Paint Cabinets Instead of Buying New

Amanda Peterson

April 21, 2023  •  2 Minute Read

Money Saving Tips

Your home needs updates. Your bank account begs to differ. Frugal Friday covers the idea of painting your cabinets, rather than buying new!

Have you seen the price of cabinets lately? As inflation hit, the cabinet industry was not shielded from those increases. A full set of "cheap" new cabinets for a small laundry room can be bought outright for around $1,600. A small blow, I know. However, as paint may be up there in price with an average gallon of decent paint costing anywhere from $35-45, it's a far cry from replacing the whole kitchen set!

Paint or Stain

You've now decided to forego replacing the cabinets. But now you have to decide whether you want to paint them, or stain them? Either option will drastically give your existing cabinets that refreshing facelift you've been longing for.

Painting them is probably going to be easier than staining, judging by the extra prep work that staining entails. To paint, you will have to sand everything down first so that your paint will stick. Since cabinets are a highly used piece of your home, it doesn't hurt to apply a clearcoat of some sort for extra protection.

If you choose to stain them, you will have to apply some stripper or remover to the existing finish, whether that be paint or stain. This is where it can get rather difficult. In order to get the desired high quality look of the stain, it's important to remove all previous coloring and do the best to get down to the original wood type. Then, you'll have to sand them good. Once you get to that, applying the stain is rather easy. Even my 5 year old was able to help! Simply paint it on with a brush & wipe it down with a rag.

New Hardware Dresses them Up

Once you've went to the extent of revitalizing those drab cabinets, don't stop there. New cabinet hardware, such as knobs, pulls or handles are a very inexpensive and easy fix to top off that new look! And, if you're a bargain shopper like I am, box stores such as Menards or Home Depot happen to have 10pc sets of handles, so that you save more by buying in bulk!

A Nice Look

In the end, once you've updated the cabinets with new paint or stain & hardware, they should look nice enough to get you by for a few years until you can afford new cabinets. Let's just hope the inflation goes down soon.

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