Anonymous wrote:I painted the doors (front and back) and any exposed sides of our IKEA cabinets (I liked the style/didn't like the coloration) 12 years ago and they still look amazing-kitchen get compliments all the time! We are not gentle people and this is a heavily used kitchen and honestly am surprised how well they have held up and still look fresh. Since we were putting the cabinets in I was able to paint them lying flat and I used an oil based paint (harder to find now) sanding in between. I added open shelving later that I painted in place. The time - especially because I used oil-based was a killer and I hope I never have to do again.
I did this also with new IKEA cabinets. I used BM's Impervo, and it still looked great when we moved ten years later. We had toddlers that were pretty hard on cabinet doors, too. Impervo is also oil based, but it's well worth the extra drying time. It goes on like silk and looks fantastic. We got many compliments over the years.