When we bought our Winnie, she was full of old light oak cabinets and a lot of fake wood panelling.
Even the fridge had paneling.
I’m not a big fan of light oak or fake wood paneling, so I urged Mark to paint the cabinets. As we were reading up on how to do this, we came across lots of advice.
Most of the instructions we found stressed the importance of sanding and included primer and enough prep work to make me suddenly fond of light oak and fake wood paneling. I had also read about painting with chalkboard paint to cover the need to primer and sand all-in-one.
We had settled on the chalkboard paint method until I came across a pin Pinterest about Giani Granite’s Nuvo Cabinet Paint. I watched the video and was intrigued. Minimal sanding (for fake wood areas). No primer. You didn’t even have to remove the cabinet doors.
I contacted Giani and was thrilled to be able to test their cabinet paint out. This is what came in my kit.
Everything I needed for the job. I figured I’d need more than 2 cans since there are so many cabinets in our RV, but I wanted to test it out before I bought any extra.
We decided to remove the cabinet doors because we were going to update the hardware and hinges. I prepped my surfaces by wiping them clean, (I used diluted orange oil) and also lightly sanded the fake wood. We used wood filler to fill some (though not all) holes.
Over the slide, we had fabric covered cabinet fronts that needed to be removed and there was a little strip of wood that needed to be prepped.
Next we painted like crazy. The paint went on very nicely and had great coverage. This paint is not normal paint. Which is great. When I was trying to wash the paint of my hands, it required some serious elbow grease. Given the fact that was going on cabinets, I was extremely happy about that.
By the time we were done, we needed 5 cans of paint (but we covered all the cabinets in a 37 foot camper with Nuvo! So for about $175, we dramatically changed the appearance of our camper. I think this update was one of the most important updates we did and the Nuvo paint worked wonders. I love that we didn’t have to sand and primer. It was very easy to do.
The before…
And after…
Amazing right??
If you’re interested in Nuvo’s Cabinet Paint it can be found, here. I can’t imagine having to go through all the steps we’d have had to if we’d gone another route.
I want to paint my fema trailer in bright colors. I live in it full time. The walls are brownish but cant tell if they are wallpaper or just fiberboard like stuff. How do I paint the walls. Plus I want my wood or fake wood high gloss red. How can I do this. Thanks vickie. 936 714 3442
If you are unsure whether it’s wallpaper or fiberboard, I’d be willing to bet it is fiberboard and painting would be a breeze. Sorry, I’m not sure about how you could paint your wood to be high gloss.
Ur camper had the exact same as ours does it is truly amazing how beautiful it turned out. My question is did u put a new table in ? that wasn’t painted was it. It looked so shiny almost like marble. thanx for the know how……..
Hi Dawn! Renovate it! 🙂 We painted our table with countertop paint but it didn’t hold up so we covered it with a vinyl table cloth (and stapled it in place).
What color kit did you do? And did you just buy one kit and then buy additional quarts? Thanks we are planning on doing this in the next couple of weeks after much research and great read from your article
We purchased the Titanium Infusion color. Yes, I would purchase additional quarts as needed. Good luck! I think you’ll love it!
Saw your remodel and looked great. Our campers are similar size and was curious on how much paint it took for paneling? Saw you had 5 quarts on cabinets. Just seeing if you painted paneling and doors with same paint and colors. Like the gray paneling and white cabinets. I know approximately 5 quarts for cabinets, how much for paneling and doors? Thanks. Did you do bathroom to match?
It’s been a while Gabe, but if I’m remembering right, we purchased 1 gallon of kitchen/bath paint and that was more than enough. And yes, we did do our bathroom to match.
I just bought some nuvo paint after reading your blog! I’m updating a 1964 GM Bus converted to an RV. Right now it has the ugly fake wood everywhere. I started painting one of the cabinets yesterday with the nuvo kit, but it came out clumpy and bubbly. Maybe I stirred the paint too much and layered it on too thick? Or maybe I need to do a better job sanding? Any tips would be appreciated!
I would suggest you contact Nuvo. Possibly you got a bad batch?? :/
Hello, the remodel looks great. We are in the process and I think I’m going to try this product. I noticed in the end product you removed the valences that were over your windows. Was that difficult? How did you get them off and everything looks so good?
Hi Whitney! No, it was a very very easy process! Here is a link you should find helpful.
Hi,
Did you use a regular paint brush, foam brush or regular roller to paint your cabinets?
Thanks,
Cathy
Hi Cathy! We used a foam roller on some spots and a brush on others. The paint was very forgiving!
Looking at your before pictures is like a mirror of my place (live in, parked 5th wheel). The burgundy & green flower print is everywhere. That’s my first task. Do have a video of the removal process or do you just literally unscrew the whole window covering? Also, did you do anything to the material (?) of the ceiling? Your place is gorgeous by the way!
Hi Robyn! Thank you so much! Yes, we simply screws out of the valances and threw them out. We could have repurposed them I suppose but we wanted to not have valances to block light.
Julie,
I see that you painted your walls as well, What type and brand of paint did you use on your walls? By the way that looks awesome..
Thank you Tom! We used Kilz primer and Behr paint, (kitchen & bath). Worked great for us!!
We are in the process of doing the same on a 2009 allegro open road 35 qba. For the walls did you paint over the “wall paper/vinyl” with the kilz primer and Behr paint or did you remove? It seems it would be a major job trying to remove all of this. Did you use the kilz Behr combo on all of the fake wood panels or did you use the nuvo cabinet paint on these parts as well. Any help is appreciated!
I see this post was 3 years ago. How has the paint held up on your cabinets? The reason I ask is I visited the link you provide for Nuvo Cabinet Paint, and they have since changed the prep instructions to include sanding all surfaces prior to painting.