Kitchen remodels are no joke. You don’t have to do a complete remodel of your kitchen to update it to a brighter, more modern, more inspiring look. Cabinet painting is an often overlooked alternative that can update your home and improve your life.
Painting your cabinets is a cost-effective way to transform your kitchen on a budget you can afford. Select Painting can help you take your kitchen from drab to dynamic with a cabinet painting upgrade. Let’s learn more about cabinet painting and why it might be right for you.
Give Your Kitchen a New Look
Painted cabinets are in fashion now. Many kitchens and bathrooms are designed with fun colors beyond the typical natural wood tones, black, or white. You can let your personality and flair shine through by custom painting your cabinets.
Another current trend is contrasting cabinet colors. Many modern kitchens have cabinets with one color hanging cabinets and a second color for base cabinets. Another way to mix colors is an accent wall of cabinets, similar to the same idea with wall painting. Perhaps most of your cabinets are white, but the cabinets around your refrigerator are red, for example.
A third way to use color on painted cabinets is by painting the casements of the cabinets one color and the doors and drawer faces another. There are many design choices for painted cabinets to make an impact on your home.
Painting Cabinets: What’s Involved
While you might want to tackle painting the walls of a room yourself, painting cabinets is a big DIY job. From the type of products needed, to the techniques used to paint them, cabinets are a whole different ball game.
Improperly painted cabinets will not stand up to the heavy use in the kitchen or bathroom. Exposure to water, grease, heat, and humidity will make the finish of poorly painted cabinets blister, crack, or peel. Cabinet painting is an excellent job for experienced professionals who will follow these steps to ensure your job is done right:
- Remove your cabinet doors.
- Clean all surfaces of your cabinets and drawers to remove dust and grime.
- Strip your cabinets’ current finish using a palm sander and by hand-sanding around the contours.
- Prime your cabinets with a special primer that chemically bonds to the surface.
- Use a special water-based paint with an additive that makes it stand up to the abuse kitchen and bathroom cabinets get.
- Reinstall your cabinet doors and drawers.
- Add new hardware to the cabinets. Painting your cabinets is a great time to update the hardware such as hinges and door and drawer pulls.
- Clean everything up, leaving you a fresh and inviting room.
Why You Should Consider Painting Your Cabinets
Updating the Look of Your Home
Cabinets are one of the first things that date your home. Trends in kitchen cabinet design change every decade or so, and looking at the style and finish of your cabinets screams 1960s or 1990s. A fresh coat of paint on your cabinets will update them to something more current, or more your style.
Preparing Your Home for Sale
If you’re considering putting your home on the market but don’t have the funds for a full kitchen remodel, painting your cabinets can provide instant appeal to buyers. When potential buyers see that your kitchen is out-of-date, they tend to ask for a price reduction, knowing they will have to foot that bill.
A brighter, more polished kitchen will tell potential buyers that you have taken care of the property and will quell those worries about doing a kitchen upgrade post-purchase.
Brightening a Dark Space
Many kitchen cabinets have a dark wood finish, such as walnut, or mahogany. These colors are meant to look luxurious, but they also don’t reflect light. The result: your kitchen can look dark and somewhat gloomy and uninviting.
Most people spend between 2 and 4 hours in their kitchens every day, preparing food and cleaning up. If you have an eat-in kitchen, that number can rise to up to 6 hours per day. In addition, kitchens are often the heart of your home, used for gatherings, homework, and even crafting.
This room should feel comfy, inviting, and inspiring. Brightening the cabinets with a lighter finish or a bold new color will make your kitchen the hub of your home that you enjoy spending time in.
Dark finish cabinets in your bathroom can make the room appear smaller and more claustrophobic. Brightening the cabinets with a light color will help open the room. You can paint all the cabinets in your home as part of the same job.
Save Money by Painting Cabinets
If you want to remodel your kitchen, you generally have three options: the complete tear-out and reinstallation of cabinets and appliances, cabinet refacing by adding new doors and drawer faces to existing cabinets or painting your existing cabinets. Here are some advantages of cabinet painting over the other two options.
Less Money
Cabinet painting is a more cost-effective option to update your kitchen or bath. You use the existing structures you already own and give them a new look. You’ll add years to the life of your cabinets with a properly applied new finish. If your cabinets are well-made and in good repair, painting them is often the best option.
In contrast, the average cost of a full kitchen remodel is $21,751, with a range of $12,594 to $33,118. Materials are about 80 percent of a remodel budget. Since cabinet painting uses your existing structures, reduces your materials costs to brushes, rollers, tape, sandpaper, primer, and paint.
Environmentally Friendly
In a world with far too much trash produced every day, painting your cabinets is a sustainable and eco-friendly solution. You won’t have to dispose of your old cabinets, which likely have years of life left in them. It’s a responsible choice in today’s disposable world.
Less Invasive
A full kitchen or bath remodel project take these crucial rooms out of commission for the duration of the work, usually four weeks or more. Remodels require demolition and shutting off your water. You won’t be able to use your kitchen, which means cooking for your family will be difficult. Cabinet painting is done in just a few days instead of a few weeks, returning your kitchen to you much sooner.
