Does anyone have any experience with having kitchen cabinets professionally vinyl wrapped?

About to move to house, and the kitchen is great. It is only a few years old, the layout is perfect, it seems very high quality and well installed. But the cabinet doors, side panels, areas of carcass, upstands, head panels and filler pieces are really, really not to our taste. They are a like high gloss, walnut ply effect. Whoever speced them obviously liked them, fair enough – everyone has different tastes.

I’ve seen a few companies offering to wrap kitchens, but can’t find much independent info/reviews on finish, quality, longevity, ability to fit in tight and fiddly areas, likelihood of damage near ovens, water etc. Ideally we would want it to last 10years.
The companies tend to be a bit difficult to find much info about too, limited address /contact info and usually just a webform for getting in touch, so any recommendations in Surrey /South East /London would be appreciated.

Thanks

Move in, give it two weeks, see if you feel the same. If you do, swap the doors. I bet you’ll not notice after a short while.

We hated the colour/finish of the built in wardrobes in the bedroom when we moved in. It was second on our list of things to remove.

25 years later they are still there….

Go old school. Fablon for the win.

Or just get replacement doors? That’s a pretty tried and tested solution.

Or just get replacement doors? That’s a pretty tried and tested solution.

Unfortunately it is not just the doors. Large parts of the carcass, including quite a few bespoke bits are also in the same finish, to remove and replace everything would not be far off replacing the complete kitchen, which is probably a much larger, more expensive and more wasteful job than wrapping what is already there.

Have you thought about painting them. Our kitchen was dark oak (new 25 years ago when we bought a new house) and we repainted all the external surfaces of the carcass, and both sides of the doors ‘grey. Rollered the doors, brushed the tricky bits’. It looks 1000% better, and much more modern.

As above; move in, live with it (and everything else in the house) for a bit (I’d say two months rather than two weeks), I’ll bet good money you discover other stuff that annoys you more (or needs replacing) and gets a higher priority.

My folks nearly didn’t buy their current house because of the kitchen. After they decided they’d buy anyway and change the kitchen, it took them ten years to actually do anything about it.

As for the original question, no specific experience but I can see it going ratty pretty quickly.

Unfortunately it is not just the doors. Large parts of the carcass, including quite a few bespoke bits are also in the same finish, to remove and replace everything would not be far off replacing the complete kitchen, which is probably a much larger, more expensive and more wasteful job than wrapping what is already there.

Not sure it’s cheaper…. I looked into the wraps but in the end bought new doors .. some units (matching Island) and a thin unit between cooker and fridge that holds bottles and extras (boxed in the extractor vent etc.) .. bought extra iron on tape and matching paint…

A major factor for us was we had a “granite” (technically a diorite) worktop and noone would take responsibility for removing it… I ended up getting matching worktop for peanuts used and cut and polished it for the island.

Unfortunately it is not just the doors. Large parts of the carcass, including quite a few bespoke bits are also in the same finish

Why not ask a replacement doors company to look at it and see what they can do – you might be surprised to find out they can actually do much more than just take one door off and put another one on.

Vinyl would be durable, but it’s not anymore durable than paint (less so as any chips would require the whole door to be re-wrapped to get rid) there’s a chance of it popping out if the doors have any indents etc…
& unless the doors are smooth any texture would show through & depending on the finish you might need to prime the doors to get the vinyl to stick.

Sounds like a nightmare.

You’d be better replacing the doors or painting.

As others have said – wait, & live with it. We’ve been in our place for 2 years & have only just started decorating as we’ve needed to live here before deciding what annoys us & what works well.

still going strong five years after I walked in an said to myself “item 1”

Thanks all.

Living with it is an option, quite possibly even the most likely one. But knowing a bit more about people’s experiences with vinyl wrapping would help with the decision making.

If it is only £500-£1000 to have someone do it, it looks good and lasts for several years then it is worth considering doing soon after the move. If it disintegrates after that time then worst case it can be removed and hopefully by then the garish current finish may be back in fashion. Not keen on the paint idea.

still going strong five years after I walked in an said to myself “item 1”

walls that look at you. Lovely 🙂

walls that look at you. Lovely

Walls that say “eat me”.

Yeah its a weird one.

Its foam backed to we think it must have been made in india cows are completely absent.

Unfortunately it is not just the doors. Large parts of the carcass, including quite a few bespoke bits are also in the same finish, to remove and replace everything would not be far off replacing the complete kitchen, which is probably a much larger, more expensive and more wasteful job than wrapping what is already there.

Change the doors and decor end panels for a contrasting but complementary colour?

Failing that, tile the rest of the kitchen with barnyard animals and nobody will notice the units.

Its foam backed to we think it must have been made in india cows are completely absent.

Not Moo-raspec* then?

*Extremely context specific wallpaper pun. My favourite kind.

Paint is an option, I did ours last year, kitchen was 18 year old and we didn’t have money to replace. I was skeptical about painting but it worked really well. I used some stuff from B & Q

V33 cupboard and cabinet renovation paint. I was worried it would peel or chip being on plastic faced doors but once it hard hardened it’s been remarkably resilient. I did put a clear water based lacquer over some but based on the bits I didn’t including some chairs I don’t think there was any need.

Failing that, tile the rest of the kitchen with barnyard animals and nobody will notice the units.

I think you will find thats the wal paper

THIS is the tiling.

and it still dowesn’t distract from the cabinets.

paint or vinyl won’t last like the original finish

As a put you on for a few years its ok, lot of effort to paint it all though

If you have small kids forget it, will look tatty in no time

I painted ours, wish i hadn’t, as i replaced the worktops too it would not have been much more effort to just put new units in, probably less fiddly effort tbh

our toddler has scratched it through with his cars and toys etc

I do signs and graphics and have wrapped loads of stuff in vinyl. If you’re good enough with your hands to take the doors off and remove the handles, you should be able to wrap them yourself. If the doors are flat, just use a little bit of soapy water sprayed on them to get all the bubbles out, then when they are dry wrap the edges round the back and trim them. If the doors aren’t flat it’s a bit more tricky and you will need to use hot air to form the vinyl into the grooves etc. You can buy wrapping vinyl by the meter, why don’t you buy a bit, take one door off and try it. If you want to send me a PM I can talk you through it over the phone. I promise you it’s not that hard.

We are doing a lot of work on our house at the moment, we wanted a new kitchen for style sake but most units and worktop was fine. So we just replaced doors, end panels, kick boards etc and a bit of re-configuring using what carcasses we had. Our joiner says he does it quite a lot, like a kitchen refurb. We still spent about £2k but looks like a new kitchen. A decent joiner can work wonders.

Also in the signs and graphics business.
Most wrap vinyl will come in an easy apply adhesive so it would be a dry application not a soapy one. The adhesive has air channels so that bubbles dissipate rather than need popping. If you use this type of vinyl with soap and water you will never get the water out and it will look carp.
It is easy on a flat, clean surface though. Trim and fold the edges onto the back of the door.
Lots of finishes and colours available by the meter from £5 up to £whatever.. (Widths commonly 600mm, 1220mm and 1520mm)

Personally, as a temporary measure it would look fine on flat doors and drawers, if they are bevelled or moulded it will need a skilled fitter to get it to look nice. That won’t be cheap.
I don’t want this type of work but if you are near Bristol I can give you a bit of vinyl and you can see what the finish is like.