MDF Plastic Wrap Kitchen Unit Doors Refurbishment

[Yojevol]

One of the first jobs to be done in our new abode was to do something about the 17 year old MI5 kitchen & utility room doors and drawer panels; all 28 of them. About 1/3 of them were distinctly 'blown'; the ones near to heat and moisture being the worst, as you might expect. Advice from my interior designer daughter was to just get a set of replacement doors. This approach didn't appeal to a lifelong diy-er, so I looked into painting them. There wasn't much on the net to go on apart from commercial refurbishers. I did find one obscure article by a guy who had successfully done it himself and it didn't sound a difficult process. So, having chosen a colour, I got stuck in:-
1. The starting point:-

2. Remove the hardware:-

3. Remove the plastic wrap by slitting round the edges:-

All but one came of very cleanly. The MDF was coated with, what I assume was supposed to be, an adhesive but, apart from that odd one, the plastic wasn't stuck at all. The guy who wrote the article advised softening the plastic with a heat gun to soften the adhesive if required.

4. Painting. I applied a coat of water based white primer/undercoat by brush and evened out with a smooth roller. The basic plan was to spray finish the final coat but my early attempts demonstrated it was difficult to get paint onto the edges, and into the faux frame and panel detailing, and get a consistent paint deposit elsewhere. To overcome this I hand brushed paint onto the edges and panel crooks and nannies. This left a plane surface to final spray in my lash-up spray booth:-

5. Reassemble to achieve the desired effect:-

And all for the cost of about £60 . A friend had a quote for doing this professionally for a similar sized kitchen of over £3000. I can't claim to have achieved a 'professional' finish but it's certainly acceptable to us.
Brian

 

[John Brown]

Looks great!

 

[maitland.selwyn]

Well done!

 

[Chubber]

Think of all the SLW tokens you have saved!!

Super smug time!

 

[meccarroll]

£60 is very cheap, I don't know what paint you used but you seem to have made it go a long way.

I have used Acid catalysed paint and water based paint and out of the two I found water based to be more of a problem on the edges.

All of the edges do need to have a slight round otherwise the paint does not hold.

A lot of professinal spray painters do what is called a tack coat first, they lightly spray the panel let it partly dry then return it a spray the panel again with a fuller application of paint. The tack coat is supposed to stop the paint from saging/running.

I think you did very well and your kitchen looks very smart.

 

[MikeJhn]

Brilliant, it would seem that wrapped kitchen doors and drawers are prone to blowing, as mine did luckily under guarantee and where replaced, my eventual solution was to sell the house.

 

[Yojevol]

£60 is very cheap, I don't know what paint you used but you seem to have made it go a long way.

Deluxe water based satin finish mixed to our colour spec @ £38/ltr (Dulux trade centre). Used 1.3 ltr. I wasted a bit on the learning curve. We bought 1 litre originally but had to go back for a 2nd can. We could have bought a 2½ltr can for less than 2 x 1ltr.
Brian

 

[Noel]

Looks well.
Did you use any kind of lacquer to protect the paint?