My wooden kitchen cabinets are sturdy and structurally fine, but the finish is wearing off and they look ugly. I’ve done some research on painting and refinishing, etc, and every method I’ve found looks pretty worky. (I’m not really lazy, but I have a poor history of finishing up any project that begins with, “Remove all doors from cabinets”…)
I could (and have, in other houses) just paint them right as they are, still attached, but the finish is slick in places so I don’t know if that would work. I’d be happy if I could just find something to rub on, wipe off, and convince myself they look nicer. 
Any ideas? Replacement is not an option, unfortunately.
adhesive paper (contact paper) goes up quick.
you could sand the wood and get it to accept paint.
How 'bout just starting and stopping with “remove all doors”
Open cabinets
No one on the internet with this kind of setup seems to have a cupboard full of assorted food storage containers, or mismatched water bottles and travel mugs.
I haven’t done this. I rent an apartment and paper thin wood grain printed plastic covers MDF on the fronts of our cabinets.
Could you whack them with a heavy chain, then rub the whole things down with Old English Dark Scratch Cover and call them “distressed”?
I suppose this isn’t actually helpful, I’m just so relieved that someone online admits to not finishing that I desperately want to solve your problem. I’ve been on Pinterest where people make their own Thin Mints and make fancy decorations out of coffee filters for every single holiday. Sheesh. Anything that includes in the instructions “let dry thoroughly between coats” is challenging for me. Either I lose patience and do the next step too soon or I get tired of waiting and move on to another thing.
Wait, are they a stained wood finish now or painted? If wood, something like Formby’s Refinisher could do the trick.
Yeah, you’ll have to some prep work before painting, if you care what it looks like. But it doesn’t take that much sanding. Use a coat of primer also, that will adhere better. It wouldn’t hurt to take the doors off one at a time to prep and paint.
Contact paper is going to look like cr*p eventually. Probably your best bet is to paint them. Use semi-gloss latex enamel; if you get enthusiastic you might consider two colors, one for the doors and one for the frames.
Lazy = hire someone. I had painters do mine to tide me over til I could afford to redo the kitchen entirely. 5 years later, they’re still holding up fine. I took them all off, removed all the hardware, and had them do the painting. I put the doors back up myself with new hardware. It wasn’t that bad, but I hate painting, especially when finish and durability matter.
I LOOOOVE open cabinets, but I’ve learned my lesson–like you, gwendee, too much crap and unmatched crap at that. Maybe ONE open cabinet, where you can stick a few vintage Pyrex or some wineglasses, would be great. But yeah, since my kitchen collection consists of Goodwill and dumpster finds, I have to have door. (Not to mention the cats, who would no doubt love it if I had open cupboards.)
They are stained, but also finished with something shellacky–that’s the problem, if they were just plain wood I could restain or paint them without dealing with the current finish.
One time I had similar cabinets–I painted them watermelon red (with zero prep, right over the finish, lol), then sanded down the corners and edges. It actually looked great, in a shabby chic sort of way, but I’m hoping to get away from that particular look.
If you’re more artistic than me, you might be able to find some cool quirkly looking stencils. They’d break it up so that the worn parts don’t pop out as much.
Or maybe that’s a horrible idea…as I said, I’m not artistic. 
My non-artistic and practical side says take them down and remove the hardware, then prep them with sandpaper and primer and finish with the appropriate paint.
If you’re lazy but have friends, and a couple bucks for pizza and beer, I’ll bet you could get all of that accomplished on a Saturday.
Hmmm. I do have a friend who might be sweet-talked into spending a day helping me out…I don’t mind the painting part; I hate the taking off/putting on part. Any time I have to do things like that I end up with lost pieces and major parts left in the garage for two years while I find time to finish up…
Simple hinges? All the same? Two ideas:
Get a cheap hardware organizer with as many slots as you have cabinets. You can label one compartment for each cabinet and be sure to get the hardware back where it belongs.
Also, you can just take the doors of the hinges, leaving them screwed to the cabinet. Paint the doors, then transfer the hinges to the doors while you paint the cabinets.
We painted our ugly cabinets using Behr “no need for primer” paint. They were those dark plastic-coated-fake-wood-grain veneers so popular in the 1970s. We should have scuff sanded them first, but we got bad advice from Home Depot. So there a few chips, but not too bad. We didn’t have to take off the doors or anything like that.
It didn’t seem like a lot of work to me … because my wife did it while I was at work. It took her over a week though.
If your kitchen is an existing brand, you might just buy new fronts and doors.
Sweet-talked?
Well, that’s another thread…
As for the removal/installation part, whichever friend you enlist should have a power screwdriver – preferably one that he/she got around the Solstice so you can encourage him/her to come over and play with his/her new toy. Buy a roll of masking tape; as each hardware set is removed, tape them together into a little bundle (retaining the screws is critical) and drop the bundle in a box or bucket. If there’s different types of hardware going on specific cabinets, you can mark the bundle and put a piece of tape on the cabinet with a corresponding mark.
zip, Zip, ZIP! I bet the doors will be off (and hardware bundles organized) faster than you can sand and repaint them! In fact, if you can rent/borrow a palm sander, you’d do well to do all your sanding in the morning, go to lunch and let the dust settle, then paint. If you can, use a roller. Its MUCH faster at laying down the liquid. Paint frames, go to dinner, paint faces. In the morning, reassemble everthing.
—G!
I hated Jr. High wood shop. It was boring and tedious.
But now that I can use power tools, it’s FUN!
I want to nominate you for some sort of award for posting this. Unrelated to kitchens - this approach just might have a rather significant impact on one aspect of my job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You’re welcome, welcome, welcome?! 
Would love to hear the details…
I am available to telecommute or act as a paid consultant, if you’re looking 
What do they look like (shape-wise)? - would they stand a quick coat of paint, then rubbing back at the corners for a purposely-distressed vintage look? Would that even fit in with the rest of the decor?
I’ve considered a purposefully distressed look–I’ve done that before and it was very nice, imo. Not quite the look I’d prefer, but considering they already look ugly, maybe a nice pop of color would help. Of course, the kitchen is already orange and lime green with a bit of royal purple and a layer of sky blue topping it all off…but color is good!
When all is said and done, that’s probably the best option for me…“lazy” and “broke” being my guidelines, of course.