Painting kitchen cupboards

Oh i'll be watching this with great interest!
I know there is a paint made for cupboards, and I think it doesn't even need an undercoat, so hoping someone might have used it in their kitchen.

We had our kitchen painted and she just used ordinary silk finish paint.

Word of warning! - it has worn off a bit round the knob/handle of the most used cupboard; in retrospect I would have put those transparent plates round the door knobs.

Rub down, undercoat, Rub down, undercoat, Rubdown, undercoat, Rubdown, undercoat.
Using correct sandpaper but finishing with the finest.
Once it feels like silk, apply top coat of your choice.
If you don't put in the work before that top coat it doesn't matter how good the top coat is you won't have that finish.
I always use an aluminium sandpaper for the final rubdown.

I painted the kitchen cupboards with Dulux paint specially designed for the purpose. The kitchen looked much better but it did chip slightly so possibly a coat of varnish would have helped. I also used some left over undercoat paint initially which actually caused a little bubbling but luckily it wasn’t very visible. The tin said one coat but I think it took two. I also found a roller was better than a paintbrush. We took the doors off the hinges and I did most of it outside as it was summer.

This was fourteen years ago and there’s a lot more choice of colours and brands now.

We looked into this, decided on a new kitchen in the end, but there are professional companies that do it, were considering having our wardrobes done.

Me too!
When I had mine painted originally, the kitchen company said any colour as long as it’s Dulux. It hasn’t got a mark on it for over ten years hard use, so it has done well.
But I want to use a Little Greene colour, so I rang them for advice, and apparently they do a paint especially designed for this purpose.

I’m a bit worried about it, as I had a lot of wardrobes painted in a dark blue designer guild paint, and you can literally scratch it off, would be bad news in a kitchen!

So any tips would be great.

Ours was done a while back (I think I posted about it) using Ronseal Cupboard paint, which can be used on melamine.

Really pleased with it, very hard wearing. Even the section I have to often scrub where Oliver Sprout slides down the door after coming in through the kitchen window still looks good!

Only one caveat, it is described as only needing one coat, but we did apply 2.

I painted most of my kitchen cupboard doors etc. before they were fitted. After careful preparation as advised by Petra, I followed the advice of a builder neighbour, which was to thin the paint a little so it was more runny and then paint the doors etc. while they were lying flat. I put the paint on fairly generously and it settled into a lovely smooth finish with no drips and no brush marks. It was a bit of a nuisance waiting for them to dry before moving them , but they did look good.

A dd and SiL painted some horrible old brown melamine kitchen cupboards with the special cupboard paint. Complete transformation and they looked fine, even with no rubbing down. However it was a fairly temporary thing since the old kitchen was going to come out for an extension a year or so later.

I also did a whole wall of fitted wardrobes and drawers in nasty white melamine, used pale cream cupboard paint. Did rub them down well and applied two thin coats - couldn't take doors off so had to be thin coats to avoid those runny drips. Again transformed - I changed all the handles too. Total cost £65. Several years ago now and still immaculate.

If they are wood and you want a modern matte finish use Little Greene Paint not Farrow and Ball. Little Greene is oil based and much more durable. We were told this by a professional kitchen painter and have found it to be true.

Framilode

I like Little Greene paint, just hoping it’s going to be up to the job!

I once remember taking a whole day to paper my very tatty (rented) kitchen walls with cream, green sprigged wallpaper and paint all the cupboards and doors in a wonderful matching moss green.

When my six year old came running in from school he stopped short and looked amazed at the change.

'Oh Mummy,' he said, 'it's exactly the same colour as our school toilets.'

In my house (from which I have just moved), I had a long galley kitchen with good solid wooden doors both base units, drawers and wall cupboards. Lots of them. They were dark brown and made the whole kitchen very dark. Few years back I did look in at just getting new doors put on. Not only was it horrendously expensive, but I really baulked at replacing these lovely solid wood doors with plastic ones.
There were 21 cupboard doors and six drawer front.
After lots of looking around I discovered a firm that would come in, remove all those doors, take them away and spray them any colour I wished (I chose white) and then come back and replace them and even fitted new door knobs for me on all of them. This worked out at a sixth of the price of replacement. I kept those lovely wooden doors and yet made my kitchen look new.
It lasted pretty well, when I moved, it was six years since I had this done, and there were a couple of chips where I had knocked them. Had I stayed, I would probably have had them done again after about ten years.
Having no doors on any cupboard for a week, really made me clean out all of those cupboards!!!
If you have good quality doors, I would thoroughly recommend this method of updating your kitchen

DH and I painted our DS’s depressing dark wood kitchen cabinets over two days, using a bright blue Dulux silk. The idea was that they would be replaced a few months later, so we did no sanding down, just took off the handles and applied an undercoat and two top coats. They looked so cheerful they’re still there 6 years later (though they are “on the list” to be replaced ). Apart from a bit of scuffing round the handles and edges, they’ve easily survived the onslaught of many a scooter and trike and still look good.

I always use Dulux. Apart from the one time we don’t talk about when DH went out to buy it and came back with Wilko’s own brand instead.

I know this is no use at all to you now, but years ago I painted our old kitchen cupboard doors with Woolworths Household paint. It was called Mercury, a grey, before it was all the rage.
It was superb, gave a lovely finish and was very hard wearing.

Good luck with the research, and let us know how you get on.

I have made over two kitchens, one with wood doors and one melamine. It is most important to remove every speck of grease. I then applied a coat of E.S.P. (Easy surface prep) . No need to sand down. I followed this with 3 coats of Farrow and Ball applied with a small roller. Both kitchens have been greatly admired and are wearing well.

When we bought our painted kitchen the supplier supplied us with a small tin of touch up paint, in case of any damage. We threw it away unused after 10 years as it had, not unsurprisingly, dried out.

I think we used something called multi surface paint at our holiday home. It was fine for painting wall tiles too.

There is a paint called frenchic people are raving about, no prep needed except a clean down of the units with sugar soap. If you Google frenchic they have lots of colour choices as well.