A fresh coat will bring your kitchen back to life without breaking your budget. And although cabinet replacement might be inevitable, you can buy some time by painting your cabinets. Painting cabinets, especially if you do the job yourself, costs far less than outright replacement. Be aware that even the highest-quality paint job can't cure the evils of poor kitchen design or hide fundamental structural flaws in cabinets.
Cheap cabinets grow especially frail with old age.
Thin sides and backs, which are often veneered with vinyl paper, can peel or delaminate. Undersize particleboard cabinet bottoms or shelves sag or even break. Hanging rails, particularly on upper cabinets, might begin to pull loose. Although you can replace doors and drawers, widespread structural problems such as these would render cabinets a bad bet for refinishing, or much of anything else. You would be better off replacing them.