Kitchen remodels are expensive, especially if you choose to gut and replace the cabinets. To save a lot of money, you can simply replace your cabinet doors with solid wood doors and completely upgrade the entire look of your kitchen. This tutorial walks through the process on how to reface (replace the cabinet doors) and paint your kitchen cabinets for a modern new look.
This post is sponsored by cabinetnow.com, however all opinions and ideas expressed are entirely my own.
Let me start by introducing you to this kitchen. It’s the kitchen in our small lakehouse cottage in Wisconsin. The kitchen is original to the house, which was built in the early 1970s. I’ve been visiting this house since I was eight years old, and about ten years ago my husband and I purchased it from my grandfather. We wanted to keep it in the family for our kids and nieces and nephews to enjoy as my sisters and I did growing up.
Although it’s amazing to have this getaway in a beautiful location, the inside of the house showed its age. My budget was very tight when we first bought the house, so I updated the kitchen for $500. Basically, I simply painted over the faux wood laminate cabinet doors. (Why I chose to use a dark, streaky glaze, I do not know.) All along, I knew I ultimately wanted to reface the cabinets.
Should I Replace the Doors on My Kitchen Cabinets?
There are a few factors that you should consider if you’re thinking about refacing your cabinets. If you agree with these statements, then refacing your cabinets might be the best option for you!
- My cabinet boxes are in sturdy condition.
- I am happy with the layout of my kitchen.
- I’m unhappy with the look of my cabinet doors.
- My cabinet doors are not solid wood.
All of these statements were true for me, so I teamed up with cabinetnow.com to replace my ugly cabinet doors with new, solid wood doors, and completely change the look of my kitchen!
Clearly, my cabinet doors were not solid wood. They were two laminate pieces with a woodgrain texture that were stuffed with corrugated cardboard. I kid you not. Yes, they were ligthweight, but besides that, I can’t think of another positive to these 1970s gems.
If you Google search “cabinet refacing”, you’ll see a lot of “all-in-one” facing services pop up. Basically, they come to your house, measure your doors, and replace them for you. If you’re looking to refinish your kitchen without spending a lot of money, and you have some basic DIY skills, this option is not for you. Because all of these companies promote their products early in the Google search, I found myself wondering the best place to buy new cabinet doors that fit my cabinet boxes.
Cabinetnow.com offers unfinished, made to order, cabinet doors, drawer fronts, cabinet boxes, and replacement drawers – basically everything you need to update your kitchen, DIY style! Plus, it all can be ordered online without worrying about an upcharge from a contractor or installation company.
If you feel that installing new cabinet doors is a bit above your DIY level, I would still look into ordering the doors yourself, and then hiring a local contractor to install them. My hunch is that it will still save you money over hiring someone to order and install them. (Honestly though, you are probably totally able to tackle this one. I did it completely by myself, without ever needing to turn to my handyman dad even once.)
The process for ordering your cabinet doors online is simple. First, you choose the door style and wood species for your doors. I ordered Shaker doors in maple. Just measure your pre-existing cabinet doors and enter the dimensions on the website. You can also change the edge option and/or get pre-bored holes on the back for hinges. Here’s a post with my experience with how to change out your cabinet hinges and install new pulls and knobs.
That’s it! Once you submit your order, your doors are custom made and shipped right to your door. I was amazed (and very grateful) for the level of care that went into packaging the doors for shipment. They arrived in beautiful condition – so beautiful, in fact, I felt a little guilty that I was going to be painting them!
I primed and painted the cabinet doors with a paint sprayer, and brushed the frames with primer and paint as well. If you’re wondering – Do I need to prime cabinets before painting? or perhaps, What’s the best primer for kitchen cabinets? or maybe, What should I do before painting my kitchen cabinets? – then this post should help you out. I’ve devoted an entire post to when and how to prime cabinets and furniture before painting. I’ve also detailed the best type of paint for cabinets.
For now, let me show you how this little kitchen turned out. Don’t they look like entirely new cabinets? And, if I do say so myself, don’t they look gorgeous?!
I chose to create a more open look to the cabinets by completely removing the doors from two of the upper cabinets. Then, I used a circular saw to cut out the middle stile of each one, and painted the interior frame to match the outside. 5/4″ pine boards became the new open shelves and I now have a place to display all the vintage kitchen goodies left from my grandparents.
