Has anyone tried to do cabinet refacing themselves?

chesterdoodle

My husband and I recently purchased a home with an outdated kitchen. We got a quote from Home Depot's Cabinet Refacing services, but it came out to over $16,000 including a new countertop. This is way above our budget as windows and roof have to be done first. We are thinking of either painting the cabinets or buying cabinet doors and doing the cabinet refacing ourselves. Has anyone done this? Or does anyone have any recommendations?

 Any suggestions/advice is appreciated!

Sue-n-Kevin

I've painted my cabinets in my older home, with no problem. But I think a lot depends on your priorities and the state of the cabinets you currently have. My cabinet bases, the "walls" so to speak, are very sturdy, I just didn't like the doors. The prior owners had painted blue what were probably basic wood cabinets. I re-painted the externals and internal part of the cabinets white after sanding & priming. However, the doors are flat, I prefer some texture, so I'm thinking of eventually using my table saw to cut some moldings to fit and make them more interesting.  

When I painted them, I also chose some of the over-the-counter cabinets to have no doors, similar to a country kitchen with exposed shelves. I painted the inside of the cabinets white to match the rest, and put my crystal and plates in those cabinets in a decorative manner, which makes the room look a bit brighter and "newer". I found fabric contact paper with a yellow & blue check, and put that on the bottom of the shelves, with a bit of an overhang in the front, to add a small cute detail. However, I was going for country/French chic, so it fit the overall look.

I had wanted to re-do my kitchen for a long time before I did. I still want to do more, but as with most homeowners, there is always something else more important, LOL.

If you can live with the layout of your kitchen, and it's simply the "look" of the cabinets you want to change, you can paint or reface them. I located a website a while ago that simply supplies the new doors and drawer faces, including glass insert doors. Simply google "kitchen cabinet doors", and see what you can locate. This was a few years ago, and at that time it was about $650, and I have about 19 doors & drawers that require replacements, so I thought that was reasonable.

The job I want to do overall is significant (ie tearing out a wall, etc), so at this time I'm living with what I have. But eventually I will re-do the facing.

I watch a ton of the DIY and HGTV shows to get ideas. It really helps. Their websites also have videos and ideas you can view.

MirandaHobbes

I have. I know that purchasing a refacing job is notoriously overpriced. A lot of the time it's cheaper to replace all of the cabinets entirely! Our cabinets in our tiny 1950's home were refaced in the 80's with hideous fake wood grain laminate coverings. In hindsight, I probably could have just tore it all off and sanded it down, and repainted. Some of the laminate is starting to peel off anyway. But my mom has done some refacing before. She painted the laminate using a good primer made for this purpose, and then attached moulding to the cabinet faces to give it a different look. She used plain wood strips so it has a "shaker" style. She used glue and very small wood nails. Then we painted everything carefully and added new hardware. The looks was greatly improved- however it hasn't worn well. Every couple years I have to touch up with caulk and paint.

kac

Hi:

We painted our orange oak cabinets with the rustoleum cabinet transformations product.  Time consuming, but not hard and it looks great.  We did it a little over a year ago and it is holding up really well. We painted them black and got granite counter tops (had white laminate before) and the kitchen looks awesome and new. 

Kristen