# Clear Vanish or Paint on old kitchen cabinets?



## jimmybirdie (Feb 9, 2011)

I am buying a house and I thought about replacing the cabinets but we can't afford to spend 20K right now.

The cabinets are still in good shape, they are just dirty and the wood color is too light for me. I am thinking about either painting or stain/varnishing. My question is that can I stain/varnish the cabinets and make them much darker? The corners of the doors are very dirty from hand marks because there were no knobs or handles so I am not sure if staining/vanishing can hide the dark marks.

Do you think staining/varnishing or painting will make them look better?

I plan to replace the appliances. I will replace the hinges, and add handles. I also plan to replace the vinyl floor with tiles. Another possibility is tiling the coutertops with granite tiles but I need to think about the difficulty and whether I can do it myself or not.

See the pic of the kitchen below.

thanks,

Jimmy 

View attachment kitchen.bmp


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## Misty00 (Feb 10, 2011)

I don't think the cabinets look too bad, but darker cabinets seem to be popular and can hide imperfections well.  There are some really great granite tiles on the market right now and I think you'd be able to handle installing them yourself.  Just make sure to measure twice!  Also after you've applied grout and set the tiles, let it dry for 72 hours before you seal them.  

Be sure to post pics when you're done and let us know how it went!


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## joecaption (Feb 10, 2011)

You do know that all the linoium needs to come out before you can tile?
There's a lot more to that needs to be checked out before you can tile and not have it fail.
TheFloorPro.com - Ceramic & Stone Tile Underlayments
I like those cabinets to.
I'm on at least three DIY web site and own a home remodeling company. All of the sites I'm on and all the customers I talk to about cabinets all say they hate there dark cabinets and want to know how to make them lighter.
They complain it makes the room look to dark.
To completly strip, stan and seal all those cabinets would take about two weeks. It would be far faster and turn out better to buy new doors and reface the boxes with venner.


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## jimmybirdie (Feb 10, 2011)

Joecaption,

Thanks for giving me another choice (headache) . Now I have to choose between staining, painting, and veneer+new doors. There are 26 doors in my kitchen. How much will it cost? Also, what is the cost of Veneer for a kitchen that size? Will the veneer and new doors colors match?

What is the linoleum? Are you talking about the vinyl? Yes, I will remove it before tiling. 

Thanks,



joecaption said:


> You do know that all the linoium needs to come out before you can tile?
> There's a lot more to that needs to be checked out before you can tile and not have it fail.
> TheFloorPro.com - Ceramic & Stone Tile Underlayments
> I like those cabinets to.
> ...


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## jimmybirdie (Feb 10, 2011)

Misty,

Here are the before pictures:

<img src = "http://pardreamer.com/kitchen1.JPG" />
<img src = "http://pardreamer.com/kitchen2.JPG" />
<img src = "http://pardreamer.com/kitchen3.JPG" />

I will post the during, and after remodeling pics.

Hmmm, I will find out how to imbed pics here.



Misty00 said:


> I don't think the cabinets look too bad, but darker cabinets seem to be popular and can hide imperfections well.  There are some really great granite tiles on the market right now and I think you'd be able to handle installing them yourself.  Just make sure to measure twice!  Also after you've applied grout and set the tiles, let it dry for 72 hours before you seal them.
> 
> Be sure to post pics when you're done and let us know how it went!


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