Refinishing Your Kitchen Cabinets Yourself

By Kurt A. Schefken

When you know the most important parts of refacing your kitchen cabinets then it might seem like a very simple project to do. By refacing your kitchen cabinets you are able to give your kitchen a completely fresh and unique look to your kitchen. If you're unhappy with the look of your existing cabinets then you could consider updating the appearance of them. Refacing your kitchen cabinets is a good alternative to ripping them out and replacing them.

You can actually save a considerable amount of money by refinishing your cabinets rather than installing new ones. If you do the work yourself then you could save even more money. By keeping your existing cabinets you are often able to have a much more sturdy cabinet as most of the newer ones are not built as well.

1. Choose the Type of Door

If you want to create a traditional looking cabinet then you should choose a door and drawer which are inset into the frame of the unit. However the type of doors which you choose is completely down to personal preference. If you want to use fully concealed hinges then you can only use overlay and fully inset doors. If you have frameless cabinets then you can only use inset or overlay doors.

2. Choose the Style of Door

You should select which type of wood you want to use, also select the style of wood. Do you want a flat door with no detail, or do you want doors with patterned fronts? Its best if you can order the doors prefinished as it will save quite a lot of your time, plus you should end up with a better looking result. You can buy unfinished doors and drawers if you wish, these are good because you can easily make them match other things in your room.

3. Choose the Hinges

There are many different types of hinges, when selecting this you should decide how wide you want the doors to open. This is normally between 100 degrees to 180 degrees. You can also get hinges that close with a snap, soft close or adjustable hinges depending on your needs.

4. Measure up

You should spend time measure the width and height of the drawers and doors as accurately as possible. You should also remember to measure any false drawers or cabinets in your kitchen. Measure double door openings by doubling the single door width. For any inset doors you should subtract ¼ of an inch from the width and height of your measurements.

5. Work out how much you need to order

You need to work out how much veneer you need to order so that you can cover the fronts of the doors and frames. It's a good idea to purchase self adhesive veneer so that it is easy to install.

6. Measure the end panels

Measure all of the cabinet panels which are covered with the veneer. If the cabinets have glass panels then measure the inside dimensions and cover that with veneer too.

7. Other improvements

When you have ordered everything you need and are just waiting for everything to arrive then there are other things that you can do to keep yourself busy. You could for example consider replacing shelves in your kitchen which have started to warp. This is an easy job using plywood which is edged with veneer.

Being very excited about refinishing cabinets, Kurt Schefken wrote a large number of detailed articles in this specific field. His publications on [http://www.kitchen-cabinets-tips.com/cabinetrefacing.html]kitchen cabinet refacing can be encountered on [http://www.kitchen-cabinets-tips.com/cabinetrefacing.html]http://www.kitchen-cabinets-tips.com/cabinetrefacing.html.

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