Kitchen cabinet doors - painted or vinyl-wrapped?

[fosterdog]

We're about to get a new kitchen - probably from DIY Kitchens. We had decided to get painted wood (or MDF) doors on the cabinets but a joiner who came round to quote has planted some doubts.

The joiner said that in his experience painted doors look fantastic for a few months but quickly get scratched / chipped / marked and the kitchen starts looking shabby after a year or so.

He recommended vinyl wrapped doors instead, which are easier to clean. The kitchen we inherited has vinyl-wrapped cabinet doors and the vinyl has come off in a couple of places due to heat from the adjacent cooker and water absorption from a leak. So we're skeptical.

So.... people with painted cabinets - and particularly people who got them from DIY Kitchens - how are they a looking a few years down the track?

Any other options we should be considering?

i wouldnt even use a joiner if they gave that advice over the two door constructions you are looking at

We have painted doors 9 years old looks same as new.

There is a third option. Diy kitchens do a gloss door that has acrylic on the front. I have wondered myself how they compare to a lacquered door for wear and tear, staining etc.

Thanks for the input. Really useful!

This joiner fits a lot of IKEA kitchens, which tend to have vinyl-wrapped doors. I think the comment was mainly based on the recent experience of a customer who'd ordered painted wooden doors from an independent supplier for their IKEA cabinets. But it sounds like it might have just been a dodgy paint job.

@FrogFairy, do you mean these ones: www.diy-kitchens.com/kitchens/luca-gloss-white/details/ ?

The acrylic faced doors are the second kitchen down on this page, called Altino.

www.diy-kitchens.com/kitchens/high-gloss/

Our kitchen is being fitted right now so can't comment on longevity but we decided to go for wood over vinyl wrapped as figured if the paint gets damaged we can repaint. If the vinyl peels (which we've had with previous kitchens) you're stuck. Plus the proper wood looks far more luxurious imo (but we're going for trad shaker style, would be different if I were in to high gloss slab).

Our house before last had painted MDF doors. They looked great the the 7 years we had them, wiped down wonderfully and we had matching paint to touch up the odd chip.

We’ve since lived in 2 places with vinyl. The first (JohnLewis) kitchen was practically new but the vinyl bubbled and lifted away around corners and panelling.

The second is even worse, and the vinyl has split on corners - and where the MDF underneath has been exposed fo the air it has expanded and shows as bulbous brown bits bursting out of the cream vinyl.

I would never ever put vinyl in a kitchen of my own. In my repeated experience it doesn’t last and is difficult to fix.

I've got a melamine faced kitchen from howdens (Greenwich). Ordered a matching painted door from DIY kitchens (Carrerra) as we are looking at adding more units. The colour was the same but the painted door was thicker and had a lovely smooth finish with slightly rounded edges, instead of grubby textured plastic with visible edge strip. I'm sure industrially painted doors will be more hardwearing.

Have you been to DIY kitchens to have a look? The vinyl wrap doors look cheap.

Paint all the way. It’s easy to keep clean and as mentioned above vinyl can bubble and split.

vinyl wrap lifts and peels.

mostly where it is exposed to heat and/or moisture, which many kitchens contain, but I've even seen it in a showroom.

Several people in my building had an architect who created the most amazing result. I approached the architect who recommended carpenters for a kitchen I wanted to create. He assured me they were the best. I met the carpenter and after a verbal agreement of what I wanted and a written quote, two different carpenters arrived to start the job which should have taken 10 days. Three weeks later and no where finished, the job was absolutely horrendous. Kitchen drawers were being glued together with silicone, there were gaps and exposed mdf on facing sides, screws visible and cabinets that were wobbly. I refused to advance further funds and asked them to leave. The architect was called and he was horrified at what he saw. Three further independent carpenters came to see if they could rectify the issue. All said this was a cowboy job/ botched job and definitely not put together by carpenters. They advised stripping everything out and starting again.
I am thinking of taking these builders / carpenters to the small claims court to get my money back ( and losses ( they damaged my tiles, wooden floor and more). Has anyone had a similar experience or can anyone advise on this situation where no contract is in place? Thank you.