How to Paint a Kitchen (Walls and Ceiling, Not the Cabinets)

Painting a kitchen is mostly a cleaning job. The rolling is the easy part. What decides whether the finish lasts two years or ten is whether you got the cooking grease off the walls first, because paint will not bond to a greasy film no matter how good the paint is.

One thing to settle before you buy anything. This guide covers the kitchen walls and the ceiling. It does not cover the units. Painting cabinet doors and frames is a completely different job with different products, different prep, different drying times and a different timescale, and it deserves its own plan. If that is what you are actually about to do, read how to paint kitchen cabinets instead, then come back here for the walls. Doing both at once is possible but it is two projects stacked on top of each other, not one.

If you have never painted a room before, the general method for cutting in, rolling and getting a flat even wall lives in how to paint a room. Everything below is what is different about a kitchen specifically.

Why kitchen walls are not like other walls

Three things make a kitchen harder than a bedroom, and all three are invisible when you look at the wall.

Grease is the one that ruins jobs

Every time you fry, boil or roast, a fine aerosol of fat leaves the pan and settles on every surface in the room. It does not stay near the hob. It travels, it lands on the far wall, it lands on the ceiling, and it builds up in a layer thin enough that you will never see it and thick enough that paint cannot grip through it. Kitchens that have been cooked in for years can carry a film several rooms deep in the sense that it reaches everywhere, including inside the light fitting.

The failure mode is specific and recognisable. The paint goes on fine, looks fine for weeks, then starts to peel in sheets or lift when you wipe it. That is not bad paint. That is paint sitting on a layer of fat instead of on the wall.

Water alone does not remove grease. Neither does a general spray cleaner used casually. You need a degreasing cleaner used properly, worked into the surface, then rinsed with clean water so no cleaner residue is left behind, because residue causes its own adhesion problems. The full method is in how to clean walls before painting, and in a kitchen you should treat that guide as mandatory rather than optional.

Steam and moisture

Above the hob and around the sink and kettle, walls get repeatedly wet and then dry out. That cycling is hard on a paint film. It also means those zones are the most likely places to find surface mould, especially in a corner where a cold external wall meets a steamy room. If you see black spotting, deal with it before you paint using the process in how to remove mold before painting. Painting over mould buries it briefly and it comes back through.

You cannot shut the room

You can close a bedroom for three days. You cannot close a kitchen, because people need to eat and the fridge needs to keep running. That constraint shapes the whole sequence, and it is why the plan below is built around keeping one end of the room working while the other end dries.

Prep, in the order that matters

General wall prep, filling, sanding and caulking, is covered in how to prep walls for painting. The kitchen specific additions are below.

Clear the worktops completely

Not tidied. Cleared. Every jar, appliance, chopping board and utensil pot off the surface and out of the room, because you will be leaning over that worktop repeatedly and anything left on it will get knocked, dusted or painted. Then cover the worktops themselves. Worktop edges take a lot of accidental contact when you are cutting in along the top of a splashback.

Degrease everything, including the ceiling

Work top down. Ceiling first, then walls, then the narrow strips of wall between units and worktops. Change your cleaning water often. When the water goes cloudy or feels slick, it has stopped cleaning and started spreading. The area directly above and to either side of the hob will need more than one pass, and so will the wall behind the kettle.

Test as you go. Wipe a small area, let it dry, then press a piece of masking tape onto it and pull it off. If the tape lifts cleanly and sticks well, the surface is clean. If it slides or refuses to grip, there is still grease there.

Sockets, switches and the extractor

Kitchens have more electrical fittings per square metre than any other room. Turn the power off at the consumer unit before you loosen anything. Loosening the faceplate and easing it forward a few millimetres lets you cut behind it and gives a much cleaner result than trying to edge around a fixed plate. The extractor hood is the greasiest object in the room, so clean it and mask it thoroughly, and remember that the wall immediately behind and above it is the worst grease zone in the kitchen.

Fill and sand last

Fill after cleaning, not before. If you fill first you will then wash the filler. Sand the filled patches flat, dust them off, and spot prime them so they do not flash through the finish coat.

Choosing the finish

Flat paint is usually the wrong answer in a kitchen. It looks lovely and it cannot be cleaned, and a kitchen wall is a surface you will need to wipe. Splashes from the hob, fingerprints near the fridge handle, a sauce mark at eye height. On a flat finish, wiping any of those burnishes the paint and leaves a shiny patch that is more obvious than the mark was.

You want something with enough sheen to be scrubbable and enough body to look like a wall rather than plastic. That usually means the middle of the sheen range. Higher sheen is more washable but shows every ripple in the plaster, and a kitchen with strong under cupboard lighting is unforgiving about that. The trade offs by sheen level are laid out in the paint sheen guide, and the product categories suited to kitchen conditions are covered in best paint for a kitchen. Whatever you choose, read the label for the manufacturer's guidance on cleaning and recoat times rather than assuming.

The awkward geometry

A fitted kitchen leaves surprisingly little actual wall. What is left is mostly narrow, mostly bordered by something you must not get paint on, and mostly at an uncomfortable height. This is a cutting in job with a bit of rolling attached, which is the opposite of most rooms.

Cutting in around wall units

Wall units usually sit proud of the wall with a gap behind them that you cannot reach and do not need to. Cut a clean line along the underside and the sides. A short handled brush helps, and so does working in shorter strokes than you would on an open wall. The technique that keeps the line straight is in how to cut in when painting. Do not try to load the brush heavily to save trips; a heavy brush drips onto the worktop.

