Painting Kitchen units

Good evening Ray

This is a low-cost option to refresh your kitchen and for those on a budget, it can be worthwhile... however, in my experience, unless you are doing the work yourself, it is usually more economical to simply replace the doors.

There are a few caveats to that comment. The first one is that 'so long as you have regular size carcasses' (ie the box behind the door). If you have a hand made or custom units you will likely struggle to get doors. Typical regular door widths will be 20cm, 30cm, 40cm, 50cm and 60cm for bases, and typically 80cm high. Wall units can vary in height from 40cm to 100cm, but with the same widths as above. You need to check the range you may be interested in to ensure they have the door sizes you want. For example, not everyone does a 50cm wide door!

The next consideration is the hinge alignment. There are 'standards' however these do vary and are not typically like for like but, with a little modification, they can be made to fit existing units.

The next point is the condition of the carcass themselves. There is little point going to the expense of replacing doors or the trouble of painting them if you have a 'blown' unit. Most carcasses are chipboard (or pressed paper of some description, like an MDF) which are then covered in a veneer. If the veneer becomes damaged and water can get in, the chipboard expands, hence the term 'blown'

Finally, the last caveat is kitchen design. If you wanted to amend the current layout, it is often difficult to swap your units around. The other design consideration is the colour of the carcass compared to the door colour. In the majority of the cases, the carcass is white, however, if you have a wood effect or dark carcass veneer it can look quite odd if you suddenly change your door to a white colour.

So, back to your question. Can you paint your doors and does anyone do it? The answer is yes and yes. 

Once you have decided that is the course of action to take, you need to prepare the surfaces properly or else your primer and finished paintwork will not take correctly. You need to sand the surface, which is fairly straight forward for flat surfaces, but as soon as you have detailing it becomes a pain! (If you have solid wooden doors, the chances are the wood is oiled, lacquered or waxed.)

In ALL cases I strongly recommend you remove the doors. Painting around the hardware (hinges, handles etc) takes more time. The door should be simple enough to take off, let me know if you need advice on how to do that.

Once removed you need to sand the surface with fairly fine sandpaper, just enough to literally scratch the surface. You need to cover the door with a coat of primer. If you are going from dark doors to light finish you will need a light primer otherwise your overall colour will not be as you expect. Again, lightly sand the primer to remove high spots. Then you are ready for your final finish of choice. Typically two coats will be required and I also recommend you use washable paint, specific for the task in hand. Sand between coats! Obviously... you need to allow the correct drying time between coats and decide if you want to brush, roller or spray as each will give their own finish effect.

(I make no apologies for the sanding process, my father was a painter and decorator for 70 years and he taught me that the final finish is a reflection of the hard work and effort you put into the other coats. Skip a step and it will show! I know this also from car valet and detailing work I have done, that's another story!)

Once completed and dried you are ready to replace the doors back on the original hardware. Straight forward enough and then you are ready for door alignment. Let me know if you need guidance on how to align doors, it is simple enough and you just have to take your time, I am more than happy to help share my experience.

When you are half way through the job, depending on the number of doors you have, this is the time when you look at the hard work and effort and think.... was this really worth the effort to save about 50€ compared to that high gloss white door I could have bought from IKEA?! Then you typically begrudge the last hours and days of the task!!! 

The decision is completely yours, some options may be taken away from you due to irregular door sizes etc... IF you do decide to paint the doors, perhaps post some before and after photos and diary events for the process to share with other forum members. Not every task like this is a bad example, it will be laborious!

If you were to employ my services for this, I would swap doors over every day of the week wherever possible. The time it takes for all the paint stages outweigh the outlay for the new doors.

Hope it helps!

Ok thanks for your time and help.

Ray

There is a  Scandinavian company advertising on Big FM radio which specialise in door changes , , brag that they can start at 9 and be finished around teatime ..!!

Just hope you don't have  vynal wrapped doors ….!!!

No woodgrain

This is very possible, so long as you have standard size doors! 

Like for like sizes will take 15 minutes at most, per door, to swap over, the longest time is to remove the screws, reapply and align :o)

Do you know the name of the company?  Painting the doors seems like a real fag!!!  I painted 115 balustrades earlier this year.....yawn

Lesleyh

If you own a tape measure I strongly recommend you measure the width of your base unit doors and make a note of them. These are typically 80cm high, but vary in width. Then measure the width AND height of your wall unit doors.

If you have 20cm, 30cm, 40cm, 60cm wide doors then you will likely find replacement doors in the IKEA range.

If you then purchase your own doors (therefore knowing the cost) you will be able to get someone to replace your doors and the cost will be limited to an hourly amount provided by a good handy person, if you are not able to fit them yourself.

I will be surprised if a 'replacement door' company can be more competitive than this approach to replacing your doors. (previously mentioned caveats apply!)

Hope it helps 

Thanks. I’ll do that