Kitchen cabinet resurfacing | GTAMotorcycle.com

Kitchen cabinet resurfacing

J

jc100

Well-known member
Anyone done this? We need to renovate the kitchen and can’t afford brand new fitted cabinets. The ones we have are really good quality solid golden oak but they are just too old fashioned. I’d like them painted white to look more modern but the grain needs to go too. The insides are white so that should save a lot of cash so it’s basically just the exposed areas. We would replace all the handle hardware too to refresh everything.

I don’t even know how much this costs yet, just assuming it’s a lot less than hiring a company in to replace everything.

We would replace countertops too at the same time. Basically a budget kitchen remodel is what I’m after.

Anyone done it? Happy with the results?
 
jc100 said:
Anyone done this? We need to renovate the kitchen and can’t afford brand new fitted cabinets. The ones we have are really good quality solid golden oak but they are just too old fashioned. I’d like them painted white to look more modern but the grain needs to go too. The insides are white so that should save a lot of cash so it’s basically just the exposed areas. We would replace all the handle hardware too to refresh everything.

I don’t even know how much this costs yet, just assuming it’s a lot less than hiring a company in to replace everything.

We would replace countertops too at the same time. Basically a budget kitchen remodel is what I’m after.

Anyone done it? Happy with the results?
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Our old house had it done prior to us buying. Looked fine, no complaints. I think @PrivatePilot and @mimico_polak might have done it as well. No reason to throw out boxes in good shape to install boxes that are probably worse for a lot more money. JohnnyP636 family company makes cabinets. Years ago, his thing was foil faced, not sure what they do now. I get the feeling that they were more wholesale focused. @Allistonfjr makes cabinets for a living but it sounds like he is at the higher end of the market.

Please leave the name of who did the work somewhere in the cabinets. I wanted to build a matching microwave stand in the old house. They were fake beadboard but a different pattern than typical. I killed the project as it was going to take me a ton of work to custom make the doors to match instead of being able to call someone with it already programmed in their CNC router.
 
Yes. We did this in our house. We kept all the boxes, but replaced every door, hinge, slide and hardware. The boxes are not the most expensive part in all honesty. But if you like the layout, replace just the front facing bits.

we also installed a new granite counter, and lighting in our kitchen.

do not paint the old cabinet doors. I’ve never heard of anyone being happy with the results and costs similar to new doors.
 
There was someone on here who re-painted their existing cabinets and I am sure it was posted in the "Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?" Thread, pretty sure they were grey cabinets.

I looked into this a while back to do something like this myself, because the kitchen is the last room to be updated so far because of expense. Anyhow when I was looking into it I found this DIY project blog which might be of some help.

Staining Oak Cabinets an Espresso Color {DIY Tutorial}

Hi there! Welcome to my most popular post ever. I've since sold and moved from this home, but I wanted to update this post and state that the cabinets were in fabulous shape even four
monicawantsit.com monicawantsit.com

I am pretty sure Lee Valley has the stains/paint etc for this work.

Good luck!
 
It's best to use a melamine paint as it's tough and will wear better in the long haul. My next door neighbour did his kitchen and it looks fantastic.
You can also make it look more professional by investing in a Home Depot paint sprayer for about $350. I just bought one and sprayed an entire apartment in less than 2 hours. Looks great and no brush marks.
 
I should clarify.....don’t repaint normal doors as they may come out garbage. Solid wood doors stained I would keep as they will look better and have more weight to it then the cheaper material.

Take a door off and do a small section in the back. See how it comes out and you can decide. By far the cheapest way to do it.

As for granite....price range goes from cheap as dirt to ridiculous depending on what you want.
 
It's a chippy attitude but it's our kitchen. If we have company they're here to visit us, not photo op with our cabinets.

The bigger problem is if you're thinking of selling. Real estate shmoozers like a house that sells itself, reducing their need to actually work.

Expensive granite, marble, ceramic and all the other buzz words may just get ripped out if the new buyer doesn't like the design. They do however, highlight the potential to the granite loving buyers.

Assuming you're not doing this to sell you're in the same situation as we are, with a thirty year old healthy kitchen that needs a new life.

A friend did his cabinets with an airless sprayer (Battery powered) and the results are fine. Also you can just replace the doors meaning not a lot of facing wood to rework, Either prime, fill and repaint or replace.

It isn't hard to make new doors but getting the level of finish can be difficult. CNC isn't necessary but you will spend a lot of time making jigs and fixtures if you don't want simple slabs. It isn't as bad if the door sizes aren't all over the place.

I like laminate. It's a tenth the price of granite, the kitchen is quieter, with a matte finish you don't have to have it rebuffed on a regular basis.

Laminate counters tend to rot out around the sink / taps after 20 years. Ours are still rock solid because I varnished the undersides before the sink and taps went in. If I could find a hard enough paint I could get another decade or two out of them.

