Kitchen cupboards. To paint or not to paint?

[AutumnDragon]

We live in a barn conversion. There are a lot of wood beams and the walls are half brick and half painted white.

The kitchen is handmade and currently has wooden doors roughly matching the beam colour. We have a dark granite worktop.

We are looking to move and so we're just sprucing the place up. We can't decide whether to paint the cupboard doors a light grey or green as seems to be the fashion, or to leave it as the natural wood.

So, if you were viewing a barn conversion, which would you prefer?

I would only ever paint a kitchen to suit myself as I think lots of people would detest a painted kitchen.

I would definitely do it. I did it own kitchen and it transformed it for the better.

The photo is a bit blurred, but it looks like a good quality kitchen an the wood is an attractive colour and in keeping with the style of the property. If the wood was was cheap, an ugly colour, dated and/or tatty, panting them might be a good shout, but I don't think that is the case here? Once they are painted they can't be unpainted, so as a potential buyer, I would prefer them to be unpainted so that I could then make that decision myself.

Definitely leave the painting to your Buyer.

I would definitely leave it to the buyer.

Paint for sure if you’re looking to attract better offers.

Can you strip the wood? And wax?

A mixed bag of answers but I think leaving it as is seems to be the majority. I want to leave it as is as I fell in love with the kitchen the moment I walked through the door, but DH thinks we should paint it to freshen the room up.

I think the point made by @cheeseismydownfall is the decider. Once it is painted, it can't be unpainted.

Thanks for all your views

If we're not painting it, this was what we were going to do. The wood is currently waxed but a little neglected so I was going to clean then all up and rewax them to make them look as good as possible.

If they are only waxed not varnished, you can give them a quick cleaning with terebenthine and rewax them lightly. They will look and smell wonderful.

Don't paint!

Take down the pots and put a few green plants around and it will be lovely.

Don’t paint it.

I'd paint it the minute I moved in but would want to pick my own colour and make sure the paint was done properly. So I'd leave it for selling.

Don't paint. I love natural wood. If a buyer wants paint it's far easier for them to paint in a colour of their choosing than to try to get rid of paint they don't want or like.

I have ordered a bespoke kitchen in solid oak! I love wood, and as pp said a good clean and wax and it will last for decades. Also, not that I care, but recently I read that "naked" kitchens are the next trend!

Before and after painting (reversed). And how it fits.

Leave it

I think a buyer just might get a new kitchen. I would. It’s dated so leave it. Lighten the wood if you can.

Yes do that

Ours was similar and we painted it cream eggshell. Huge improvement!