Keeping & Renewing Kitchen doors & units

sunnymom

Hi folks,

We are about to embark on a substantial extension to the back of our house. A big part of that job will involve redesigning the layout and an update of our kitchen.

We want to REUSE our kitchen units and doors (they are only a few years old with perfectly, good solid shaker doors), paint them and purchase new counter top, sink, taps, door handles etc. to get a "new kitchen" affect.

Does anyone know a crowd who will take your old doors, prepare and paint them? One kitchen place suggested we would need to 'dip' them first to get rid of any lacquer/residue on them. I naively thought we could sand them (electrically), prime and paint them ourselves!! Has anyone else done this with good success?

Also, kitchen places won't touch us because we're not buying a "full kitchen" from them... are we limited to B&Q then for our countertops and accessories?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!:o

smashey

Moved.
Sunnymom, you'll probably get more respones in Gardening/DIY.

amerden

sunnymom wrote:

I naively thought we could sand them (electrically), prime and paint them ourselves!! Has anyone else done this with good success?

Yes, twice.

First time we did this was after we moved into our house (second hand), the kitchen (large) had solid pine units down both sides, "her in doors" didn't like pine, couldn't afford to replace the whole kitchen so decided to change the appearance by painting the units.

Took off all the doors and drawer fronts and stored them in the garage. Cleaned and slightly sanded the units left on the walls, then painted them by hand using a small "gloss" roller and acrylic paint.

Because there was so many doors and they would get the hardest wear, that they should get sprayed with cellulose paint, again cleaned, sanded, then sprayed with a primer, then the top coat of cellulose. Used a low pressure, high volume sprayer (not the electric type).

It was like a new kitchen, no one would believe us that it was the same units.

Well life was good for a few years until I arrived home from work one night only to be told that our kitchen was too small and we had to get rid of all the units down one side to open it up, must have had shrinking kitchen syndrome, it was fine when I left for work that morning. Oh and while "I" was doing that I may as well change the tiles as well as "we" are fed up with the ones that are down, if fact we will change the whole kitchen. So I inquired if we needed a brand new kitchen, oh no, just change the colour of the units that are left to fit in with my new tiles.
This time all I did with the (remaining) units was to hand paint them, again with a small (gloss) roller and acrylic paint, brand new kitchen and some more brownie points earned.

Another new kitchen, for a while anyway.

cubix

Any before and after pics Amerden?

amerden

None of the particular work done, but possibly family photographs around showing the new, not so new and the old units, but would be only photographs and unfortunately have not got access to a scanner so would not be able to reproduce them electronically.