I don't have a problem with the oak grain pattern showing so an easier job for me.

My daughter's kitchen is Ikea but doesn't look it. She had the doors painted a custom colour by a company specializing in the work. Also there are companies that make the equivalents of the nifty Ikea gadgets.

The biggest advantage of the facelift is that if you replace just the cabinets the kitchen isn't out of commission all that long. To totally replace the cabinets, well, we might as well do the floors, replace windows and doors, light fixtures, range hood, stainless appliances, upgrade etc etc. As a bonus you can buy several motorcycles with the savings, nice ones.

Instead of putting in an expensive kitchen to sell our place when the time comes I'm wondering about a new kitchen as a incentive with the buyer paying for it up front. They move in ready to go. Lots of possible complications but have samples and renderings at the showings. We're not there yet.
 
No stone countertops. As nice as they look our days with natural stone anything are over after a nightmare few years trying to look after a natural slate bathroom. Acrylic or whatever is used these days will be just fine.

As for the cupboards I've seen a contractor offer the door replacement but I think that’s going to be a bit more pricey than the painting option. Maybe this is something I can try but Picasso I am not. I can just about paint a primed drywall with a roller but getting oak to look like a regular glossy painted finish and not having it look like crap may be beyond me.
 
jc100 said:
No stone countertops. As nice as they look our days with natural stone anything are over after a nightmare few years trying to look after a natural slate bathroom. Acrylic or whatever is used these days will be just fine.

As for the cupboards I've seen a contractor offer the door replacement but I think that’s going to be a bit more pricey than the painting option. Maybe this is something I can try but Picasso I am not. I can just about paint a primed drywall with a roller but getting oak to look like a regular glossy painted finish and not having it look like crap may be beyond me.
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Getting decent handling paint is hard due to the VOC limits to oil based. Acrylic latex is hard to work with as it doesn't flow out like oil based. You have to be a professional to get oil anymore. Tremclad is oil and IIRC they get around the VOC by using fish oil. I find that their white goes yellow.

I bought some yacht enamel, repainted some metal stair pickets and they came out really good IMO. I used a brush. Super high gloss but not a lot of choice in colour. Forget the paint chip samples with hundreds of shades. Think more like a box of eight crayons. White and black are simple.

Spray guns are reasonably priced and for small items a large compressor isn't needed. You stop between doors to let the pressure build up again. I haven't tried spraying melamine.

How many doors and drawers fronts are there?
 
I’m picking up new cabinet doors for our condo kitchen today to install this afternoon. The previous ones were the builder grade thermofoil which had delaminated on many doors. We kept our hardware and hinges since they were good.

New doors, professionally done are $1500 for us. We thought about DIY, but after looking into the time involved, it’s cheaper to pay a pro and the guy is our neighbour who lives 3 houses away and is a custom kitchen builder. They are shaker style doors, sanded, lacquered and all predrilled. I’ll do the install since that won’t take much time at all. I gave him our old doors so he could have the exact measurements for the hinges and hardware.

Ours is a rental property and so we are fine with the cost, because it just gets eaten up in the rent anyways. We looked into cheaper options, but wanted the place to look great for the next tenants, so here we are.

Also put in new floors throughout and painted the whole unit, so it will look great by tomorrow morning.
 
jc100 said:
No stone countertops. As nice as they look our days with natural stone anything are over after a nightmare few years trying to look after a natural slate bathroom. Acrylic or whatever is used these days will be just fine.

As for the cupboards I've seen a contractor offer the door replacement but I think that’s going to be a bit more pricey than the painting option. Maybe this is something I can try but Picasso I am not. I can just about paint a primed drywall with a roller but getting oak to look like a regular glossy painted finish and not having it look like crap may be beyond me.
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We bought Quartz countertops, expensive as **** and it took 3 install attempts before the results were acceptable. There's a family in Napanee that contract builds cupboards from scratch and I can recommend them as being price competitive and producing quality work.

If I was covering something for a kitchen surface on the cheap it would be laminate sheeting, you can glue that stuff over anything and it is easy to dress the corners with a router. Kitchen hardware like drawer slides, handles and hinges are outrageous expensive so if you already bought them with the first set of cupboards it's likely worth upgrading the surfaces, if not :/ I bet you'd be financially better off with all new cabinets.
 
jc100 said:
Anyone done this? We need to renovate the kitchen and can’t afford brand new fitted cabinets. The ones we have are really good quality solid golden oak but they are just too old fashioned. I’d like them painted white to look more modern but the grain needs to go too.
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We did this circa 2001 shortly after we bought the house. It had a classic 1980's kitchen from when the house was built:

View attachment 47452

We were in the same situation, couldn't afford a complete gut at that point but the kitchen needed something.

