Seven years. It takes about that long before you cease to feel like you own the kitchen and begin to feel that the Kitchen respray has ceased to be your problem and is currently in the state of being your unsolved problem. The doors still open. The hinges still hold. There is something stale about the whole thing though -somewhere like the shirt that you have had too long and have had too many washings.
A kitchen respray fixes that. Silently and swiftly and with not crushing your bank account.
The basic version of what actually happens is described here. A professional then arrives, strips out the whole place, sands the surfaces, primed them and then sprays a high-durability lacquer over your current cabinet door and frames. That’s it. No demolition. No new carcasses. You eat cereal standing at the bathroom sink Octo weeks of disorder.
The figures are self-explanatory when it comes to cost. Whatever your showroom consultant can convince you to spend, a complete replacement of the kitchen can be as little as £8,000 or as much as £30,000. A respray? Typically a fraction of that. You receive the change with no economic headache.
However, this is the point that most people overlook, and that is respraying is not painting. Not like you would paint the wall of a bedroom on a Sunday afternoon. The preparations are the life or death of the whole job. When a business hurries the degreasing, omit sanding, or corners on the primer, you will know it in less than a year. The edges will be raised in the lacquer. It’ll chip near the handles. The entire situation will be worse than you had begun.
Never commit to anything without enquiring about the preparation process.
Colour is more complicated than it appears on a swatch card. We all have viewed those cool toned grey kitchens which are photographed quite well and are slightly cold to actually get into in the morning. Or the navy blue craze that ran through all the home remodelling projects around a few years ago – some of those kitchens had grown like fine wine, others had grown like milk in a hot car. This was normally reduced to undertones, lighting and whether the rest of the room was in favor of the decision.
In case achieving longer life is the objective, choose traditional instead of trendy. Even a warm white or a soft sage will not be out of place in a decade. Terracotta, so much as it is enjoying a moment today, may not.
The carcass question is always raised. Will you just respray the doors or the main box structures as well? The concept of doors-only is quite logical in cases when the carcasses are solid, neutral, and not very much evident. In case, they are one of those colours that do not match with your new colour, or they are worn out in spots that others can readily notice, add them. Half job and hope that no one notices is hardly going to be perfect.
The consideration of fumes is no farfetched thing. Lacquers used by professionals are fierce. Not distasteful in the least degree, but really strong. Ventilation, out of the way of children and pets, and sound 24 hours in advance and you will be back to normal use of the kitchen. Other contractors apply water-based lacquers that are breathable to a much greater extent. It might be worth inquiring of you specifically whether you are sensitive to chemicals, or whether you have young children.
On completion matte is gorgeous and not practical to the majority of families. It captures images as though it is dreaming and reveals all the unclean fingerprints after a day of regular use. Satin is the laborer: handsome, washable, amiable. Gloss is the flaunt-it-all-over choice – it is truly gorgeous when done, but it makes every blemish in the surface beneath, and every smear on top, a hundred times more prominent. Admit to your usage of your kitchen before you make a commitment.
Average time in a normal kitchen turnaround is two to three days. Door to door contractors also mean that you will never be without a kitchen altogether. Some strip everything off to a regulated workshop and rehanging after it cures – the latter approach has the advantage of giving a smoother, more consistent finish as there is no dust or change of temperature involved.
Thinking about selling? One of the most intense pre-sale investment is a respray. Entertainment Buyers enter a weary kitchen and begin, unconsciously, to subtract money. That gets cleared up in a clean and well finished kitchen. It is an asset now, and not a footnote on the survey.
When short listing contractors, do not simply go and look at the pictures on their site. Request real before-and-afters – not those in which dramatic lighting is doing most of the heavy work. Ask which products they use. Ask about warranty terms. Ask whether they prime. The question to ask is, what happens in six months time should something go wrong.
