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Paint or vinyl wrap high gloss kitchen cabinets?

Howdy! I come to seek the wisdom of those much more reno talented than myself.

We purchased a home in March last year (yay!) and we are doing a few renos however, we’re trying to keep it cheap. We want to refresh the kitchen cabinetry which isn’t particularly old (approx. 2005).

The cupboards have a high gloss plastic covering over timber – not sure the technical term and on one set of drawers, the plastic covering is pulling away. All the other cupboards are in good condition though, so we do not really want to go to the cost of replacing any of them because there is nothing wrong with them.

The doors have a bevelled edge and indented decal design. I’ve included some photographs of them as well as some including the section where it is pulling away from the timber of the drawer.

We are considering changing the colour of them and updating the benchtop as apart of some reno work (we are ripping out some walls to create a more open plan setup). I have been researching either (a) painting them or (b) doing a vinyl wrap covering of them. The information I’ve found is just confusing me on what would be the best option and what exactly we’d need to do for our type of cupboards with either one. Most videos/articles I’ve seen, they have mostly flat facing cupboards and don’t have all the decaling ours do being an older style.

The concerns I have with painting is that (1) it’ll be pretty labour intensive and time consuming and, (2) it may not adhere well to the high gloss plastic covering and will chip off easily. It is also unclear to me, if we were to paint, whether I should be removing the plastic covering with a hairdryer and peeling it off before painting the underlying timber or just sanding the existing high gloss covering before painting to help it adhere.

The concerns I have with the vinyl wrap is that (1) all the indentations in the cupboard faces will be difficult to get it to align to getting on (2) it may lift off because it doesn’t get into the groves properly and just in general around wear spots and (3) it peeling away off cupboards near the oven which some people seem to report.

My main questions are:

What is the best option for our cupboards?
In the event we could do either, pros and cons for each.
If we were to paint them, should we try to remove the plastic off and sand away the glue before painting or could we just sand the covering and paint that?

We are exploring all options to see what might be most suitable and whether its worth doing at all or if we should maybe just leave them as is and work with them as we may do a full kitchen redo down the track but this wouldn’t be for like 5-10 years.

If anyone has done it before with these kinds of cupboards, I’d love to hear from you!

Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.

Thanks for reading!

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EricL

Hello @Rookie-DIYer,

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's sensational to have you join us and thanks for sharing your question about refurbishing your kitchen doors.

Your doors were vacuum- laminated and this production technique allows it to get into the fine details of the door. Manually vinyl wrapping these doors would be difficult at best due to the channels in the door. If the door was flat, then vinyl wrapping would be a fantastic option.

If you wish to keep the current laminate on the surface, I suggest using Selleys 500ml Kwik Grip Horizontal Contact Adhesive. This will repair the peeling parts of the laminate and give your doors a second life. You can technically paint over the laminate using Dulux Renovation Range. This paint system has been designed to go over laminate surfaces and benchtops as well. However, if the laminate has started to peel there is no telling where the laminate will peel off next.

There is also the option of removing the laminate all together and painting the surface of the timber door with paint. Among these three options this is where I am putting my vote. Removing the laminate means there is no need to worry that the surface might peel off. Painting the timber door directly gives you the freedom to choose almost any colour. It may take some time, but the final result will be worth it, and the door will have a full second life.

In regards to the cabinetry, if some parts are peeling as well, I suggest using the contact adhesive and leaving the interior plain.

Here is a link for ideas and inspiration: 20 kitchens transformed with paint.

Let me call on our experienced members @dorabulldog, @daniknight4, @helsbren and @LizzieCro for their recommendations.

If you have any other questions we can help with, please let us know.

Eric

LizzieCro

Hi @Rookie-DIYer ,

How're you going?

Here's my two cent's worth. You can certainly remove the vinyl wrap from the drawer fronts. As you say, you need to heat it up to peel it off. It may leave some residue which you can then lightly sand off. You'll be left with a surface which should take both primer and paint very well. As Eric says, there are specialty paints which you could use, but, given you're back to a 'timber' (MDF) surface, just using a good primer and good quality paint will probably suffice. DIYing vinyl wrap isn't a thing. From memory, the cabinet doors and drawer fronts are put in some sort of vacuum machine which sucks the air out from under the surface of the vinyl, so it sits properly in all the detail of the doors, causing a good adhesion with the MDF. You could try finding a kitchen company which will re-vinyl wrap the fronts for you, which really would give you the best outcome. They may decide to make new draw fronts, which would be an additional cost, but frankly it may be worth it. If you want to go down the painting scenario, you can take a draw front into Bunnings and they can colour match for you. Then you wouldn't need to paint the entire cabinetry, just your drawer fronts. I've done a lot of DIY over the past 50 + years, and, if the rest of the doors, etc are in good nick, and the thought of doing the whole kitchen seems onerous to you, I would just peel and paint the drawer fronts.

If you decide to paint the lot, I can't speak from any experience painting vinyl wrap per se. I have, though, painted lots of vinyl trim on cabinet doors (caravans), and other vinyl things, with great success. I've also painted glass and have never had it scratch or peel off (10 years and still going strong). I use a product called ESP (Easy Surface Preparation), which Bunnings sell. It is the first coat you put on prior to any primer or paint, and causes fabulous adhesion between the primer and the surface you're working on. I've been using it pretty often on all sorts of renovations, since 1999. It eliminates the need for specialty laminate paints. It's very, very easy to use. I've detailed the process a few times on this website, so maybe if you search my posts you'll find it all there. (It's my birthday so I'm being lazy and not repeating it! 🙂 ).

Of course you could go the whole hog and just get all your doors and drawer fronts remade! Ka-ching $$.

May the force be with you!

Cheers, Liz.

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