Kitchen Cabinets Suck, What Are Our Options For Refinishing Oak With White Laminate Doors?
We are remodeling our entire condo and the cabinets are horrible oak with white laminate. We can paint the oak and while there is some paint that will adhere to the laminate Im thinking we should try something else. What are our options short of replacing the doors?
Categories: Kitchen Remodeling Cabinets, Doors....., Kitchen, Laminate, Options, Refinishing, Suck, What, White, With
Paint them. You need an undercoat (cannot remember what they used but you can even paint glass they said and it would not chip). We had ours painted professionally 4-5 years agp and the paint has held up. They were ugly builders oak cabinets. Now they are a beautiful sage green – look custom rather than standard.
Use Kilz first to cover any imperfections and the laminate should work fine with painting it white.
I painted a room that had dark paneling and it has held up for about 7 or 8 years now.
Wash first with mild ammonia water, let dry then paint with Kilz; let dry (according to directions on can) then paint with the white paint. oil based semi gloss works best , but you can use latex too; it just doesn*t wash as well.
I am guessing you mean laminated like in Formica laminated plastic? If I guessed right you can remove the it from the doors. Its a little work but can be done. First you need a small propane torch. You can buy them at any hardware store or go to Lowe’s or Home Depot. You will need a putty knife stiff blade or medium stiffness might be better. Okay start at the corner of a door by heating the laminated plastic and at the edge work the putty knife under it. The heat will cause the glue to get soft and you can work it loss. Be careful not to get burned or set the door a fire. All you need is small amount of heat, after you started doing it you will begin to feel it and know how much heat to apply. A hair dryer will not work its not hot enough. Good luck. Any problems let me know………
After you get it off you need to clean the glue off with paint remover. I am not sure its been a good while since l done this. but read the can of “Contact Cement” for laminate plastic to see what is used to clean up the glue. After you get the glue cleaned off sand it good and paint it or stain it……….
Paint them with an oil based Kilz or Zap primer. Then use any semi gloss paint of your choice. You can go a step further and add a minwax gel stain to settle int the reveals.
For a lighter look use Navajo White ( Sherwin Williams) and Minwax Special Walnut gel stain.
For darker look, you can use a deep taupe and add an antiquing glaze.
I wouldn’t paint them. White laminate doors sound terrible, sorry, but unless u have serious experience painting, I don’t recommend that you paint them. They will look worse if it is obvious that you painted them.
Good luck!
Sorry, had to be honest.
look for new doors
I’ve painted paneling and I would think the laminate cabinets would be about the same. I sealed the paneling with a coat of Kilz first and then painted. Paint it all white!