How do I go about painting my wooden kitchen doors?

[tutu100]

I have that horrible orangey varnished wooden kitchen doors. I will never be able to afford a new kitchen, but I can not live with them anymore (I also can't stand the kitchen worktop which is a colour and pattern that looks like someone has vomited on it - that has to stay). What type of paint can I use to paint them, also what colour might be good? The kitchen is a galley style, but is quite wide and fairly bright. I was thinking of a fairly light colour, but no stark white. I am quite keen on the shabby chic look (I know that is now dated!), I am also planning on painting the tiles so don't have to match the doors to the existing colour.

im not an expert but will share what I think will help.

you can get cupboard paint primer or difficult surface primer for the doors. then paint an ivory / cream if you like shabby chic, so its not white but light enough for the small space?

I painted ikea melamine shelves with the cupboard paint then coated in a colour and they came out fine.

You can use Annie Sloan chalk paint and then a water based sealant. No sanding or priming required, and you can achieve quite a matt smooth finish, rather than her famed shabby chic look.

Paint comes in lots of colours and is about £20 a tin. You'd need two tins at the most unless you have a giant kitchen.

Sorry - just seen that you like shabby chic. You can obviously do that too! Pale grey might be nice (dependant on the colours in the work top.

You can use her waxes to give it a different effect. Lots of examples on YouTube and Pinterest.

We're going to cream. Less shabby chic, more shaker/farmhouse style (if you can imagine the two combined).

If I went for ivory or cream coloured doors what colour should I paint the tiles? For some reason I don't have a definate idea of what I want/would look good, but I know I don't like what we have!

Same with the pale grey which I like the sound of. We have grey sofas and accents in our living area which is almost open plan with our kitchen so that would carry through well I think.

I always google to see what catches my eye when I cant decide, pinterest is a good place to look. just search kitchens and you can browse for ideas.

what colour are the walls in your kitchen, its hard to say about the tiles without knowing. also what colour exactly is your vomit work tops? (it comes in variety) haha!

A friend of mine found a stick on plastic sheet to cover a kitchen work top she hated and it worked really well. It was a black granite effect. Obviously she had to be careful not to chop directly on it, or put hot pans on it, but it looked good.

I used specialist tile paint to cover over the hideous accent tiles in our current kitchen. I then put stickers from Etsy over the top. I am really pleased with them. Also thinking about painting my cabinets, so will be interested to see what other people say.

Vomit worktop is a light beigy orange back colour with black and various shades of orangey beigey speckles.

Wall colour is cream, but there isn't much wall on display so I can easily repaint that to go with the cupboard fronts/tiles.

hmm, can see why your not keen on vomit worktops

Right I have been looking into everyone's suggestions. I have also been spending far too many hours on google images of kitchens. I think I will give the Annie Sloan chalk paints a go. But deciding a colour is difficult, I have seen a lovely kitchen with duck egg green doors, but I guess I'm frightened of having a "proper" colour on the doors. I originally was thinking I would go with a pale colour (I loved the shaker style kitchens that came up), but I'm wondering whether to go a bit bold on the doors and keep the walls and tiles very pale and neutral. Someone help me make up my mind! I'm planning on doing the doors in the easter holidays.

If you paint them and then you do not like the colour, you can always start again with another colour.

p