Sell as is and adjust the price.

You usually don't recoup the cost of a home improvement when you sell. I wouldn't paint them. Give them a good cleaning and apply some Old English scratch cover to improve the look of the cabinets.

The buyer will want to redo the kitchen anyway. Clean, clean,clean. Pack up your extras-linens, clothes, photos, de clutter. Make your closets and storage as appealing as possible. You are moving anyway, so packing up your excess stuff and renting a storage unit will pay off more than painting your cabinets. Remember-you had plans to remodel to your taste. The new owners will usually want to redo to their taste. Toilet seats down, showers and tubs spotless. Dishes put away and counters clear of clutter. Buyers want to see space for their stuff, not your collections. Put the doors back on the pantry.

Painting the back of the cabinets has already taken that from a ”meh, I can live with it until I redo it” to ”oh heck no, what were they thinking there to do such a bad halfass job? We’re going to have to look a lot harder at the reat of it for more homeowner screw ups.”

Either spend the 7-9K to have it done professionally with industrial wood finishes, or take 20K off in advance as an allowance. Do not continue on the bad box store painting path. That would only be even worse of a price drop.

I'm going to disagree with the previous reponses. This site likes to claim a kitchen upgrade is never recouped during resale.... but there are plenty of situations where that's not true. Here, you say you've made a bunch of nice updates to the house - such that the house looks generically pleasant for 2021. The cabinets appear to be the only thing looking 30 years old. Which means they'll be the thing holding buyers back from having a clean slate vision for your house.

So get the cabinets painted, but not grey -- just white or off white that works well with your counters and walls. Do it DIY or get a low cost painter to do it. The housing market is hot in most of the country, and if your house is a generically pleasant blank slate of 2021, it should sell very quickly. Making the cheaply painted cabinets not your problem when they start to chip next year. People on this forum will moan and groan about my attitude, but this is literally what peopel have done when trying to resell houses for all of human history. Cheap lipstick on a pig.

I have no idea what the poster is suggesting when they say to offer at a discount to reflect the old cabinets. You could get these painted for $2k. Taking $2k off the house price isn't going to compel anyone to buy your house with an "old" kitchen. The discount needs to be in the range of $20k at least to psychologically get people incentivized.

Paint them with a cabinet specific paint system like Cabinet Coat or Advance. Do not use semigloss trim interior paint. Cleaning and prep sanding the surfaces takes a good chunk of time. But it has to be done to get any type of decent lasting finish. Do your homework. Or find a painter who does kitchen cabinets, not just interiors. Ask what products he'll use. Choose someone who has the experience to choose a cabinet specfic paint product. . .Again, the cleaning and prep sanding of all the surfaces after disassembly takes a lot of time. Budget for it.

If done correctly it will improve your house and help it sell faster for more money. How much you pay will determine if you get the cost back.

Sorry! Had to order dinner! Look at your house as if you are the buyer! I got fresh flowers from the grocery and kept a wooden bowl of Granny Smith apples because they looked fresh and clean.keep it simple. Not too much. Beds made crisply, floors vacuumed, TV off.

@remodeling1840 thank you for the advice! We are definitely putting the doors back on the pantry 😊. Our plan is to move out almost all of our stuff before putting the house on the market (preferably everything out, of course). I also should have mentioned that I’m going to add a plain cream subway tile backsplash.

If you do paint, also replace cabinet hardware. The value of doing the painting (would not DIY) is that buyer won’t think ”project” & the pretty new counters look so much better.

@verbo I agree with you that it looks half assed having only the living room facing side of the peninsula finished. However, I disagree with you that it is worth it to pay 7-9k to have a professional do the cabinets. No professional could make these cabinets look appealing because they are simply dated and unattractive. The only way to fix that is to reface all the cabinets (and the boxes aren’t quality enough to warrant that)or replace them (no thanks). My concern is that they stand out in a bad way because they don’t visually match anything else we’ve transformed in the house (it’s open concept so it’s really noticeable). Also, this house is on 14 acres in the country. People looking for a house on land are pleasantly surprised when a country house doesn’t look like a 1980s shack. They will not expect expert finishes as long as things are structurally sound and generally appealing to the eye.

Who do you think your house will appeal to? If you think it will appeal to someone who would do what you have planned, to paint but not replace the cabinets, go ahead. The Initial Impression that the current ones give is that they don't look that great with countertop, (which of course you had expected).

I think sometimes that there is a very skewed notion in GW forums about what people want, because in GW people are interested in design and almost fetishize kitchen design. I mean, I get it, the most miniscule details of renovation will keep me up at night. I think GW participants think home buyers demand either a pristine kitchen remodel or a complete train wreck than needs to be gutted so they can do it themselves and nothing in between.

I see a fair amount of real estate, my SO is an agent, and I look at a lot of stuff and I have designed kitchens and things for other people. And I have got to say that most paint jobs out there, including new paint jobs in brand new construction, are absolutely lousy and as long as the paint look freshly applied the majority of people don't even notice. And when people do paint jobs themselves do a pretty lousy job and think it looks great. (I am not including new kitchen cabinets which are factory finished, but take a look at the rest of the painted millwork. If it's not a real custom house the painting is pretty meh.)

Very few houses I see on the market here have brand new pristine kitchens just for resale. They either have semi new kitchen remodels often with pretty nicked up cabinets, if they are literally more than two years old, or they have cabinets that have been painted at some point or other and not that well. And entry level in this area is $500+ for an actual house vs. unit and up to over $2M. And the cabinets in the $2M houses don't get treated any better than the cabinets in the entry level houses.

