If you're desperate for a new kitchen but can't afford it yet, you can spruce up your room while you save by painting your kitchen cabinets a different colour. What are the pros and cons of changing the colour of your units?
The Advantages of Painting Kitchen Cabinets
One of the primary advantages of painting your cabinets compared to putting in a new kitchen is cost. It's far cheaper to paint existing units than to replace them. This also gives you a way to effectively get a kitchen that looks like new even though it isn't.
Changing the colour of your cabinets can make your kitchen look completely different; older cabinets that currently look a little the worse for wear can look like new again. Plus, if you've recently redecorated your kitchen and your cabinets don't really fit into your new colour scheme, you can make them blend in better—or even stand out more—by painting them a different colour. If you change your mind on colour schemes a few years down the line, you can simply repaint your cabinets again.
The Disadvantages of Painting Kitchen Cabinets
While painting kitchen cabinets isn't a particularly hard DIY job, it does require some skills. For example, you'll have to take off all your doors and drawer fronts and sand them down before you start painting. You'll then need to find and apply the right primer undercoat for the cabinet's material and colour before finally painting the cabinets the colour you want. Then, you'll have to put back all the doors and drawers. This can be a time-consuming and fiddly job.
Plus, if you've not got any previous painting experience, then you may find it hard to get a really good paint finish. You may end up using acrylic gloss paints for your top coats—these paints can be hard to get on smoothly if you don't have experience with using them. A smooth finish is key to a good-looking painted cabinet. For example, if you end up with a lot of brush strokes showing on the surface after you've painted units, then they simply won't look as good as you'd hoped. You may end up with a different-coloured kitchen, but it may look a little too shabby chic for your liking.
If you don't have the time to paint cabinets yourself or if you want your finished results to look like new cabinets rather than homemade painted ones, then it's worth talking to local painters and decorators to see if they have a cabinet-painting service. This way, you'll get a kitchen that looks like new without any of the effort.