Splashbacks and tiling

Where the wall meets tile, glass or a solid splashback, you are painting up to a hard edge. Mask it properly and seal the tape edge by running a fingertip or a filling knife along it so paint cannot creep under. If the joint between wall and splashback is caulked and the caulk is cracked or discoloured, cut it out and redo it before painting rather than painting over a failing line.

Tiles themselves are a different job. Painting tile needs a specific adhesion primer system and a realistic expectation about durability behind a hob. If the tile is the problem rather than the wall, treat it as a separate decision and do not just roll wall paint over it.

The strip between worktop and wall units

If there is no splashback, that band is often only a hand span tall and it is the most looked at surface in the kitchen because it sits at eye level when you are standing at the counter. Take your time there. Two thin coats beat one thick one, and a mini roller gives a texture that matches the rest of the wall better than a brush does.

Behind the appliances

The honest answer is that you should paint behind the freestanding appliances if you can move them safely and skip it if you cannot.

Pulling out a fridge or a freestanding cooker means dealing with services. Unplug the fridge and let it drain rather than tipping water across the floor. A gas cooker should not be moved by you unless you know exactly what the connection is and how it releases; if there is any doubt, leave it and cut a neat line around it. A dishwasher or washing machine is plumbed in and heavy, and walking it out on its own feet across a vinyl or tiled floor is how floors get gouged and backs get hurt. Slide a board or a thick cloth under the feet and get a second person.

If you do move them, you only need to pull out far enough to get a mini roller behind, which is usually less than you think. Clean the wall back there first because the space behind a cooker collects grease in quantity. If you cannot move something, paint down and behind as far as you can reach and stop. Nobody will ever see the rest, and it is not worth an injury.

Fitted appliances behind unit doors stay where they are. Paint up to the unit and leave it.

The ceiling

Kitchen ceilings are greasy, and people forget. If you paint the walls beautifully and leave a yellowed greasy ceiling above them, the room still looks tired. Worse, if you paint straight onto that ceiling, it is the most likely surface in the room to peel because ceilings get the heaviest cooking residue and the least cleaning.

Degrease it exactly the way you degreased the walls, working in sections and rinsing. Then paint it before the walls, using the method in how to paint a ceiling. A ceiling that shows persistent staining around the extractor may need a stain blocking primer first, because grease and nicotine style stains bleed straight through ordinary paint and reappear over several days.

Should you spray it

Usually not. Spraying wins when there is a large uninterrupted area and little masking. A fitted kitchen is the opposite: small patches of wall surrounded by units, worktops, tiles, appliances and glass, all of which would need masking. The masking would take longer than brushing and rolling the whole room.

Spraying makes sense in a kitchen only in two situations. One, the kitchen is stripped back to bare walls during a refit, before the units go in. Two, the room is unusually open with a lot of wall and few fittings. Otherwise, brush and roller.

Sequencing so you can still cook

Plan the job in halves rather than as one push. Do the ceiling and one half of the room, let it dry, move the working stuff back to that side, then do the other half. It takes slightly longer overall and it means you never lose the whole kitchen.

A workable order:

1. Clear worktops, move small appliances out, cover floors and worktops.
2. Degrease ceiling and walls, rinse, let dry fully. Do not rush this stage.
3. Deal with any mould, then fill, sand and spot prime.
4. Paint the ceiling.
5. Cut in and roll wall section one. Restore that side to use once it is dry to touch.
6. Cut in and roll wall section two.
7. Second coats in the same order.
8. Trim, skirting and any door frames last.
9. Remove masking while the paint is still slightly soft, pulling the tape back on itself at a shallow angle.

Ventilate throughout. A kitchen with the extractor running and a window open dries and clears far faster than a sealed one, and you want the odour gone before food is back on the worktops.

How long and how much

Kitchens are small in wall area and slow in labour hours, which surprises people. The degreasing alone can take as long as the painting. The cutting in is dense. If you are working out whether to do it yourself or price the job, cost to paint a kitchen breaks down what drives the number, and the biggest driver is almost always the amount of fiddly edge work rather than the square footage.

Frequently asked questions

Do I really need to degrease if the kitchen looks clean?

Yes. Grease film is invisible. A kitchen that has been cooked in for even a year carries enough on the walls to affect adhesion, and the areas you would guess are clean, like the far wall, still collect it. The tape test is the quick check: if masking tape will not grip the wall properly, paint will not either.

Can I use flat paint in a kitchen?

You can, but you will regret it the first time you wipe a splash off and leave a shiny patch. Flat finishes are not built for repeated cleaning. If you love the look of flat, restrict it to a wall well away from the hob and sink and use something more washable everywhere else.

Should I paint the walls or the cabinets first?

If you are doing both, do the cabinets first. Cabinet work involves sanding, dust and long cure times, and you do not want that dust settling on fresh wall paint. Walls are quick to touch up at the end; cabinet finishes are not.

How far do I need to pull the fridge out?

Far enough to get a mini roller and your arm behind it, which is typically less than the depth of the appliance. Unplug it first, and if it is an integrated unit behind a cabinet door, leave it alone and paint up to the surround.

Can I paint over kitchen tiles with normal wall paint?

No. Tile is glazed and non porous, so ordinary wall paint has nothing to bond to. Painting tile needs a dedicated adhesion primer system and even then it is a compromise behind a hob where heat and repeated scrubbing are involved. Treat tile as a separate decision from the walls.

How long before I can cook in there again?

Once the paint is dry to the touch you can use the room, but full hardness takes considerably longer and the manufacturer's label is the authority on that. Until it has hardened, avoid scrubbing the new paint and keep the extractor running while you cook so steam and grease are not landing on a soft film.