DIY wrapping, painting or some other way of refreshing kitchen units

The kitchen in our house is tired but not quite ready for replacement. We’ve only lived in the house for a few months, so we don’t have the funds to do a full replacement. Also we don’t want to rush into replacing as we might find we want to change things completely after living here a while longer.

Bar the under sink cupboard (which looks to have suffered water damage in a leak), the units are sound. The doors are plain slab type and gloss white. One has very slight bubbling under the finish near to an edge. The main issue is discolouration. The edge banding on the cover panels has yellowed significantly. One drawer has yellowed slightly too. Therefore I’m wondering if wrapping or painting the doors and panels could be an option

Has anyone any experience of this? Is wrapping straight forward? Is it better than painting?

I painted mine in the old kitchen….lots of sanding before and between coats, used special kitchen cabinet paint.  They came out ok, slightly helped by the slightly rustic look to the whole kitchen.

Painting is difficult to get a flat finish and prone to scrapes. Never wrapped. Are new doors an option – they are fairly standard.

Yep, new doors may not be as expensive as you think.

To be honest the doors and drawers, bar the very slight bubbling and the discoloured drawer, are actually ok. The main issue is the edge banding on the end panels. The banding is moulded into the panel finish, so removal and replacement of the banding isn’t going to look as good, plus the whites might not even match afterwards.

If the doors were replaced then I’d need to do the end panels too. Now I look closer, the internal corner pieces between units are slightly off white…. could end up replacing a lot

Can you afford to pay a refresh company to spray them for you?

Unless you are meticulous and good with your hands, I wouldn’t wrap. Decent wrap vinyl for this type of thing (3m DiNoc or Coverstyl being the best Metamark also now do their own brand but not tried it) is going to be expensive. Circa £30/ m at 122o mm wide. It’s all very good but a certain level of practice would be ideal and at that cost, failure is expensive.
Paint is cheap, your prep time will be cheap. Get a cheap airless sprayer from a DIY store and prime and paint yourself.

I’m going to sand and paint mine fairly soon. Once they’re painted, I’m planning on coating them in Polyvine Decorators Varnish to protect the paint.

If you say your gloss white is starting to bubble, I’m guessing they’re vinyl wrapped at the moment? If they’re wrapped then repainting probably won’t be an option. You’d have to remove the wrap and paint whatever was underneath which could end up taking a lot of prep.

Ours were dark wood, so easily painted with cabinet paint. It’s proved durable.

If the surface is crap to start with doing anything to them without fixing the surface first will be the same with an additional layer on top.

We are always asked to wrap old vans and cars to cover up the “tatty bits and rust”..we never agree, no way would anybody ever be happy with it..

I’ve wrapped bedroom cupboard doors in cheap vinyl wrap from eBay. Didn’t want to spend much on a cheap cupboard. Changed them from pink to white. Came out great! Much better than expected, lasted well too. The back of the doors you can see wll the joins but I didn’t put much effort in. just made sure faces were good.

All surfaces are near perfect, bar the tiny bit of an edge that’s bubbling up/ blowing out. It’s likely that’s right above where the previous owner had their kettle. It could easily be fixed and hidden under paint/wrap.

The main issue is all the surfaces are varying shades of white, due to yellowing. The edge bands of the end panel have the worse yellowing. This means the cupboards are white(ish), framed with yellow.

As I took out an integrated washing machine, I have a spare door to experiment with

I wonder if anything could reverse the yellowing. I’ve even wondered if I could polish the edges with car polish/t cut!

I de -yellowed a fridge with t cut. Looked good afterwards, almost as new.

Cant say for sure it would work on a kitchen cupboard but it might

I have also painted a kitchen, I used zinser primer then top coat. You have to degrease like mad first, then rub down thoroughly to get a key. Small foam roller gave a good enough finish for me

The main issue is all the surfaces are varying shades of white, due to yellowing.

oxalic acid is your friend here. If it’s not a big kitchen some pre mixed Y10 is miraculous stuff otherwise buy the raw oxalic acid granules and make up your own solution. Almost certainly will remove any yellowing back to white.

Go with trying the above solutions TBH, given the surface type.