2024 Cabinet Painting Guide: Transform Your Kitchen on a Budget

Have you considered cost-effectively updating your kitchen with cabinet painting? There are a few details to consider before choosing to paint. How would you answer these questions:

• Are my cabinets made of wood? This can be a hard one for a homeowner! Wood, wood veneer, and painted fiberboard are the only surfaces we will paint. Painting laminate cabinets is unadvisable, and refacing is a better updating option. Refacing can give your cabinets a fresh look without the need for a complete replacement.

For additional insights on maintaining your kitchen's longevity, Forbes offers excellent tips on making your old kitchen feel new.

• Are my wood cabinets in decent shape? Examine any wear on your cabinets. Painting works best for doors that are not warping, cracking, splitting, or breaking. If they are fiberboard, look near the sink – can you see exposed fuzzy material where water drips have caused damage? Are there chips, deep gouges, or scratches from pets or kids? Some wear may still be visible (especially if you choose a light color paint) despite professional prep and repair. 
  
  
• Do I like the wood grain of my cabinets? And what color do I want for my new kitchen? Wood cabinets are often made of oak or maple. Oak has a distinctive grain pattern that stays visible when painted. The lighter the paint color, the more noticeable the grain remains. Maple doesn’t show a grain pattern when painted and results in more significant changes in the look and feel of a kitchen after painting. If you have oak stained cabinets now and want a white kitchen, you will still see and feel the grain after they are painted. Darker colors like navy or black hide the grain better. 
  
  
• Can I see the cabinet hinges on the outside of the cabinets? New cabinets or refaced cabinets will have soft-close hinges on the inside of the cabinet doors. And the new doors will cover more of the cabinet frame than older-style doors with visible hinges. In some cases, hinges can be replaced and updated during the painting process, but the door sizes will remain the same.
  
  
• Do I want to add or change decorative hardware?  Many kitchens don’t have any decorative hardware on the doors and drawer fronts, so it’s easy to drill holes and add knobs or pulls of any size during a paint job. If your cabinets already have hardware holes you can replace the knobs or pulls with new hardware of the same size and placement. Old holes can also be filled, and new holes drilled to change the length or location. Sometimes the scar or shadow of the old hole remains (more likely seen on lighter colors).
  
  
• Do I want to change my counters, backsplash, or appliances? New counters, sinks, and backsplashes are usually easily changed during a cabinet painting job. Upgrading your countertops can complement your newly painted cabinets beautifully. New appliances would ideally stay the same size as the old ones in a painting project, which is something to keep in mind if you’re looking to update wall ovens or a refrigerator, as those items are now often different dimensions than previous models. 
  
  

For more ideas on sustainable kitchen renovation practices, check out HGTV’s tips on modern kitchen trends and also this blog on rustic kitchen trends.

• How long does cabinet painting take? Cabinet painting jobs generally take five days. The doors and drawer fronts come off the first day and are prepped and professionally spray painted at our warehouse and get reinstalled on the last day of the project. The cabinet boxes are prepped and painted and any other updates or improvements (like new drawer boxes or roll-out trays) happen in between. We provide our clients with rolling shelving to make it easy to empty their cabinets prior to the job without losing access to kitchen items they may need. We also do our best to make the kitchen stay as usable as possible during the process. 
  
  

At Kitchen Tune-Up we want to help you make the most of your home. We would love the opportunity to see your kitchen, show you door and hardware samples, and create a plan to update and upgrade your space to meet your needs. Contact us today for a free design appointment and estimate.