Hot kitchens: M F Turnbull
Giving your kitchen a complete facelift will elevate your whole house – and it doesn’t have to cost the Earth.
A new kitchen sharpens up the whole house, but the investment involved in buying a new one doesn’t always make good sense. The better option is a cabinet surface refresh. It is much easier on the budget and a lot kinder to the planet by avoiding landfill waste.
M F Turnbull has been the go-to destination for cabinet resurfacing in Christchurch for more than 35 years. This team has always been ahead of the curve with their longstanding reuse, repair, and recycle ethos. They have an in-house saying that goes, ‘if you think it could be spray finished, give us a call because it probably can.’
Making over kitchens by resurfacing cabinetry is hugely popular. “People realise that they don’t need to do a full kitchen replacement, they can make a radical change, a shade adjustment, or simply freshen the existing colour,” says kitchen renewal manager Jason Turnbull.
A 1920s-era home in Sumner recently went through a refresh process. When it came to the kitchen, which was already well laid out, the interior designer knew exactly the advice to give the homeowners. An enquiry email to M F Turnbull received an immediate response, “within days, two lovely guys came to see our kitchen,” says the homeowner, “they were wonderfully prepared and had really done their homework. I was blown away by their knowledge and they provided me with a photo of what the kitchen would look like in its new colour.”
With the quote accepted, the team took the kitchen out just a few days later and, in less than two weeks, it was reinstalled in a beautifully refurbished state. “The customer service was impeccable,” says the homeowner. “The quality of the finish is amazing, and it has transformed our kitchen for a stunning price.”
While finishing new items is a large part of M F Turnbull’s business, Jason says that word of their success in revitalising kitchen cabinetry has spread. Kitchen cabinets in melamine, paint, lacquer and timber can be refinished to create a new and modern look. They can strip back surfaces, but it is not usually necessary. “We can recolour any type of kitchen surface that manufacturers can make. Even doors where the plastic coating is breaking down, we can remove the coating and apply the colour you want to the underlying substrate,” says Jason. “We have a great product to go over melamine, which is so hardwearing. A bonus is that it contains Teflon, which makes the surface really easy to clean.”