I painted the bottom cabinets in Advance Alkyd paint from Benjamin Moore in Polo Blue. The upper cabinets were painted with Behr Alkyd paint in white. Both paints were a satin finish. I purposely used two different brands of paint because I wanted to compare both products. You can read all about my comparison between these two types of alkyd paint and the best paint for kitchen cabinets here.
The hardware brought the whole space together, and I love the look on both the lowers and uppers. The pulls are all the 5″ Octo Pulls in soft brass from D. Lawless Hardware. They also carry a 3″ and a 3-3/4″ inch pull, if you’re looking for something a tad bit smaller. This post describes how I ordered and installed the new slow-close hinges and tips for installing cabinet hardware.
Thinking about painting or refacing your kitchen cabinets? These posts might help!
I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with the fridge.
Update: Since writing this original post, that old white fridge started to develop rust spots, that literally spread over the entire fridge like chicken pox. Instead of just throwing in the towel and buying a new one, I tried to paint it. Guess what? It worked! Here’s that post on how to paint a refrigerator.
I’m super pleased with the results of my refaced cabinets and think it looks like an entirely new kitchen, for a fraction of the cost!
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I have been wanting to do this for a long time. Can’t wait to see your follow up post on how you did it. Turned out great!
Wow! I cannot believe those are the same cabinets. The space looks amazing!!!! Now I want to come vacation at the lake with you ????
Your refaced cabinets turned out great! Thanks for sharing with us at Snickerdoodle Create Bake Make Party! This will be one of my features this Saturday. Be sure to stop by and check it out! Roseann from This Autoimmune Life
Your lake house kitchen looks wonderful! I love the contrast between the blue and the white. Thanks for sharing at Snickerdoodle Party. I’ll be featuring this at today’s party. Hope to see you there.
Amazing transformation! Great idea saving money and the results are wonderful.
Enjoy your “new” kitchen. Happy Summer, Kippi
This is so gorgeous! I love the Polo blue! The pulls are also so pretty! I just love everything about this! Haha!
What a great difference refacing the cabinets made. It looks fantastic.
Wow! This is a wonderful transformation. I had no idea that you could order new doors online!
Thanks so much for joining the Grace at Home party at Imparting Grace. I’m featuring you this week!
Congratulations on the Feature at To Grandma’s House We Go. I love how you kitchen turned out. You did a fabulous job. I really was shocked at the inside of your original cabinet doors. Thank you for sharing.
Very professional !!!
Gorgeous kitchen cabinet redo, but will never understand open cabinets! Who wants to see dishes, mugs, assorted bowls, spices out in the open?? UGH!!
Haha – I understand. Honestly, my decision was partially to save money! Thankfully, I can easily add doors should I change my mind since the cabinet boxes are still in tact.
Maybe you already tackled the fridge, but I know you can buy a peel & stick black chalk board surface for walls—so perhaps you could wrap the front with that instead of painting.
I love this idea – thanks!! (That project is still on my to-do list….)
Would love to know more about the Behr vs. Benjamin Moore outcomes, and how both of the paints are holding up. Thank you for posting this article. This is a project planning for at this time. Thank you!
I’m working on that post right now, and I’ll be sure to link to it in this post as soon as it’s done!
Hello!!! When buying the shaker doors did you buy them pre drilled or did you just use the previous hardware you had and drilled your own holes for screws?
Hi Mandee. I’m actually working on a post with that information right now, because I realized I left quite a bit of details out of this post that might help people with this process! I had the holes pre drilled when I ordered the doors, and bought new hardware (because I wanted to have hidden hinges rather than the ones that screwed on the front of the cabinet faces like my old ones). There is an easy to use tool that Kreg makes to easily drill the cup and dowel holes, but I was glad I ordered them pre drilled.
Your kitchen is a similar size as mine and I’m basically looking at doing the same thing–shaker cabinets, two tone, butcher block (on one side of my kitchen). What was the cost of just your shaker cabinet fronts and how many were there in total? Just trying to get a ballpark on this option. Thanks!
Hi. Good question. I had 6 drawer fronts and 12 cabinet doors and the cost of these was about $900-$1000. I ordered paint grade wood doors in Shaker style (which kept the cost down), but did have them prebore the holes which cost about $75 extra for all of the doors. I hope that helps a bit. Have fun on your project!
I am curious about your backsplash. It looks different, what did you do?
I took out the old backsplash and put up subway tile. Thankfully, subway tile is pretty inexpensive (I often see 3 x 6″ tiles on sale for $0.15 each), but if it was out of my budget, I probably would have used tile resurfacing paint to just paint the old tile.
