Traditional Painter

Renovating a vinyl wrap kitchen in Belton

Posted: 03 May 2020 11:23 PM PDT

Richard Willott, Traditional Painter for E Anglia, was contacted about Renovating a vinyl wrap kitchen in Belton. Believe it or not this contemporary hand painted kitchen

used to look like this

Belton has quite the history, and after some minor modifications and a thorough paint job, this kitchen will have a few more stories to tell as well.

Transforming a vinyl wrap kitchen in Belton

This is the short story. The dark walnut vinyl wrap finish was showing its age, and delaminating in places. The overall effect of the dark wood colour was wearing thin too with the owners. Before painting, Richard permanently repaired any damage to the vinyl wrap and degreased all surfaces inside and out. He then primed and top-coated all the doors, drawers and frames using a proven brand of water-borne kitchen enamel.

For pricing purposes we charge £100 a door for standard preparation and painting. This kitchen was about 23 “doors” plus wine rack. The repairs would have been extra, but all told it was still a fraction of the cost of a new kitchen or replacement doors.

By the way, if you are undecided about the best option for renovating your dated kitchen, this article lays out all the pros and cons that we have observed over the years.

Belton goes back a lot further than this vinyl wrap kitchen

Richard came up with a historic sub-title for this case study.

FLINT AXEHEADS, ROMAN COINS AND THE GREAT PLAGUE.

I can assure you that neither flint axeheads, Roman coins nor the plague had much to do with how I tackled this particular kitchen renovation. However, living and working in a historic part of the country, I like to research the history of local villages. Belton was full of surprises.

The earliest evidence of human habitation in Belton is a flint axehead from the Palaeolithic period. The fort at nearby Burgh Castle, along with finds of coins and pottery, also indicate that the area was inhabited throughout the Roman occupation.

Interestingly, Belton was not spared the Great Plague of 1665, even though that particular health crisis was associated with London. The parish register lists 13 burials with 7 listed as “plague”. At the time, three or four burials a year was normal.

Victorian Belton

Belton continued as a small farming community. In 1858, Belton Station provided the village with a railway link to Great Yarmouth and London. This greatly helped the locals to develop Belton as a market garden to supply from nearby Yarmouth down as far as London.

Anthropocene Belton

Back in modern day Belton.

The kitchen I had to renovate was a modern vinyl wrapped kitchen. For those who are not sure what that means, it refers to the finish on the doors, drawers and frames. Vinyl manufacturers have an extensive range of colours and wood grain effects to imitate real wood doors.

Making a vinyl wrap door

The first stage is to take an MDF door blank and router out the mouldings or raised panels. They can create any style using a CNC machine. The machined MDF door is then wrapped with a plastic vinyl which is stuck down with an industrial adhesive.

How to transform a vinyl wrap door with a hand painted finish.

Mr & Mrs W wanted to radically change their new kitchen. The dark walnut effect wasn't for them and unfortunately, as with most older vinyl kitchens, some doors had peeled or delaminated.

The most common areas for vinyl to peel is above toasters; above kettles; above and below dishwashers, and either side of ovens. In the case of ovens, if the heat seals start to degrade, adjoining materials are at risk of heat damage.

NB: useful tip. Make sure you pull your kettles, toasters and steamers away from any wall units prior to use. This will reduce the direct effect of steam or heat on vinyl and even the most robust paintwork.

How to prepare a vinyl wrap kitchen door for painting

The preparation with these types of doors is similar to any other kitchen surface. I wash down everything with an eco degreaser, and then sand the surfaces. I sand very carefully for several reasons.

Too aggressive with the sander and you could break through the vinyl.
If you generate to much heat with the sander, you could soften the adhesive under the vinyl and cause it to lift.

In this case there was already damage as explained above, so I had to make repairs. I re-stuck some edges using super glue. On other flappy areas, I carefully trimmed the vinyl back to a solid edge and filled the exposed area with a two part epoxy filler. I then sanded the repair back to achieve a smooth invisible mend.

Can you paint glass? Of course. What colour!?

As you will see from the before pictures, at head height there was a bank of glass-fronted units.

Painting glass door panels in a kitchen in Belton

The customers didn’t like them so the obvious suggestion for me was paint them as well. They did question whether the paint would stick to the glass. I commented that as ever it's all down to the preparation.

How did I do that?

I degreased and sanded the glass panels. Making sure there was no residue, I applied an etching primer.

ESP (Please check out the blog on traditionalpainter.com for the full story on ESP) In brief, once cleaned, you leave the glass to dry for 10 minutes or so, then apply a coat of ESP adhesion primer. You must leave it for 24hrs to dry out completely before starting with the conventional primers and topcoats.

Glass has no absorption qualities therefore the paint has to dry out naturally, which takes time. If you try and rush, the next coat can soften the previous layer and leave you in a right mess!

On with the painting

Once all the preparation was finished on all the vinyl wrap kitchen doors, drawers etc, I applied 2 coats of adhesion primer. I sanded this surface once it had dried and painted on the undercoat primer. The final two top coats followed.

Finishing tip

In a lot of the older kitchens we renovate, you see damaged kick boards. They are made from chipboard and are prone to deteriorate from small floods, over-mopping or voracious hoovering! So I suggested some new MDF boards to finish the renovation.

I hope you like the finished job. I think you will agree that few people would ever know that this hand painted kitchen started life as a vinyl wrap kitchen. And until you get up really close you would be excused for thinking it had been sprayed.

Thanks for reading about Renovating a vinyl wrap kitchen in Belton If you are in Belton or anywhere in E Anglia, here are more of my case studies. You can also contact me direct, to discuss how I can save you many thousands over the cost of a new kitchen!

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