I want to paint my kitchen laminate cupboard doors. Any tips on the best products to use?

My wife and I re-did our kitchen many years ago, sand and use a good primer then a real good semi-gloss. When we sold our house the next year, the real estate agent thought they were new cabinets. We had to correct her LOL !

If you’re going to be paining Ikea (or some other kind of similar melamine laminated particle board), then you’re going to have to heavily scarify (sand) the melamine surface in order for the paint to adhere.

Those melamine laminates are developed and chosen for their specific resistance to staining and adherence of foreign substances. They resist paint very well.

This could be a disaster. The surface is designed to repel things like food and finger prints and it will repel paint over time to. If you really want to do this do as @CWOTUS says and sand them first, but be careful. The cheap laminate is probably really thin and it won’t take much to get down to particle board.

There are other options besides painting them. In some cases, the existing laminate can be removed and replaced without sanding and painting them. Another option is to cover them with a peel and stick faux laminate. We tried this out in our heavily used break room at work. It held up exceptionally well on the cabinets; the counters, not so much.

It’s not cheap, but this company makes higher-end fronts specifically designed to work with existing IKEA cabinets: http://www.semihandmadedoors.com.

gorillapaws, if I wanted to replace them, I’d just go down the road and get the lighter shade of grey doors from my local IKEA. They do make paint now that sticks on laminate and tile. I like the idea of a peel and stick faux finish. The reason they need fixing is because this particular door front has been very BAD at keeping dirt and grease from adhering to it. They look perpetually dirty and greasy and I’ve tried every solution to get the shit off. It’s absorbed into the laminate. Replacing them will happen, but just in the mean-time, I thought I might try something. I’ll look for some silver foil contact paper.

@cazzie: Have you tried using TSP (Trisodium Phosphate)? From what I understand, it’s what pros use to clean heavy duty grease off of things like cabinets.

A few years ago, I was going to help a friend do a cheap kitchen freshening up, and she had some heavy grease on her cabinets. I looked into how to get it off, in order to prime them for painting and then learned about TSP.

@jca they are too dark a grey colour. I need to lighten up the Hobbit Hole. Even if I could get the marks off I still want a lighter colour in the space.

@cazzie I looked into painting my formica countertops with that stuff and all of the reviews said it peeled and turned out horribly. As @Judi mentioned, those surfaces were specially designed to repel everything, so the paint really won’t adhere properly in the long term. The link I provided also sells blank, unfinished cabinet fronts you can paint any color that should be cheaper than the factory ones from IKEA. Best of luck.

You can buy stock white countertops at a home store (like Home Depot) for very cheap. Another option from IKEA is the butcher block counter tops. You can paint or stain any color.

@gorillapaws do they ship to Norway? I think I’ll end up trying contact paper. That I could buy online and have it posted to me here.

@cazzie Just to clarify, the self-adhesive product that was used on the cabinets at work was a new item being tested by the company that made it. It was slightly thicker than the regular Contact paper that people often use inside of drawers and cabinets.

^I sort of got that but it gave me the idea for contact paper. I may even try wall paper or wax fabric.

@cazzie I have no idea where they ship.

“I may even try wall paper or wax fabric.”

That actually might be a very good/affordable approach. If you wrap all the way to the back of the cabinet, you could cover the paper/fabric edges with a thin board (perhaps luan) to finish it off nicely.