Outdated kitchen cabinets will look good as new with easy method – your best options

Oak kitchen cabinets were all the rage in and around the 1990s, but today they can look outdated and more than a little tired.

You could rip out the kitchen and install new cabinets – but that’s not cheap.

But DIY website House Digest has a genius idea to bring new life to your kitchen – paint the walls around the cabinets to give the room a whole new look.

Painting wooden cabinets can be time-consuming, and result in a lot of future work.

You need to clean and sand all the wood, and probably remove the doors and shelves – not to mention everything inside them – before you even dip a brush into a paint pot. 

According to House Digest, painting just one wooden cabinet door can take up to two hours, and this will soon add up if you’ve got a larger kitchen.

And then there’s the fact that the paint can chip or scratch easily, meaning you’ve potentially got a lot of maintaince and touch-ups ahead.

On the other hand, painting a room can usually be completed in three or four hours, including prep time. You won’t have a massive area to cover since the cabinets cover most of it, although you will need to make sure the walls are completely free of grease and bits of food before getting started.

But the fact is painting your kitchen walls is far less work than painting your cabinets.

You will need to consider the size of your kitchen, however – if it’s on the smaller side, then painting the walls might not make much difference. If, on the other hand, you’ve got a larger kitchen, then a lick of paint could make the room look good as new.

But before you get started you’ll need to consider what colour or shade to use. House Digest says light, neutral colours tone down the appearance of oak, while bright, vivid shades can clash with the wood.

Primary colours such as red and yellow will highlight the yellow or orange hues in the wood, making the outdated oak shades more apparent than they were before. And cool hues such as blue and grey can amplify the orange of the oak, making them colours to avoid as well.

White paint with warm undertones is recommended to create a clean and fresh look, while cream and beige are also options if you don’t like white but want to keep the room looking light.

Greige – a mixture of grey and beige – also works well with oak. And if you want a darker colour, deep green or sage look good too.

You should also consider the light reflective value, or LRV, of the paint you choose. Colours with a high value will reflect more light, making your kitchen brighter.

Maximising the amount of natural light in your kitchen will neutralise the impact of oak cabinets, while artificial light will bring out more of the yellowish tones in the wood.