Help me with this UGLY kitchen!

[Moxie]

We got a bit of a deal on this house because it is UGLY. The colors are garish. The things that are painted are just bizarre (the fan in the middle of the white bathroom ceiling is painted blue--why paint a fan???).

 

The Plan (HA!) when we bought it was to put some money into it and make it pretty over a few years. We've painted lots of the rooms and we're slowly working on the rest.

 

Part of The Plan was a new kitchen. Well, the sale of our old house fell through so we still own two houses and we are having a surprise baby in the summer. Our new kitchen has been pushed back a few years.

 

The kitchen cabinets are the original 60's cabinets. The kitchen cabinet doors, all the kitchen trim, the light fixture and the vent cover have all been painted a really ugly red shade. There are 33 door and drawer fronts plus all the trim. They had a trash can in one of the cabinets so they CUT A HOLE in the countertop to access the trash (insane!!). Even if they hadn't, the countertops are really dinged up and the laminate is peeling up in places.

 

So, any creative ideas?? Painting these RED doors would be nearly impossible--I can't imagine how many coats it would take to cover the red. I don't want to do anything too costly because it will be completely gutted in a few years.

[aggie96]

Just throwing out an idea...If the insides of the cabinets aren't red also, you could take off doors and use cabinets open.  Paint inside of cabinets something fun that updates/coordinates with red on outside of cabinet boxes.  Cut area of trash can hole to insert a butcher block cutting board.  Board would be removable for cleaning but recessed into counter top to look on trend.  Maybe change out light fixture and drawer hardware to update and coordinate with whatever new, fresh color you add to spruce up red?

 

Just thoughts.

 

I had a bad shade of teal/blue-green in our master bath tiles that I did not want to change but needed to make look better to sell our house.  I bought towels in a more updated shade of teal that coordinated with the ugly tile.  I found a more modern art piece that brought in the teal and brass-colored metals (which are also dated).  I changed the other metals parts to an antique bronze that coordinated with brass/gold but allowed me to tone down so much of it, etc.  It worked.  We ended up with lots of compliments on the bathroom when the house sold.  Wouldn't have been my first choice but it helped tone down the ugly.

[zoobie]

A good primer will cover the red. Get it tinted gray, and then you'll want to paint the cabinets a taupe or something. A good paint store will be able to help you on the primer. Some open cabinets as PP suggested will cut down on painting.

 

Check CL for countertops. You can find ones being ripped out that may fit your cabinets, or can be cut down. It's easy to replace laminate. IKEA butcher block counters are inexpensive.

[Valley Girl]

Could you stencil the doors? If you take the doors off as the previous poster suggested but don't want to leave the cabinets open because of dust, etc. what about replacing them with doors that are just a frame with a clear insert of some kind? If your dh is a do-it-yourselfer or you don't have many cabinets, it might not be too expensive.

[laughing lioness]

You can paint laminate-

I actaully painted a ceiling fan- it was an 80's gold and I painted it white. It's cool now, instead of dated looking.

 

As far as the cabinets. I would evaluate how long you think you'll realistically have to deal with an ungutted kitchen. I think if you invested in Zinsser or Kilz primer it would only take 2 coatsOne primer and one color. Just take all of the doors off and set up a assembly line system and divide the kitchen into 4ths, doing just one section at a time. Even if you only get 1/4 done, it might make it more tolerable. I'd look on Craigslist and local FB re-sale sites for pulls and knobs.

 

 

OR dry brush the fronts of the cabinets and do a shabby chic look.

This site has some ideas for updating, including some not too bad red cabinets.

[happypamama]

No idea, but congrats on the surprise baby!

[rjand6more]

Depending on the amount of counter space, I would tile it(with cheap tile).I would lay it right over the existing top.

 

Maybe a dark coffee brown for the cabs?  My dh is a painter and he would prime with a tinted primer first.

 

Not sure if that is too much work/cost for you.  I have sympathy.  It took 10 years to finish our house and the kitchen made me cry until it was done!

[catz]

We painted laminate and oak cabinets white. A high quality primer can do amazing things. We also didn't want to do too much because we're fully remodeling the kitchen next summer (this was a number of years ago now). We also just removed the doors where we keep nicer looking plates, etc spots and patched up the screw holes.

[StaceyinLA]

Awww, I LOVE my red cabinets with my buttery yellow walls. Probably one of my favorite color combos in my house.