If you had not put in new counters I would say price accordingly. But you started a process here, and no matter what, these are not new cabinets, so I think if you can do a halfway decent job, go ahead and paint them. And as for ROI, you aren't selling a kitchen you are selling a house. So if you lose 20%-35% of what you put into a new kitchen, it may be offset by increases of the house value in other regards or it may reduce number of days on the market or things like that. It's not just "ROI on a major kitchen remodel is 65% of you are lucky so you are losing 35%."

What does your Realtor say? I would paint the cabinets just to take one negative off the table. The hardware looks fine to me. How much to add the tile back splash? Can you pop on some under-cabinet lighting? At the very least, the house will sell faster.

I also would go ahead and paint, because the value (IMO) to you will not be in a higher selling price but in a positive impression when the potential buyer walks through - leading to a faster sale, perhaps more offers than you'd get otherwise.

As it is now, the first impression likely would be "Ugh! How much work will this be for me?" And I don't agree that so many buyers will be wanting to tear out the kitchen right away - there are those that will, but many might want to but can't do to other financial or time demands.

I also completely agree - don't paint them gray. Go with a neutral white that works with your counter - easiest choice is the same color white as your trim. And do use a good cabinet paint - it will make the painting itself easier.

One water damaged door could be replaced. Staples and cracked wood will still be there and actually look worse with paint over . . Fix things appropriately there are ways to fix wood...many ways. . the back of peninsula w the change is fine esp if you place stools..even Craigs list type.....

I would paint them white. I think it will sell quicker and for more. Put in a plain white tiled backsplash. Don’t pay more than 3 or 4k for the whole project. You will likely recoup the cost. Everyone that looks at your kitchen now will be factoring in new cabinets and will want to lower the price. If you paint the cabinets, it will be nice enough that many won’t even think the kitchen needs redoing. Get some matte black hardware. Easy upgrade. Don’t go crazy. We just sold our house for 110k over asking in 2 days. We put in a lot of elbow grease and about 3k, I’d say it was worth it.

Yes, of course I am going to put the pantry doors back on. I will paint the pantry doors to match the cabinets.

We replaced the dishwasher, microwave, and range (went from electric to gas), the sink, the countertops, and the floors (went from maple to white oak). I sanded and painted the cabinets and replaced the pulls. We had someone install the white subway tile backsplash.

Can you please say what was your total expenditure on these improvements? It would be very useful information for people trying to decide whether to do same. TIA

Sure! The total cost of our kitchen makeover was $10,000 to $11,000. Countertops (material and install) were $4,000. Could have been cheaper but we picked a nicer stone because we thought we’d live here for years at the time, flooring I can’t price out because it was a portion of an install of white oak wood floors on the whole first floor of our house which was around $9,000 total. The appliances were: $1000 for gas range, plus $300 for gas line install, microwave was $350 including install, dishwasher was $700 including install, and the sink price was factored into the countertop price. The sink faucet was $150. Paint tools and sanding materials were around $300 total. Cabinet pulls were $150, backsplash material and install was $2000.

Point of clarification - the items you did after learning you would need to sell are painting cabinets, new cab hardware, BS tile - so so, about $2450 invested to get better sale deal. Is that correct? If yes, I think it was a good decision.

Yes, that is correct! Thank you for clarifying!

Looks great! You should get a lot more interest in your house now.

Glad you did it, I think that was a good investment and you also didn’t go overboard. Looks great!

I'm always interested in how dilemmas are resolved/turned out. Thanks for coming back to show us!

It looks wonderful! Hope it helps you get a quick sale.

How long did it take you to paint the cabinets?

Well, it’s hard to quantify because I took my time, changed methods, and took breaks over a two month period. I’d say if you use a sprayer, it will go much faster. Sanding takes the most time, but it’s a crucial step to make the paint durable and look good. I washed all the cabinet doors with TSP mixed with water. Then I sanded with 320 grit sandpaper by hand in the edges and with a circular sander on the flat parts front and back. Then I went back over the sanded areas with a vacuum and a tack cloth to remove all the residue. Then I primed with one coat of Zinnser BIN Shellac primer with a paintbrush in the corners and a roller on the flat surfaces. I lightly sanded all the uneven areas on the primed doors and spot primed where more primer was needed. Then I went over the doors again with a vacuum and tack cloth. For the bottom row of cabinets I used a roller and a paint brush. I used the Wooster Silvertip 1.5 and 2inch angled brushes and a mohair 3/4” nap for smooth surfaces roller on the flat surfaces. After the first side dried, I flipped the doors to do the back side. Once the first coat dried, I lightly sanded any bumpy spots, and then I laid the second coat of paint. I let the doors cure for a week before I put them back on the hinges. I followed a similar process for the top row of cabinets, but I used a paint sprayer (Homefinish Supermax HVLP sprayer) to prime and paint the cabinets. Using BIN primer in a sprayer is rough because it’s hard to clean out of the sprayer, but I did it anyway. The paint I used was Sherwin Williams Emerald Urethane in semi gloss. The color was Mindful Gray. If you use SW emerald urethane in a sprayer, you should thin it with water by 10%. Long story short, I devoted many many hours to this project. If you have fewer cabinet doors, it won’t take as long. Also, I preferred the sprayer method overall.