So we basically did a primer melamine refinish like someone else mentioned:

View attachment 47453

Not a great photo but digital cameras 20 years ago were potatoes. This was taken with a HP Photosmart C20 believe it or not, circa 1998. I guess the reason we couldn't afford to reno the kitchen as much as we wanted was because I'd bought a $1000 digital camera LOL. We put in cheap new "forest green" countertops as well to replace the old yellowing original white ones that looked like crap. Don't judge on the green, it was my wifes idea LOL - she was aiming for the "Country Kitchen" thing which was trendy in the late 90's.

Anyhow, the melamine thing worked out pretty darned good. We followed the guidance we'd found online at the time to lightly sand the cupboards, hit them with TSP to remove any cooking oil residue, prime them once or twice, and then paint with the melamine. They lasted until last year when we redid the kitchen - only 1 face had worn through back to the original brown facing - the silverware cupboard around the handle that got opened a million times a day. All the others we as good as the day we did them.

You could also consider Ikea replacements if just refacing or redoing what you have doesn't end up happening. Honestly, you can't beat what you get for the price and they're REALLY easy to hang with their rail based system.

I redid the kitchen myself last year and am pretty happy with the results.

About 80% done, day before the countertops and backsplash went in, was installing the slim microwave that night I believe and prepping the walls for the backsplash tile.

View attachment 47454

90% done at this point....the camera really yellowed the photo for some reason but it's white, not yellow.


View attachment 47455

I forget exactly how much the bill was from Ikea for the cabinetry but honestly, it was hard to beat. I think when it was all said and done even including the new quartz countertops, a fancy square sink I wanted, and the backsplash I redid the whole kitchen for a little over $10K.

We had new flooring put in at the same time while the kitchen was gutted, but we had much of the main floor redone so I didn't include that cost in the reno as it was something that needed doing anyways, replacing another early 2000's laminate that we'd put down to replace the horrible white carpets throughout the entire main floor. White carpets and 2 young kids (at the time) was not a good combination.
 
****, the forum is doing that thing with photos again where it's failing to attach them.
 
nobbie48 said:
Getting decent handling paint is hard due to the VOC limits to oil based. Acrylic latex is hard to work with as it doesn't flow out like oil based. You have to be a professional to get oil anymore. Tremclad is oil and IIRC they get around the VOC by using fish oil. I find that their white goes yellow.

I bought some yacht enamel, repainted some metal stair pickets and they came out really good IMO. I used a brush. Super high gloss but not a lot of choice in colour. Forget the paint chip samples with hundreds of shades. Think more like a box of eight crayons. White and black are simple.

Spray guns are reasonably priced and for small items a large compressor isn't needed. You stop between doors to let the pressure build up again. I haven't tried spraying melamine.

How many doors and drawers fronts are there?
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hundreds! I’d say about 15-20 doors, only 6 draw fronts.

I'll get some quotes for this. If it’s outrageous I’ll do it myself and buy a sprayer I think. Countertops I’ll get done professionally
 
jc100 said:
hundreds! I’d say about 15-20 doors, only 6 draw fronts.

I'll get some quotes for this. If it’s outrageous I’ll do it myself and buy a sprayer I think. Countertops I’ll get done professionally
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If you end up buying doors instead of refinishing, take the time beforehand to think through the layout. I would burn a cupboard in a second for more drawers in our kitchen. Redoing one box wont be horribly expensive.
 
GreyGhost said:
If you end up buying doors instead of refinishing, take the time beforehand to think through the layout. I would burn a cupboard in a second for more drawers in our kitchen. Redoing one box wont be horribly expensive.
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Agreed 100% but in lieu, pull out racks can be added. A few of those eliminated the problem of getting to the cans at the back.

Edit: Use full extension drawer slides when possible.
 
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nobbie48 said:
Agreed 100% but in lieu, pull out racks can be added. A few of those eliminated the problem of getting to the cans at the back.

Edit: Use full extension drawer slides when possible.
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Racks work if retrofitting existing but in my case, I want a drawer near the coffee/tea for all of the associated small bits. Opening a cupboard and pulling out a slide is much less convenient for that use case. Making a matching drawer would be a nightmare (mainly finishing nightmare, construction wouldnt be hard). If you are making new fronts anyway, it is simple.
 
We are going to get some stainless steel shelves for one wall and hang the pots up high from one of those. A stainless steel kitchen cart will add a little more worktop space. Our house doesn’t have a basement so we are short on storage. Just got a new carpet ordered and we already spent 11k on some bathroom renos so the kitchen is a refresh on the cheap. Luckily we redid the floor a few years ago and it still looks like new.
 
JC100 check my post and pics in "enough covid what u do to the house"

Just painted the cabinets and installed Laminate c/t. 17ft of c/t with a corner was under 700$. Fresh backslash tile (cheap if you do it - it's easy).
 
If you don't like the oak grain then your going to have to replace the doors. No paint, on its own is going to fill the grain.
 
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