converted cupboard to drawer please

Cupboard to drawer:

1. Buy some drawer boxes and buy/ make plain fronts , paint to match and fit into the old Carcase.
2. Buy a deep pan drawer box and make a high front pull out unit with the cupboard door. If its one of those with a small drawer at the top then attach the fronts together as one tall front. Put a couple of inner drawers or wire baskets inside to pull out separately.

We inherited a wood look kitchen last year and found a company locally who took all the doors off and spray painted and hand painted the frames - it looks great. I couldnt justify paying for a new kitchen.

Not me, thank you.

Some brilliant tips on here!!

I'd be taking the advice of a joiner who has presumably seen the doors rather than guesses made on here to be honest.

If you are in the realms of replacing worktop and tiles and having to do a fair bit of work on the cupboards I'd just replace, as it's still going to be costly. At least with a replacement you can get things exactly as you want.

Maybe get some quotes to see how much a new kitchen would cost versus changing what you have.