Painting or staining oak cabinetry?

We're starting the process of looking at houses to buy. Our budget puts us in the range of houses that were built at a time when that hideous orange oak was considered fashionable. Pretty sure I hate it more than I hate chrome!! New cabinetry is shit a brick expensive so I'm wondering if there's a way to paint or stain them to look good.

Here's some pics of examples showing the kind of thing we're dealing with:

 

Yes there are a bunch of different things you could do to those strip down all the way and stain another color . Or paint them eather way you go I would have a painter do it. If you dont know wood very well it could not hold yoe very well. But there are alot of do it your self videos you could try to do it. I would suggest trying it out on just one door then see how it goes.

 

The good thing is those look like real wood I could be wrong .

 

Painting then white or gray ,would be easy
Or remove the cabinet doors ( save them as blanks, reorder new doors, color and style, paint, or re stain the boxes) wa la. We had to do that in a home 12 years ago. I spent a weekend sanding down the faces of the boxes re stained darker, the new doors took over the rest saved us thousands.
Just an idea

 

Thanks for the info guys. I'm really glad to hear such a change is possible. I'm pretty confident with woodworking so I'll likely tackle the job myself.

Those are just random pics I pulled off the net. We'll be looking at the actual houses tomorrow, so i'll be able to confirm if the cabinets are real wood or not.

 

I painted ours white.... removed all the doors and sanded everything really well. cleaned real well then painted using the cabinet enamel available at Lowes. Used an off the shelf spray gun to do the doors out in the garage. it was a lot of work but came out great and the enabel is holding up realllly well.

 

That looks really good. Well done!

 

I do some wood working as a hobby in my experience oak does not take dark stains very well. If you are looking into painting I would recommend milk paint and then finish off with a nice paste wax, It gives a very professional result with minimal effort. Easy to clean up as well.

 

A friend of mine is a graphic designer and we took pics of our kitchen.
She made them different colors of what they would look like and we had them painted.

The funny thing is she was spot on of what they would look like after.

Not sure what she would charge but she may be able to do it for you to see if you want them painted and what color.

 

When we bought our house, the cabinets were a sweet “Caucasian Flesh” color... we had them professionally painted and like the result, though the tile guys came in afterwards and beat the shit out of the bottom of the base cabinets. Minus a couple spots that probably should have been prepped better, the paint is holding up really well.

Before


After

 

I painted the cabinets in my house. Let me warn you, its a lot of work to do right and for the love of god, take the time to do it right because if you don't they will look like shit and the paint will not hold up.

In my case, I got lucky because my cabinets are maple which is a good material to paint. Red oak sucks for painting because of the very prominent grain. Some people don't mind that but I personally think that painted cabinets should not show grain (unless maybe if you are going for an old-timey Milk Paint kind of look?).

So If I was going to paint Red Oak cabinets, I would start with removing all of the doors, drawers and etc. and striping everything. Doesn't have to be down to bare wood but you have to make sure you get all the clear coat and grease/dirt off of them. Then I would spray them with a filler primer, lets it dry and then sand it smooth. I would repeat the prime and sand process until the grain was completely filled in and no longer showing before I'd apply the color coat.

I highly recommend you spray them as opposed to brushing or rolling. You will never get as nice of a finish with a brush or roller as you will if you spray them. As for paint, I used Benjamin Moore "Advance" and after 1.5 years of use, they still look as good as the day I finished.

The #1 key is surface prep followed by clean and proper application and then leaving plenty of time for it to cure before using it.

Good luck man, its not an easy project but if done well, the ROI is worth it.

 

@Outbound what color are you going for?

 

We like dark colors; dark grays, browns etc.

This is a kitchen in a house we're considering, but the house is on the very top end of out budget. We love the cabinets though.



Here's another random from the net that we like:

 

That would be pretty cool. We'll have to see what we end up dealing with when we close on a house. I may get in touch with you.

Your kitchen looks amazing. So much functional space.

 

Ok prep is key, if there is heavy varnish/poly then that must be removed with chemicals and wire brush by hand to get into the grains, you can also bleach it to lighten up the wood, primer then multiple coats of base followed by poly..not to hard to do..just takes time.

 

Sand/scuff then clean with TSP cleaner, prime then paint.