To paint kitchen cupboards? YAY or NAY?

[hettyhooverdoover]

I have an old kitchen, wooden cupboards. Want to strive it up a bit. I'm ruining of new door knobs but now considering that I could paint it? Or would it look really naff?.

I've done it previously with F&B paint and whilst it was OK as a stop gap, despite doing all the prep etc, it wasn't particularly hard wearing and needed touching up quite regularly.

There is a FB group called French chic or something similar (its the name of a paint) which has thousands of people showing photos of painted kitchens (some of which look amazing). I think there is an issue with only positive posts being allowed by the admin for the group so negative comments might not make its way onto the site, but worth a look.

If you do all the prep and take your time to do it correctly, which includes removing all hardware, leaving sufficient time for primer plus each cost of paint to dry according to manufacturer guidelines) it will be fabulous.

I did mine 2.5 years ago, have a busy household plus a dog who continues to try to jump up - looks perfect still. No touch ups needed.

Painting it yourself is a very big job as it needs to be meticulously prepped and primed beforehand. Friends of mine did it recently and it took the two of them a full week - not a big kitchen either. I had mine spray painted by a uPVC spraying company. Not cheap but a lot cheaper than a new kitchen and it looks brilliant. Mine was £1800 for a medium size galley kitchen.

Done properly it’s fine. Ours is 1980’s wooden cabinets that were painted over in duck egg blue at some point in the noughties. It’s got a few chips here and there, but only if you look closely.

We are replacing it because the cabinets are falling to bits and it’s very tired, but the paint job is pretty impressive and must have been done by someone who knew what they were doing.