I painted my kitchen three years ago, and I love it. It's hard work and can take some weeks to do. You need to take doors off, remove the hinges and handles. Remember you need to prime and paint two coats on each side, so for a door that equates to six coats of paint and letting each coat dry. I used Mylands of London paint, I'm just hooked on this paint as the eggshell is dead flat with only 8 percent sheen, you wont get another paint any flatter. And if the paints good enough for Downtown Abbey, then it's good enough for us. I would hold back on painting wall tiles, as they are white and look fine , paint the cupboards first and see what it looks like. I choose Myalnds paint and had the colour mixed in a farrow and ball blue green. See photos. Good luck Yvonne

Black is a notoriously hard colour to keep clean, especially in a kitchen area. I would suggest using a laminate, especially if you are going for a slab door. There are a variety of effects that may be suitable. It has the best advantages of being easy to clean and durable, avoid gloss colours if you are worried about scratch marks. Paint on the other hand will give a different effect, it depends on what you are trying to achieve. However paint will require maintenance, darker colours more regularly.

hi all, for the kitchen in a new contemporary build, I have narrowed it down to mussel coloured kitchen cabinets -handless matt acrylic (kithenstori.com ) together with white jasmine corian worktop. The floors are planned to be oak laminate and the window frames and doors white. I was wondering does anyone have mussel cabinets and do they have green undertones? What colour island will work well with mussel/jasmine white?

I would leave as is. The contrast is nice. What about roman a blind with some navy in it? Are the two worktops different?