Hi everyone

We have a medium darkness wooden kitchen in quite good condition but some of the doors are past their best so was considering replacing with new doors (vinyl wrap) although we can't get the same so would have to replace all the doors with a contrast colour as cannot match the colour surround. Can't afford to update the benchtop so these will have to stay.

I had a bloke round today who resurfaces kitchen cabinets and benchtops and this would include spraying the whole kitchen white and having a nice contrast colour on the benchtop. I don't know anyone that has had this sort of respray done before and wondered if any of you have and whether you are pleased with the end result?

The spray would certainly work out cheaper and I get what looks like to be a new kitchen and benchtop rather than replacing the doors/drawer fronts.

Interested to hear about your experience, if any, of this sort of renovation.

Thanks an advance. xx

I'll be watching this thread with interest. I wanted to get my kitchen benchtops resprayed as I want to change the colour but don't want to go to the expense of new benchtops. The company (in New Zealand where I live) that I e-mailed did not reply so I thought, forget about it.

I will learn to live with the benchtops. Good quality and nothing wrong with them I would just prefer pale grey not speckled brown but hey.

We have re-decorated the kitchen, changed the light fittings, converted a light switch to a plug socket and generally pulled it more into our taste but the benchtops remain.

I'll just change the kitchen lino (pale brown diamond pattern) and that will have to do. Got other rooms in the house that need redecorated and I'm kinda, 'over' the kitchen now.

We had a pair of louvre bi-fold doors at the entrance to one of the rooms in our house. The louvres would have been a bugger to clean and just looked dated and tatty. Painting them would have been a pain too. I paid a builder a few hundred dollars to take the louvres out and replace with panels and beading in the original frames where just the louvres were. A professional painter then painted them. They look lovely. They are still warped because they only have, 'bolts' on the top of the door not the bottom if that makes any sense. However it would have cost about NZ $4,000 to have them replaced as they are not a standard size.

Why don't you just contact some of his previous clients and ask them what they think.Go round and have a look.I've done this with some customers of my own.

Depends on what they're doing it with...

HE resprayed the Grey Nomads kitchen in the uk.. 40 plus avocado cupboard doors and drawer fronts... Did it at work using commercial refrigerated vehicle paint... White gloss... Still looked like brand new 20 years later.... And didnt cost a cent...

Not too sure about spraying the worktops though... Unless you're looking for a quick fix prior to selling?

It all went pear shaped when my OH rang him to ask a few more questions (because we really didn't know anything about the technology, process involved etc). He asked whether there would be a written guarantee which the man was a bit cagey about, and also to ask whether we could view other jobs that he had done and he said that wasn't possible.

Then OH asked that he didn't mean to be rude but wanted to know how the cost involved stacked up against the amount of time it took i.e. $2600 for one and a half days' work which would have involved preparing all surfaces, respraying tiles, doors, drawers, panels and benchtop (the latter was the bit that would have been done on the second morning and would have taken a couple of hours) - it is a small kitchen. The bloke said it was a rude question, said he thought we would be awkward customers and said he didn't want the job. I am not sure whether it was rude to ask this question or not but he clearly didn't like being asked.

I have heard Eddie that people have used vehicle paint before which has been good but whether this is the same sort of paint these respray companies use I don't know.

I have emailed another spray company today and waiting to hear back from them to see if they will come and quote. They do respray benchtops as well and they display them in a show room but I don't think they have any kitchen units on show.

I am becoming a bit wary about having the kitchen sprayed without knowing anyone that has had it done already and am therefore staring to ere on the side of caution and veering towards replacing the doors/drawers at the moment through the company that installed the kitchen originally and hoping that once this has been done the benchtops may actually go better with the white doors and wood trim, but if not perhaps I could consider having the benchtop only resurfaced.

$2600 seems a bit of money for a spray job. Why not new doors and relaminate top. Sure could be easily done for that price.

I had a quote to replace existing solid wood doors and drawers including door furniture to vinyl wrapped alternative for $4374 inc GST (off white I would probably go for to compliment the existing medium coloured wood trim/panels etc as can't afford to rip out the whole kitchen and start again). To granite transform the existing laminate benchtop i.e. 8mm granite sheeting over existing was a further $3320 + $627 for plumbing (taking the sink out while the sheeting fitted and then plumbing it back in again. Seems a bit expensive to me (especially the benchtop) but then I do live in Perth!

This is something we're going to have to look at soon....

We have nasty beige coloured kitchen units and as of YESTERDAY our previously perfectly adequate benchtop now has a brown burnt and blistered circle on it where the wife placed a super-heated frying pan.

Obviously the 'gold plate' solution would be to replace all cupboard doors, draws and side panels (17 doors, 5 draws) and put in granite benchtops but that'd cost a fortune.... I'll keep my eye on this thread!

...Also - if we WERE going to do a kitchen reno - I'd be looking very carefully at lighting and putting in some LED strips under the cupboards - they look great, are very energy efficient and quite cheap (~$40 per metre)

Guess I need to up prices