Pros and Cons of Painting Kitchen Cabinets White
I have to admit, before we painted our Kitchen cabinets white ( catch up on that journey here and here) I did a lot of research on the type of paint, sprayer and the process of painting. My research went on for months before we made a decision to paint them. All the information that I read, was very beneficial in planning and executing our goal to have beautiful white kitchen cabinets. However the one thing I never saw or read about, is what I want to share with you today…. pros and cons of painting kitchen cabinets white.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love the way the kitchen looks two years later with the lighter cabinets and have absolutely zilch regret in making the decision to paint them. Since I have no windows in the immediate kitchen triangle , the white and lighter cabinets really help to brighten the space, something that I didn’t have when they were a darker wood color. The other thing that I really like, is how the lighter cabinets really create a fresh look in the space. The kitchen is about 13 years old, so it helps to update and provide a more classic look for the kitchen.
Here’s what the Kitchen cabinets looked like prior to painting them.
Big difference, right?
So those are the pro’s. Now, on to the con’s.
I’m not gonna lie, I never even thought or considered the amount of maintenance in having lighter cabinets. Ha….where the heck was that during my research!
In all fairness, this is a heavily used kitchen and my kids touch every possible thing in site, so I am assuming that some of the issues I have encountered, are largely due to those reasons. But having white and light colored cabinets, is not easy to maintain in an active kitchen. I feel like I am constantly on guard protecting the cabinets from surface destruction. I don’t remember doing that at all, when the cabinets were wood….or at least I don’t remember. And if I am not on guard, I am wiping them down, which I did do prior to painting the cabinets, but not as much. I find myself always wiping down the cabinets from stuff that happens in a kitchen, which I would expect, but now I see everything. Maybe when my cabinets were darker and wood, I just didn’t notice the spills and stuff as much. By the way, my go to product on my cabinets is Murphy’s Oil Soap.
Overall, the cabinets have held up without any major issues EXCEPT for this door on the Kitchen Island. Behind the door, is our garbage can, so you can imagine the open shut open shut, that it goes through each day of it’s life as a cabinet door in my kitchen. Here is a close up of the cabinet. Not my kitchen’s proudest moment.
We spent a ton of time prepping ( sanding and priming) the cabinets prior to painting them just so this kind of thing could be avoided. Well….there you go. What we need to do is remove the door, sand the area , and spray the cabinet door again. My biggest fear and one that causes kitchen cabinet anxiety is, since the island is painted with a color, I hope I will not have any issues with any color variation with the original paint job next to the newly painted cabinet door. If this should be an issue, then I may consider just repainting the island white like the other kitchen cabinets or go back to a wood island. Did I really just say that!!
In the end, I do really love the white and lighter cabinets and I guess guarding them against the occasional ding from normal wear and tear and from the dirty little kid prints, is the price that you pay for having white or lighter colored kitchen cabinets…..and a price well worth it.
I hope my pros and cons of painting kitchen cabinets white, is helpful if you are considering taking the plunge to paint your cabinets. Leave me a comment and let me know.
grateful
for my gal pals
Our cabinet door where the trash can is lost paint on the corner and around the knob on our professionally painted cabinets both times. Now that I painted them myself with the chalk paint and used the lacquer it still looks like new after three years. I am so glad. I do love your light and bright kitchen. The white cabinets made a huge difference.
I should bring my kids for a visit so we can test your cabinets! 🙂
I love the white Laura….we spent a fortune on our cherry cabinets and there is no painting them, but if we decide to stay her for a while, then the island is definitely getting a facelift…maybe the counters too…I think re-painting the island darker color since it gets the most “abuse” may be an option….OR, invite Kim over and she can lacquer them for you!! 🙂
Love your kitchen!
thanks so much Shirley. Funny about the kim suggestion.
I luv your bright white kitchen Laura. We ate in the process of redoing our k8tchen. We just updates the 10 year old appliance with bright white ones. The cabinets are next. The idea of painting them is not my idea of joy, but they need to be done. cream that the ate now are constantly being wiped down….. so yes, it is constant.