[Supertechmom]

From experience, take your projected redo date and shove it back a couple of years!  :)  So with that in mind, I would spend time making the kitchen livable and doable for a few years.   I would find a really high quality primer which would probably (and did) make me cry over how much it cost  but it saved us so much time in painting.  At least primer gray works better than make me cry ugly...   Counter tops aren't that expensive at Lowes/Home dept if you or you Dh can handle the installation. But the new laminate paint really does a great job on redoing countertops and the butcher block inset would look good as well.     A new vent cover and you could probably save the kitchen for a few years!

 

And painting fans can do so much!!!  We had to paint a few and it changed the room so much!   Really good spray paint and a nice hot day gave us a great paint job that looks out of the box new and made the whole room look great.

[Scarlett]

I painted over navy cabinets once. It took 3 coats but the white I used looked so pretty. New hardware, including hinges, helped a lot too.

[Moxie]

I should add that I'm doing this myself. DH sees ZERO sense in making changes to something we're getting rid of. Men!!

 

If I painted them black, would I need a primer??

[Mrs Mungo]

I agree with painting with tinted primer, then paint. It will cover. I do *not* know what to suggest about the whole in your countertop. Laminate countertops can be repaired with laminated paste stuff, but that only works for little nicks and gouges. Maybe you could replace the kitchen counters with new laminate for not very much? Do you have one of those Habitat for Humanity stores in your area that sells old cabinets and stuff? You might be able to get a workable countertop from there?

[Scarlett]

I should add that I'm doing this myself. DH sees ZERO sense in making changes to something we're getting rid of. Men!!

 

If I painted them black, would I need a primer??

I love the way black cabinets look. I have no idea about the primer issue....I would ask the paint store.

[AnnaM]

I would do a primer just because it will cut down the number of coats you need. You could try a combined paint primer. Are you using oil based paint or water based? That also makes a difference.

[itsheresomewhere]

Don't forget to wash the cabinets before you prime and paint them.   

[Moxie]

I would do a primer just because it will cut down the number of coats you need. You could try a combined paint primer. Are you using oil based paint or water based? That also makes a difference.

These cabinets are pretty dark red. I'd think any primer would be lighter than the red therefore harder to paint black over?? I think I might take one of the doors off and take it to the paint shop with me.

[plansrme]

I have black cabs and love them, but they are stained, not painted. Black paint is tricky--be sure you get the kind that is already black, not tinted black in the store. Tinted black paint takes FORever to dry.

 

As for a hole in the counter, that is not insane! I have that and love it--keeps the trash can out of the way and lets me throw stuff in without touching the cabinet door. Now your guys may have done a cruddy job finishing the edges, but I must defend the concept. I have had it in four countertops so far (wood, granite, corian, laminate), and it has been doable and attractive in all of them.

[StephanieZ]

Black paint/stain could/should cover red pretty well. I've seen a lot about General Finishes stain being really wonderful over stained cabinets (almost no prep required), but I am not sure if it'd work over paint. In your shoes, I'd try that on one cabinet front if you can there is one you could test it out on. 

 

You can get cheap laminate counters from a home improvement store, or, better yet, IKEA's butcher block counters, if you can self-install . .. 

[Moxie]

This is just a hole sawed through the counter right between the drawers and the sink. It isn't even square! And the cabinets are original so the whole wall is one open cabinet; there were trash stains all over. Trust me; this thing is gross!

[sunflowerlady]

For eighty something dollars you can buy a kit to refinish your countertops. The kits are from a company called Giani.You can Google the name and find their site . Amazon sells the kits also and they get great reviews. Rustoleum also makes a kit for refinishing countertops but their kit costs about two hundred dollars.

[Mandylubug]

Buy ikea butcher block to replace all the counters. Really inexpensive. Then paint the cabinets and change out the hardware. Good intentions can some times never show up and then you've dealt with an ugly kitchen for years.

[Guest submarines]

I should add that I'm doing this myself. DH sees ZERO sense in making changes to something we're getting rid of. Men!!

 

If I painted them black, would I need a primer??

Black chalk board paint! I goes on very smoothly and it takes only one coat. And fun and sleek too!

