This kitchen re-painting project began with the client calling and telling me their beautiful and expensive handmade kitchen cabinets had been re-painted by a local ‘kitchen painter’ and he had all but ruined it. They send me over some photos and then I visited them for a consultation. When I saw their kitchen words failed me.

I will let you be the judge of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos below, but for me, this was in my top 5 of the worst kitchen painting I have ever seen. If I had put a blindfold on and used a toothbrush it wouldn’t have been far off the finish the ‘kitchen painter’ had achieved. Absolutely no care or attention had been taken, the brush marks were deep and uneven and there were hairs, bits and bobbles all over every door.

It was going to be possible to undo the work, but it was going to take a lot of prep! I had to sand every square inch of the doors and drawers virtually back to the bare wood, but after a couple of weeks or hard graft, I had a base on which to start painting.

I guess this is a bit of a cautionary tale because it took me so long to undo the other ‘painters’ work that it ended up costing the clients significantly more for the project compared to if they had got me in originally. Going with a cheaper quote is rarely cost effective, whether it be the finish or the durability, to paint a kitchen properly takes time and budget quotes mean key stages are being skipped.

I first removed all the doors and drawers and prepared and painted these in my workroom, so as to reduce the time and onsite and keep disruption to a minimum. I then returned to start work on the shell, leaving the newly painted doors to harden and cure.

In total the kitchen received four coats of paint: 2 primer and 2 topcoats, only using a brush and a roller- no spraying around here. The colours used were Little Greene’s ‘True Taupe for the tiles and dresser and Little Greene’s ‘Portland Stone Dark for the units’.

My clients could not have been happier that I had managed to save their kitchen and give it the hand painted finish a kitchen of this quality needs and they were kind enough to write this testimonial for me –

Testimonial

‘Claire and I are delighted with the finished result, its like a brand new Kitchen! As we said to you we are very happy to provide recommendations should you wish. How lucky we were to have you finish just before the new restrictions came in, so many thanks for working the weekend! Hope you can get a good rest now. Take care and stay safe’ 

Thank you for reading, if you’d like to see more kitchen projects and how I went about painting them, please click here

If you are interested in having your kitchen or furniture painted then please contact Lee on 07808 989 856 or by e-mail lee@imaginativeinteriors.co.uk

Lee works throughout Yorkshire as a kitchen cabinet painter and is within easy reach for kitchen painting projects in Harrogate, Ripon, Wetherby, Leeds, Otley, The Yorkshire Dales, and all the surrounding areas.