Thanks for the pros and cons 🙂
Hugs, Gee
good luck with your kitchen changes. I often wonder how I am going to handle our appliances once they need to be replaced especially if I change the finish.
No cons will ever beat the pros in this kitchen. Probably one of my favorite REAL kitchens in blogworld 🙂
It’s so lovely and so you. And think – in a few years kids will be raised and you’ll still have an amazing kitchen and all the time in the world to deal with the nicks that will speak of a live well lived, shared and enjoyed.
The nick and spills in fact speak of such. And no, the color won’t be exactly the same… well, you won’t be the exactly the same and the same with your Beautiful Princess and Dashing Princes.
Because everything changes and you can work in getting that white tone you so need 😉 , and no work will give you back those helpful hands 😉 and their healthy lifestyle.
Don’t fret, Mamma. And enjoy when it’s perfect and clean – maybe 😉 – if it isn’t :D.
And in those really bad days just grab the dog, a duck, a sheep (whoever is more handy ahahah) and go to that lovely outdoor area and breath.
When you return it won’t look so bad. (most of homes staged for sale I see don’t have that good look in the pics 😉 )
Love,
Teresa
Yes, I’m definitely noticing some trouble areas in my kitchen as well! Even though my kids are big they’re still rough on the cabinets!
🙂 Linda
oh great. you mean it never ends!????
Hi Laura,
We built our home almost 14 years ago & our kitchen looks very much like your old one. We are now in the process of updating & refreshing everything, & one of the things we’re thinking about is painting our kitchen cabinets. We don’t have children at home anymore, but we are still concerned about how much maintenance they will require. Thanks for listing the pros & cons. Honestly, they are the things we’ve already thought about, but it’s good to know that you’ve done it & are happy with your decision. I love your kitchen & believe our kitchen cabinets will soon be white!
Cindy
Hey Cindy, good for you for thinking ahead. I think I was just so nervous to put paint on the cabinets that I didn’t even focus on it….but i am now. Will you be painting them white or another color?
You know I love your cabinets white! And, I’m right there with ya’ … wiping them down … touching them up (especially around the knobs) from time-to-time … but, I love having ours white, too!
Sadly my kids are slightly slobbish which is so freakin hard for me to understand since I am not!
Perhaps a sealer? Or did you already do that? With kids, this kind of thing is just kind of inevitable. When they’re off to college, you’ll be saying to your husband: “Oh, remember that there were always “kiddie” prints everywhere when they still lived at home?” in a poignant, nearly teary (or very teary) voice.
Brenda
You are so right. Pains me to even think about that moment. 🙂 Do you believe I finally figured out how to respond to comments on my blog. All this time ( since I switched to WP) I thought I was. Yikes!!!
I love white kitchens, they are so bright and cheery! I redid my kitchen a year and a half ago. I restained the outer ones using a General Finishes gel stain and on my island I used a milk paint also from GF and top coated them with their high performance product and I have been very happy with the way they have held up! I did my main bath also with the milk paint and I have no chipping going on and we live on a farm!
Hi Lorelie, thanks for tip on the General Finishes product. I have never used that brand. I used the top of the line finish from SW ( and so I thought) so to avoid issues like this . Hope you are having a great week.
I just did my hardwood floors with General Finishes. Loved how they turned out and the ease of using this product! Love your kitchen by the way!
I love your kitchen Laura! More than just your pretty cabinets, your pantry door, those gorgeous rugs and your beautiful farm house table are all so perfect. Do you ever share your sources for your great finds?
Donna, thanks so much for your sweet comment. I do share and probably have on all those things. Do you want to know anything specific? I would be happy to share where I got it at. The table was bought locally where we lived prior to moving to duke manor farm so i would not have a source for that.
I love that you do your research, Laura. I sort of plunge into everything. I really do love your cabinets. We had ours painted white at the lakehouse and that was when my four were young. Yes…went through the same thing. I think kitchens and bathrooms are just a battlefield when you have small children. Personally, I could never keep the kitchen trash can in a cabinet, I know I would be crawling in on all fours a few times a day picking up garbage and wiping things down. lol!
