tile paint and melamine paint q's

[layla]

Hi,sorry if this has been done before-just been reading the "I don't get any replies" thread.I'd really like some advice on doing up my kitchen.We can't afford to get new doors so we've decided to update the cupboards with some paint and the tiles are dark so would like to lighten them up with paint too.Has anybody done this and have any tips?Can you advise me on what paint to use and where one might buy it?

Well, as a veteran on-the-cheap decorator and avid fan of diy shows, I may be able to help!

You can actually paint both melanine and tiles with any wood gloss (after all, you can paint that onto radiators). However you can also buy proper "tile" paint, which is less likely to flake off in the future, but I think that's expensive.

However are the tiles that hideous? Painted tiles do always look a bit naff even if you do use the proper paint! Maybe the kitchen will look brighter anyway once you've painted the cupboards?

I have been doing my kitchen on the cheap. I bought cheap plain white units and removed the doors. I stuck on wood framing and painted the whole lot with melamine primer and paint. Finally added different handles. You can get the melamine paint from Homebase or B&Q.

As lucy says, painted tiles never really look nice IMO. But you can tile straight over them if they are sound.

Hi Layla,
why not paint and grain your cupboards. They have a selection of colors now. You can get it at b and q and other hardware shops.
If you dont want to paint tiles you can get coloured grout too.
Just ideas for you

Hi folks,wow thanks for the ideas,I'm so excited about doing up our dark kitchen.Have taken on board the comments about tile paint so Lucy will go with your suggestion and see what they are like once done the cupboards.Everything is brown ,brown tiles,old tired looking brown units and dark brown carpet tiles yeuck.We've lived with it for 4 years now so you can see why I'm so excited.We're having new wood block flooring too.Band q here we come.

Layla the Sunday Times had a piece about doing exactly this in their Home section yesterday. Don't suppose you have a copy do you? I think it said you rub the doors down with wire wool and white spirit until they are clean. Then you need to rpime them, and after that you can use more or less any paint you want, but you may need to add a matt or satin clear varnish over the top.

Brilliant Lou thanks ,I don't have a copy no.Ooh and grain paint sounds interesting will look into that at band q.

Tile paint is infinitely better than ordinary gloss. Or at least use the tile primer. To get a good finish, you need to make sure the tiles are completely clean.

I painted my old bathroom tiles white and they looked fab (they were orange!). I think it worked well because the grout was white - IMHO it looks really naff when the isn't white but is painted the same colour as the tile. I used tile transfers over the top of the painted tiles too and it looked so much better than what was there originally. You can't scrub them afterwards, just clean them gently.

I painted my kitchen tiles with tile paint and people couldn't tell they weren't new tiles (or so they said, perhaps they were being kind )

I found that a white grout pen worked really well over the paint, and helped to make it look realistic - it's also good for touching up other grout when it goes grimy, although that could be down to my crap standards of housekeeping..

Definitely use tile paint for tiles. I've painted over really manky ones and they looked like new when done.

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I used tile paint in our kitchen - cream if I recall. I then got some tile transfers (2 packs of 5) which were bright blue tea cups and things (sounds naff in writing) Once these were randomly scattered they looked fab. The room went from dark wood cupboards and beige tiles, with cream paint to cream cupboards, cream tile with blue accents! and bright blue paint. It lasted 4 yrs until we decided to do up our kitchen by adding to the mortgage, and guess what - we went for cream units, bright blue walls and black granite worktop (stainless steel range cooker and fridge). Having lived with teh combination for 4 yrs we knew we loved the colourway and it worked well with our Emma Bridgewater crockery and scuffy pine dresser.

i dont like apinted tiles. i rented a place which had painted tiles in the bathroom, it looked aful, probably wasnt done too well. when we used the shower, the force from the water shoved the paint off. luvly. you can get cheap white tiles from b&q, they looked pretty good in my old kitchen. we broke up the whiteness by putting in random 'picture' tiles. they were pictures of shops and things. looked pretty good for a tiny kitchen. mind u we did spend over a grand on it. (bear in mind the kitchen was only about 9ft by 6ft,)

The funny thing is my favourite colour is brown and I have a lot of brown clothes but it looks so dark in our kitchen.I love pale wood colours though but if we do paint the tiles I have no idea what colour to paint them.They literally cover all the wall and we have wood panelling on the ceiling which I like.So the doors of the units will be pale yellow with black knobs and the floor will be pale wood block.Our cooker is brown.Our blind is pink and green.
Don't like green though.
Thanks for the fantastic tips and ideas.I feel it should be a success now.
Crunchie I adore Bridgewater pottery.There's a little shop near me and everytime I go in I drool at it.Love the spotty ones.

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