Adding handles to a handleless kitchen

mountainMJ

I have recently bought a new house which has a fitted kitchen with j pull cabinets. I dont really like them that much but it's a good kitchen and I dont want to replace all the cabinet doors if it's unnecessary.

My plan is to re-paint them and possibly add handles. Has anyone ever added handles to j-pull cabinet doors? Would this be a weird thing to do? Thoughts and opinions would be appreciated.

Here it is now: 

ka7e

I have the j-pull cabinets/drawers and love the sleek finish it gives my kitchen. I think handles would look a bit strange as you will still see the j profile on the tops of doors. There are some handles that fit over the top of the door, but they would leave a gap underneath that would be difficult to clean.https://www.morehandles.co.uk/hafele-industrial-patience-finger-pull.html?idp=40580&gclid=CjwKCAiAksyNBhAPEiwAlDBeLIdKvHvKoD7KBl-ETaqNQs7xu0AoIEgqYKwHymiFDayVCufrHEOIqRoCSusQAvD_BwE

Belenus

Is it the appearance of the doors or the j-pull handles that you don't like?

If the latter, then I suggest that you give it time and see of you get used to them.

If the former then I think you will have a hard time doing a satisfactory job with paint. It looks like a shiny gloss finish and you would need to paint everything and not just the doors.

We all have differing tastes but I think the units look nice.

I am less keen on the floor.

Doozergirl

I think at first glance it might look okay, but anything more than a cursory glance at the kitchen and it would look weird.   

I am, however, one of those people that look at every tiny detail. I will only say nice things about houses I'm invited into, unless invited to give a totally honest opinion.  

I think if you want a kitchen with handles, you're better starting from a door that wants handles.  

I can't imagine the handles linked to above looking at all good on those doors, it would draw attention to the J pull if there was a real handle floating over them.  

There's going to be a lot of work in sanding back the surface of a high gloss kitchen and re-painting all of those doors and panels.  And I'd definitely worry about chipping around the J handle. 

I get it though, but in honestly I'd use my interior design skills to improve what is around the kitchen.  The stark white contradicts the very creaminess of the kitchen.   I'd soften it up, use a soft but colourful tile to tile both the backsplashes and *all* of the window wall to the door.  I'd include removing the stainless splashback in that.  It allows your tiles to start to talk as much as the units, if not more. 

I'd repaint using some sort of light pastel and include the ceilings so the lightwell walls can have a lovely warm colour to them, or wallpaper would work really well. 

Make the units something to compliment everything else rather than making the units the focus of the room.  Your personality can shine far beyond a cream gloss door.  

Have you ever used Pinterest?  What style of kitchen would you really want as an *entire room* and how could you achieve that without changing the cabinets much.  

If you want something more traditional then something like these colours of tiles with crackles are lovely
https://www.firedearth.com/ranges/retro-metro

I had these in my last kitchen which was matt white handleless.  The shape and crackle make them
a little more interesting than most metro tiles.  I tiled all the way up the kitchen area wall and into the window reveals.  
https://www.firedearth.com/retro-metro-green-park-1
  

Doozergirl

I'm supposed to be designing a kitchen right now and I'm procrastinating by looking at someone else's 🤦🏼‍♀️

tacpot12

I don't think the adding handles to that kitchen would look odd, but it's not something I've done.

I would say that the work of repainting them is going to a big job, and just getting new doors might be a lot less work (and might cost about the same). The old doors can be packed up and put away n your loft so that you could refit them if you ever want to sell the house.

plumb1_2

Ya painting would be a time consuming job and imo never look good.
Have you thought about vinyl wrapping it ?

fenwick458

handles on handless doors would probably look odd to anybody who's looked at kitchens in the last 1-2 years.
anybody else wouldn't notice..

I wouldn't paint them though that's a waste of time and it probably won't turn out well. the time taken to rub down the lacquer to get a key and to paint and then  lacquer them by hand and refit is almost certainly going to be more than the cost of new doors made in a factory and It won't look as good. If you want a different colour door then just get new doors in whatever colour you like, and just get slab doors without the J pull too kill 2 birds with 1 stone

GaleSF63

As someone who only yesterday had a rather painful collision with banging my arm on a kitchen drawer handle. and once got a really nasty gash on my leg, I would love kitchen units with no handles!

Mojisola

Have you costed up replacing the door and drawer fronts with a style you like?

JIL

Doozergirl said:

I think at first glance it might look okay, but anything more than a cursory glance at the kitchen and it would look weird.   

I am, however, one of those people that look at every tiny detail. I will only say nice things about houses I'm invited into, unless invited to give a totally honest opinion.  

I think if you want a kitchen with handles, you're better starting from a door that wants handles.  

I can't imagine the handles linked to above looking at all good on those doors, it would draw attention to the J pull if there was a real handle floating over them.  

There's going to be a lot of work in sanding back the surface of a high gloss kitchen and re-painting all of those doors and panels.  And I'd definitely worry about chipping around the J handle. 

I get it though, but in honestly I'd use my interior design skills to improve what is around the kitchen.  The stark white contradicts the very creaminess of the kitchen.   I'd soften it up, use a soft but colourful tile to tile both the backsplashes and *all* of the window wall to the door.  I'd include removing the stainless splashback in that.  It allows your tiles to start to talk as much as the units, if not more. 

I'd repaint using some sort of light pastel and include the ceilings so the lightwell walls can have a lovely warm colour to them, or wallpaper would work really well. 

Make the units something to compliment everything else rather than making the units the focus of the room.  Your personality can shine far beyond a cream gloss door.  

Have you ever used Pinterest?  What style of kitchen would you really want as an *entire room* and how could you achieve that without changing the cabinets much.  

If you want something more traditional then something like these colours of tiles with crackles are lovely
https://www.firedearth.com/ranges/retro-metro

I had these in my last kitchen which was matt white handleless.  The shape and crackle make them
a little more interesting than most metro tiles.  I tiled all the way up the kitchen area wall and into the window reveals.  
https://www.firedearth.com/retro-metro-green-park-1
  

I completely agree, I would also replace the extractor fan.

We have those doors, in our kitchen but a more pale grey. I thought I had made a mistake by not having door handles, but we have just put a row of units in the garage. We used some ikea handles and the units look "bulky".

Try cutting some bits of tape and position them on the units where the handles would go. Stand back and see how crowded it looks.