Love the cabinent! But, I’m curious about the tile backsplash. Is that peel and stick or did you retile?
I did re-tile it with a white subway tile.
Hi, I am curious if you used a top coat on all the cabinets after you were done painting?
Hi Mikki. I didn’t use a topcoat. One of the perks of alkyd paint is that it gives a super durable finish as is!
Another question. You said you chose maple. I see where is two choices for maple. Did you use just maple or natural maple?
Hmm, I actually don’t remember. It’s the paint grade maple, so whichever of those two is less expensive is the one I picked. 🙂
I read the other comments and didn’t see anyone else mention it but it seems you also changed the countertop which really brings it all together. I’m curious where you bought that piece and the sink from. It really goes well with the polo blue on the cabinets below
Yes, you’re right. There have been two updates done to the kitchen – about 6 years ago I painted the cabinets and installed the butcher block and sink, and then 2 years ago I replaced the doors and gave it all a new paint job. The butcher block is from Menards and the sink is actually from my old house!
When you took the doors off, did you paint the Boxes (frames) or did you cover them with some sort of paneling? We have a large kitchen and I don’t want to spend 10’s of thousands replacing all of them. The cabinets look great by the way.
I painted the new doors as well as the boxes. I didn’t paint the inside of the cabinets, though, just the outside frames. Good luck on your kitchen! I’d highly recommend just replacing the doors. Saved us so much money!
Your kitchen looks amazing! What a difference new cabinet doors can make, wow!
What a wonderful job! I am so impressed. My kitchen layout is fine, but my cabinets sadden me. I cannot afford to redo the my kitchen, and I love what you have done. Thanks for sharing.
It’s definitely a more budget friendly option that redoing the entire kitchen. Or, even a coat of paint can work wonders as well!
I love that dark blue color Jenny! I’m actually using one of the “cabinet refacing services” from Google right now. It’s N-Hance of Fort Wayne, and so far they’ve been pretty great to work with. Maybe a little different than what you described above. They let you go through their shop and really pick the right look for you so it’s all customizable and then they’ll do the install once your doors are ready. I’m honestly thinking of doing a similar look to yours so I hope you don’t mind a copy cat haha. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing! This sounds like a great alternative for those that might not want to do the install themselves. I bet it’s still saving a ton over completely new cabinets!!
This is amazing! This seems much ‘easier’ and less involved than painting old cabinet doors as well. How long did this process take you (outside of waiting for them to be shipped)?
Yes, it was a pretty easy process! I’ve painted three different kitchens, and then refaced this one, and I’ll say it honestly takes about the same amount of time. When refacing, there’s extra time in drilling all the hardware holes that you wouldn’t need to do when painting old doors, but when painting old doors,there’s more prep. It maybe took 6-8 hours total to paint the frames and doors (not including dry time), and then 3-4 hours for install.
The cabinets look awesome, it was Very well done! I love how others kitchen remodeling ri decorate. Such a fresh beautiful kitchen.
Cab you do a price comparison on what the cabinet (minus any extra..like counters) resurfacing saved you over bying new cabinets. I’m at the stage of deciding what to do with mine.
Honestly, I didn’t quote out this kitchen so I can’t give an exact difference. Also, it totally depends on the type of cabinet you purchase. I’ve bought semi-custom cabinets from Menards (just made the box sizes they offer fit into my layout) which are significantly cheaper than full custom cabinets. But, if I was using those prices for this kitchen, I would say refacing was about 1/3 of the cost of replacing the full cabinets. Again, that’s a very rough estimate though.
Wow, this kitchen transformation is stunning- it doesn’t even look like the same room! I got my kitchen cabinets redone by a local cabinet refinisher last year and used a similar shaker style cabinet. I would have loved to DIY it and use your process, but I have a bad back and had to call in a company instead. Your process for cabinet refacing seems like a great alternative for people who love home projects!
Thanks for sharing, Sarah. I think hiring local companies are still a great idea. Refacing will save money over a completely new ones even if you do hire it out!
I agree Jenny! We actually just did a cabinet door replacement with our local N-Hance service, just like Sarah. We found your post a while ago and loved the two-toned look. When it came time to update our cabinet doors, we wanted to do something similar but just didn’t have the time to do it on our own. I’m all about DIY, but sometimes you just have to call in the pros.