Replacing kitchen doors and drawer fronts only

[Wood Borer]

You didn't start an argument - just a couple of people with different ideas coming from different perspectives trying to help you. We are defending our opposing strongheld views - nothing personal.

It does seem a pity that you have to throw away the perfectly good old cabinets and replace them with possibly identical ones. If you need to replace the doors again in two years time it seems the kitchen people will possibly ask you to replace the cabinets yet again.

Doesn't make any sense to me either but it makes perfect sense to those who make $$$'s out of assembling/selling kitchens.

Fortunately they don't design cars - need a new ash tray? It is cheaper and easier to buy a new car because yours is last year's model

[arms]

thats right ,the best decisions always come from listening to several sides of a problem

[woodbe]

Persevere Imp, you'll find someone to do it for you. Don't let the nay-sayers put you off.

We had the same problem when we bought our house. No money and a tired kitchen. It even had mosaic tile benchtops!

I tracked down a cabinetmaker, (not a kitchen shop), and had them come and measure up for a laminate benchtop. While they were there, they took away all the fronts of the doors and drawers. A week later, they returned with the new top and repaired/rejuvenated fronts. Really spruced things up, and the whole job cost a fraction of a new kitchen. Lasted for 6 years until we did the big renovation, and still looked good then, but it had to go as we were moving walls etc.

woodbe.

[SAISAY]

We are in the process of renovating our kitchen.
I absolutely detest laminex, vinyl, 2 pack and timber imported from countries that have no regard for the destruction they do to their forests.
I do not have a sawbench large enough to handle full sheets, so I went to my local cabinetmaker and asked him to cut them up for me. No problem as long as I get it done when he has down time.
Let me first say that I have never made a door in my life until I started this.
I do not like the run-of-the-mill doors and my cabinetmaker said it would be far too costly for him to make them the way I wanted them, a modified cathedral style.
Soooooo, I bought the kitchen door router bits from Carba-tec and some cheap pine from Mitre10 Building centre.
Then, as a learning curve we decided to put new doors in our bathroom cabinet, just plain old rail and stile ones.
I surfed the net and found a lot of informataion about making rail and stile doors.
I just finished them and think they don't look too bad at all. The colour in the pic is bad, the doors are actually a lovely golden honey colour, like aged pine. They were nowhere near as difficult to make as I thought.
When it came to the hinges, we bought a forstner bit at the right size. Then we cut the stile off the old door and cut the hinge holes right through the door. This was out template for the new doors. We set the hight on the vertical drill by using another door as a sample.
The click on Blum style click on hinges are a breeze to put it.and adjust.
We needed a special hinge for the 32 degree door at the end and got it from www.hardware.net.au. Ray is very helpful and, if he doesn't carry what you want, he will get it in for you. In my case he had to get the hinges from overseas. His shipping costs are great too.
Now we are ready to tackle the kitchen cabinet doors.
For the benchtop we got local silver ash, the local cabinetmaker cut them to size, we fitted them. He also supplied knotfree Tasmanian Pine for the doors.
So far, not including the router bits the kitchen cabinets have cost us just under $2.000 and we are talking about 7 metres of L shaped kitchen cabinets.

As a sideline, I was up at the cabinetmakers one day when a customer brought in solid timber rail and stile doors that were pre-made by a large company and falling apart. No wonder they were. Presumably to save cost and to save time cleaning the joints after assembly, they were so starved of glue one could barely see it

So, don't tell me it is not worth it renewing the doors and benchtops on existing cabinets.
All it takes is give-it-a-go
Wolffie

[seafurymike]

I'm with wolffie,

I am building my kitchen in the way i want it.
Along the way I have acquired some really nice tools, some really great experience and a bucket load of enjoyment. The missus loves it too and we have been at this for about 6 weeks.

Next is the island bench and a stand alone cabinet for glasses, etc.
The money i have saved on not farming it out has allowed me to buy the tools which will allow me to build other wonderful items for the house.
Plus, i reckon I've saved at least $5K on the project, even with the equipment purchased.

/M