Hand Painted Laminate Kitchen in Harrogate

The Original Kitchen

This hand painted laminate kitchen in Harrogate was a great transformation and had an added bonus of being only a few hundred yards from my home. A 3 minute morning commute is a nice way to start your day 🙂

The clients had some pretty big changes in mind for the re-vamp and contacted me to look at the painting side of things. They were very keen to get a  high end finish for their new look kitchen, realising that it wouldn’t matter how good all the other changes were if the paint finish was lacking.

After all, you can spend thousands on a new bespoke kitchen with great craftmanship, but if the final paint finish isn’t top notch, it won’t look good.

The Original Laminate Wood Doors

This particular kitchen was limed oak laminate, in a colour and style that the couple really wanted to update to a more contemporary look.

After arranging a consultation and having a really good chat about things  I emailed them a couple of days later with my quote.

They replied almost immediately, and although I was booked up for more than 6 months they said they’d like to commission me for the work 🙂

It was now time for all the other changes to get underway before I was ‘last man in‘ and given the reponsability of finishing everything off with a lovely paint finish.

The Finished Kitchen

We tested out a few colours, creating sample boards for each and seeing how they looked in different lights and at different times of the day. In the end, an equivalent to The Little Greene Company’s ‘Mizzle‘ was chosen. This a beautiful soft sage green and worked beautifully with the slate tones in the floor and the new black granite work tops.

As you can see from the photo above, the end result looks fantastic, with the whole kitchen having a much more stylish and modern look. Quite the transformation! 🙂

There was however quite a ways to go before the kitchen got to that point. Aside from painting the units, various other changes and additions were made.

The mid-way changes

This ‘mid way‘ photo shows a lot of the changes, which included;

Lowering the ceiling, re-plastering the walls, painting the walls/ceiling/woodwork, adding new down lighters, new sockets, a new stainless steel extractor unit, new cupboard cornices, new worktops and new tiles and new glass for the some of the doors.

By this point pretty much everything had been done except the painting, so it was nearly time to get my brush out and get underway!

For this particular project I actually painted the doors and drawer fronts in my workshop, beginning each day by working on the kitchen’s shell and then working on the doors and drawers at home in the afternoon/evening.

The Hand Painted Kitchen

To reach this final look there are quite a few stages involved, each as important as the last. If you want a hand painted kitchen that not only looks the business but also has great durability, then no corners can be cut at all. Attention to detail is everything when hand painting a kitchen.

Stage 1 – Cleaning

To begin with I removed all the handles and gave every inch of the doors, drawers and shell a thorough clean and degrease with * Krudcutter Original before wiping them down again with clean, warm water.

Close up of smooth hand painted finish

Stage 2 – Masking Off

Before any further preparation work was done I masked off the floor and work tops using 1200 lining paper. I prefer to use lining paper as opposed to dust sheets as the dust can easily be hoovered up off paper and you are ensured every area is covered all of the time. Also if you use dust sheets the dust that settles on them easily gets released into the air if they’re moved or disturbed in any way.

Stage 3 – Sanding

This is a really vital part of the preparatory work as it creates the key that allows the paint to bond with the laminate. For the sanding stage I used my Festool RTS 400 Q-Plus GB 240V Orbital Sander, a top end elecrtic sander that allows virtually dust free sanding. I used the Festool for all the main areas and then switched over to Mirka Gold Flex sanding pads for the more finickety bits. Once every inch of the kitchen had been sanded I went over everything with some *Axus Pro Finish Tack Cloths – . This ensured even the finest dust particles have been removed.

Close up of the upper cupboards

Stage 4 – Priming

As the kitchen was laminate I wanted a really sound basecoat that would adhere brilliantly and be bullet proof straight away….. enter Zinnser B-I-N.

Once applied I then lightly sanded the B-I-N to make it lovely and smooth, hoovered up the residual dust, tack clothed and then applied a second coat of primer, this time Otex by Tikkurila. Otex is a another brilliant high adhesion primer that offers the perfect base for my top coats.

I had the Otex tinted to an equivalent shade of LG’s ‘Mizzle‘ and as always  Holman Paints did a fantastic job of colour matching and delivered the paint to me on time.

Close up of the brush mark free finish

Stage 5 – Filling/Caulking

Once the priming stages were complete, I filled any gaps or areas that needed attention using either Dulux’s Decorators Caulk or Fat Hog’s Fine Surface Filler.

I then sanded back the filled areas, hoovered up and was ready for the penultimate stage – the top coats.

Stage 6 – Top Coats

For my 2 top coats I used Empire by Tikkurila. Tikkurila paint is used by many of the top kitchen companies and is the ideal product for these projects, creating a highly durable finish with a lovely soft sheen.

High quality and durable finish

I applied both coats of the Empire using the same roller, brush and ‘laying off’ process I had used for priming, namely a combination of the Fox Flock Roller Sleeve, high density mini rollers, rollers and various specialist brushes.

Stage 7 – Cleaning Up

Finally I removed all the tape, tidied up the lining paper, gave the interiors a clean and generally tickey booed.

The result, a perfectly smooth, brush mark free finish that is highly durable, wipeable and scratch resistant.

The clients were seriously delighted with the finish and the level of service I provided, and I have to say it was a pleasure to do 🙂

The transfomation is complete!

If you’d like to see more of my Hand Painted Kitchen projects please visit my website – www.imaginativeinteriors.co.uk

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more Blogs and case studies over the coming months.