Kitchen cabinet doors

[wombleboy]

I'm thinking about replacing my kitchen, and naturally I want to do most of it myself. At the moment I'm thinking about cabinet doors.

I've been browsing for pre-made doors, and all are MDF with a washable vinyl coating. Thinking 10 years down the line (or realistically more like 5), when the doors are starting to look a little worn, can the vinyl coating be given a quick sand down and painted over?

Is a vinyl coating significantly better than a couple of coats of eggshell/gloss?

Of course, the other alternative is to make the doors myself (using a router template for the pattern). Given how cheap MDF is this would be significantly cheaper than pre-made doors, even though there'd be a lot of work involved in getting a nice painted finish (priming, several coats, lots of sanding).

Thoughts?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Foil wrapped and vinyl wrapped doors can be treared and painted with the appropriate (special) paint. The vinyl is generally quite durable if treated with respect - getting your own doors to the appropriate standard may be more work than you think, however (search for sealing MDF, etc). Making your own doors from 18mm MR-MDF or if you want Shaker doors, 12mm + 6mm) is perfectly feasible, but unless you have the facilities already to hand or want something very specific it may not be that much more cost effective. Still, if you want a hand-painted mauve kitchen with heart-shaped cutouts in Shaker doors there may be no alternative.

 

[JohnD]

As far as I can see, foil-wrapped doors are the least durable you can get, and MFC (laminated) are the hardest-wearing. They are always flat slab doors though, because they are cut from large sheets.

Some of the budget kitchen co's on fleabay offer doors in a wide variety of MFC colours and woodgrains. I have been looking at Egger ones, you can get samples for 99p.

 

[wombleboy]

Cheers for the replies. I do quite a lot of work with MDF, so I'm all too familiar with the work involved in getting a nice finish. It's ultimately very rewarding though.

Thinking about vinyl, I'm thinking perhaps the biggest problem would be bubbling/peeling at the edges as this has started to happen on my existing units (not sure where they were purchased). I'm sure there will be big differences in quality from one supplier to the next, but unfortunately price isn't always a good indication. At least if I made my own doors I'd know where I stood. Hmm. Decisions decisions.