[MrsJewelsRae]

Our kitchen was a nasty icky mess that had not been updated in probably 30 years. I we had very little $. We peeled off the ancient wallpaper and painted the walls. Scrubbed the gross cabinets (30 cupboard doors) and painted everything white- inside and out, as well as all window, door and floor trim. It was a big job but it made a HUGE difference, it was so fresh and beautiful. I spray painted all the gold drawer pulls and knobs matte black. We bought cheap floor tiles (white and black peel and stick) to cover the blah, stained and chippy laminate floors. If the counters are really bad you can paint them as well at a fraction of the cost, check online for tutorials. We also painted the peach backsplash tiles and 6 years later they've not chipped a bit. It really is amazing what just a few cans of paint can do. Use grey tinted primer to cover red btw. Oh, I painted the blades of my bedroom fan white to match the decor, looks really good. ;) As for the hole in the counter, either cover it with a cutting board, or perhaps try patching and painting a faux granite look.

[Moxie]

By "fan", I mean the bathroom exhaust fan. The little grate thing in the ceiling that is always white--ours is painted blue. Really, this is a very odd house.

[zoobie]

By "fan", I mean the bathroom exhaust fan. The little grate thing in the ceiling that is always white--ours is painted blue. Really, this is a very odd house.

Our second house--the previous owner had a fondness for sponge painting. We had pink sponge painted vents and green sponge painted vents... Pop yours out and take it along to Home Depot or Lowes so you get the right size. They're very cheap! :) If you mean it's the top cover of the exhaust fan, a can of spray paint should do it.

[Lisa in Jax]

Our current house had red kitchen cabinets, too.  We replaced them with IKEA cabinets in the kitchen, but kept some of them and painted them an espresso color for the bathroom. I degreased the doors with soapy water, then sanded them lightly before painting. It only took one coat to cover the red, fwiw.

 

Bathroom cabinets get less use than the kitchen, though, so I'd probably do a second coat so the red doesn't show through if there are small dings.

 

IKEA and Lumber Liquidators both sell affordable butcher block counters. I'd probably paint the cabinets and add some inexpensive counters while I wait for the time and money to do a more complete redo.

 

 

 

 

[emcap]

I painted the doors in our house black using rust oleum black oil based paint in a can. One coat, no primer, super good adhesion, self leveling for an amazingly smooth finish. It is a gorgeous true black. It took some trial and error to get the hang of working with, but it was amazing. I occasionally walk around looking for something to paint with it because it is so amazing. If you use it just make sure you don't overwork it, you may have brush/roller marks but leave them and they fade away as it dries.

 

It is oil based though, so you would need a mask and really good ventilation since you're pregnant. If you don't use oil based, you will need primer for good adhesion.

[prairiewindmomma]

I'd rip off all of the doors, paint everything white, and get some butcherblock countertops from ikea that you treat with danish oil.

 

Pinterest has a ton of white cab/butcherblock pics if you need help visualizing.

[Mrs Mungo]

Here's a site to see if there is a Habitat for Humanity Restore near you. They really do have great deals sometimes. I would look there for a low-cost countertop first, especially if I planned an eventual total cabinet re-do.

 

http://www.habitat.org/restores

[Farrar]

Are you going to completely redo the kitchen with a new design or just replace everything with basically the same blueprint?  Because if it's the latter, you could possibly just invest in the new counter in a nice material and have them reuse it down the road.  Or maybe you could tile over the counter?  Or, I like the Ikea Butcher Block suggestion.  We have that on one side of our kitchen and it's nice.  I like it and it wasn't very expensive at all.

 

Was this house perhaps a young people's group home?  A bunch of young 20-something roommates?  Because that's what it sounds like from these decor decisions.

[mytwomonkeys]

My favorite kitchen redux on a budget is from The Old Painted Cottage blog. It will inspire you! Be sure to scroll down to the before and after photos.

 

http://theoldpaintedcottage.com/pages/mycottage.htm

[mytwomonkeys]

I am redoing my kitchen countertops in January. I'm going to attempt to replicate this:

 

 

http://loraine-breakfastfordinner.blogspot.com/search/label/Counter%20Tops

 

Should be very cheap!

[lmrich]

I used a primer for my black cabinets. It took 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of black. You could take the doors off the top cabinets so it is not so dark. Paint the inside of the cabinets white to brighten it up.

[Liz CA]

Can your dh cut the "trash hole" out completely and insert a butcher block until you can remodel?

[Melissa in Australia]

just note that it is really unhealthy for the baby to paint while pregnant. I am sure it depends on the paint and all but paint can be pretty toxic.

[itsheresomewhere]

just note that it is really unhealthy for the baby to paint while pregnant. I am sure it depends on the paint and all but paint can be pretty toxic.

 

Hopefully, she will use a no VOC paint.  Not toxic, no smell and good for those with allergies in the house.