Jane
hi jane. usually i am the plunger but since I had to talk hubby into painting them I wanted to make sure I knew that the heck i was doing. hope you are having a great week. it is super cold here today.
I am such a fan of white cabinets and can’t believe the difference in yours. They may be a little more maintenance but they look great!
I had my cupboards painted 15 years ago. I chose putty beige which is kind of a light gray beige. My painter used oil paint. It has held up remarkably well. We did have it touched up at about 10 years. We laugh that everything in our house has to hold up to commercial use with all of the traffic we have. I didn’t really want oil paint at first but now I am glad that I let him talk me into it. Love your kitchen and blog. Thanks for all of your tips!!!!
Love the cabinet kitchen white well as the back door. Am so going to do this! What colors did you use? Undercoat as well as the top coat? And is the “undercoat” simply one coat of latex? Thanks
Thank you for your post! I originally wanted white cabinets 12 years ago and my cabinet maker talked me out of it, warning me that wood expands and contracts and that I would see the cracks in the joints. I decided on medium brown maple cabinets and although they are beautiful, I don’t love them the way i love white cabinets and have always regretted my decision. Now that I’ve replaced my tile floors with dark wood, i really want to repaint the cabinets but am worried about the messes, as my husband regularly cooks with curry powder. I am glad that you’re still happy with the cabinets! Those of you with lacquered cabinets, do they clean easily?
Love your kitchen. I updated my kitchen 2 years ago- it turned out lovely with white cabinets, my island was black with butcher block top, the counters were quartz & dark quartz sink. My appliances were stainless Steele and hanging pendants from Ballards. I had no problem with the white but the black showed every little nick (touched them up with Sharpey pen). I just moved and have to do my kitchen AGAIN! I will be doing it just the same!😀 Your blog is my favorite and have gotten some of my friends to follow.
Thank you SO MUCH for covering this subject! I love all the pretty white kitchens I see, but… It all comes down to the big MAINTENANCE issue! See, I have 9 kids. NO WAAAAAAY do I want to be scrubbing my cabinets hourly! …and I think they would need it! My husband says no paint, and I’m not arguing with him, but now I have “professional support” for this decision. : ) We’ll just admire other pretty kitchens. Like yours. : ) Thanks for the totally honest inside picture.
Hi..thanks for this article. We just redid two bathrooms and are waiting a bit before refreshing our kitchen…($)! Want white cabinets and new counters (thinking of Granite Transformations 🙂 and new flooring and electrical…Thinking of doing my own backsplash with the stick on tiles that look like tin.
My question is what is your flooring? It looks very nice. The last homeowner here did his own renovation in 1990 and our kitchen is nice and big but the vinyl floor is NOT even and has bumps and everything! So not sure what to replace it with. Love the new vinyls but handyman is not keen on installing sheet vinyl…:(
Thanks!!
Hi Carolyn, my floor is oak finished with a stain called Provencial (sp). My husband actually laid the floors himself but I did bring in someone to sand and stain.
I read somewhere, after the fact for myself also, that after painting your cabinets, regardless of color, to coat them with a non-yellowing poly (I think minwax makes one) to protect the finish. DUH, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself. I will definitely do that the next time I paint cabinets, using a satin, non-yellowing polyurethane. I am a huge fan of white cabinets. It’s so easy to change the color scheme of your kitchen by swapping out curtains, accessories, etc. Besides, who ever gets tired of white?
Hi There: Love the cabinets. I’m in the decision making process of either going white or keeping my wood cabinets. Can you tell me what color you chose? Did you also do your walls a contrasting color of while to compliment them?
Hi Becky, i used a semi-gloss white from Sherwin Williams. The biggest step in the process was in the prep ( sanding down the cabinets) . If you searching ‘kitchen cabinets’ on the blog I have a few posts written specifically on all that. good luck.