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Watch it done, then do your own kitchen

Short silent clips of every stage, from degreasing a greasy door to rehanging it in a new colour, with the method written underneath. Made for UK kitchens with MDF, vinyl-wrapped, laminate and oak doors.

Step-by-step guideHow to paint kitchen cupboardsTwelve stages from greasy to rehung, about five days start to finish
Sprayer guideSpray painting kitchen cabinets
Before any paintThe right primer for your doors
Paying a proKitchen respraying: 2026 costs, colours and finishes£800 to £1,600 for a typical kitchen, and when new doors make more sense
PlannerWhen can the doors go back on?

The clips are silent and only play while on screen. With reduced motion switched on in your device settings, you see still frames instead.

Three ways to a new-looking kitchen

Typical totals for 15 to 20 doors and drawer fronts in England, November 2026. Put in your own numbers with the respray or replace calculator.

A hand rolling white primer onto a slab cupboard door resting on painter's pyramids

Brush and roller

£150 to £400

Four to seven days, mostly waiting for paint. Good finish with a faint texture up close.

Start the guide
An HVLP gun spraying ivory paint onto a hanging shaker door in a polythene booth

Spray it yourself

£300 to £800 with a sprayer

Two or three weekends. The smoothest DIY finish, if the booth is clean and you practise first.

Set up a sprayer
A kitchen covered in masking film during an on-site respray, with carcasses sprayed dark navy

Pay for a respray

£800 to £2,500

Two to five days with the kitchen partly out of use. Hard two-pack coating and usually a written guarantee.

See what you get
Silent clip Degrease, sand, prime. Most of a lasting finish happens in this clip, before any colour goes on.

Paint fails at the edges first

Painted cupboards usually go wrong in the same few spots: the edge next to the handle, the bottom rail of the door under the sink, and the drawer front beside the hob. Fingers, steam and knocks all land there. Every guide here is built around protecting those spots.

Order matters more than brand. Use a proper degreaser, sand to a dull finish, pick a primer that grips what your doors are actually made of, then lay on thin coats and leave them alone while they harden. Skip one stage and even an expensive tin will chip within months.

Not sure what your doors are? The paints and primers guide has a fingernail test and a tape test.

Three questions people ask halfway through

How much paint do I need?Add your doors by size and pick brush, HVLP or airless. You get litres of primer and topcoat and the cheapest mix of 750 ml and 2.5 litre tins.Count my paint Respray, new doors or a new kitchen?Five routes priced side by side for your number of fronts, material and condition, with time for each.Compare routes When can the doors go back on?Pick your primer, topcoat and room temperature for a dated timetable from first coat to full cure.Plan my drying

Not a kitchen?

A chest of drawers being sprayed navy in a garage
Furniture sprayingChests, wardrobes and tables: wax, bleed-through and finishes that survive daily use.
A white uPVC window masked with paper and tape before spraying
uPVC sprayingTurning white windows and doors grey or black: process, prices and why some peel.

Pick the sheen before the colour

Shinier paint is tougher and easier to wipe, but it shows every ripple underneath. Flat matt hides flaws, though some matt paints polish up where hands touch them. For most kitchens, satin or a hard-wearing eggshell sits in the sensible middle.

Who is behind this

Nobody is selling you anything. There are no products, affiliate links or quotes here, and no company is recommended. Prices come from published 2026 UK cost guides and trade price lists, turned into ranges you can budget with. How the site is put together.