options to paint kitchen cabinets with red granite countertops

last year

Bought an older home, full of 80’s honey oak. The plan in the future is to pull down a couple walls and open up existing kitchen and double the size by taking over formal dining room. But until that $$$$ project, we’d like to update our kitchen to match our non 80’s aesthetic!

The Main floor room walls are painted Whisper white by Behr, floors are a black vinyl square (which we hate but will live with until the Reno). Counter top is a red speckled granite, also not our favourite, but as it’s new in excellent condition, we want to enhance its appearance. Our preferred colour palette is bright whites, greys blued and creams, so we were thinking perhaps a funky bright blue on the bottom cabinets and either a lighter grey or white on top?

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HU-7538532650

last year

last modified: last year

Right now, the whole is a popular color, and inoffensive. Done in a bright blue, they would become obnoxiously offensive, with a weird shape. Painting those will not address their odd door shape, and will waste thousands of dollars that can go to the eventual redo. Sometimes it is best to do nothing. The counters are not red. They have the natural wood tones in them that are so popular right now. The cabinets and the stone are both very current colors, of the moment. They should be left alone.

If you want to address something, address the atrocious repair of the past ceiling leak.

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Comments (9)

cpartist
last year
last modified: last year
It's going to cost you lots of time and effort if you paint the cabinets yourself. Sanding, cleaning, spray painting, etc. Or it's going to cost you around $5000 to have them painted professionally so they're done correctly and don't start chipping after a few weeks. Painting those cabinets with the handles in the middle of the cabinets will not make them feel updated either. They will just look like 80's cabinets with paint.

And painting them blues, will just make the counter colors more prominent since the blues are the complement to the colors in the granite.

I wouldn't do either. I'd save the money so you can get your kitchen redo sooner rather than later. In reality, the granite is the nicest part of the kitchen!
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last year
I thought it interesting that you used the word "enhance" re your granite, but then went on to propose a bright blue which does not relate to the tones of the granite at all. Could you get a closer up, accurate color pic of the granite? Not understanding what you mean by "red." Regardless of what you think about honey oak, it does work well the granite and IMHO a better approach esp if this is temporary is just to get what you have working better together , as simply and econmically as possible, I think different color for walls/celings would help brighten - maybe a color taken from the granite, or maybe theres some midtone gray for the walls thats somewhere between the brown-gray in the granite and the more blue-gray of the floor that would tie things together.
Katie B.
last year
Definitely cream. Here’s some color inspo.
If you’re going to do a renovation anyway, who cares if you paint the cabinets and they only last short term. Embrace the imperfection.
Jenny
last year
A great runner in the kitchen would help brighten the room up.
ffpalms
last year
I agree with others to save for the major reno rather than spend money on painting the cabinets. I love Jenny's idea to brighten the room with a rug. These are from rugs-direct.com. It’s a great site to visualize different styles.
darbuka
last year
The very dirty looking (textured) ceiling…the result of cooking without a vent hood, for many years. Imagine what’s been inhaled in all of that time.

As others have said, do nothing now. Save up for a major renovation.
palimpsest
last year
I think the ceiling texture is a regional thing, very common in some areas, never seen in others. Typically people don't paint these ceilings, but in the interim I would probably paint this a white that doesn't look darker than the walls. If you did paint it it the same color as the walls it looks darker anyway, because of the texture. The rest I would leave, since you are planning a reno anyway.
PRO
Joseph Corlett, LLC
last year
A little painting and updating is a good value compared to the cost of a complete do-over. Don't be discouraged please.