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About This Project
For about $6 per cabinet door, you can freshen up the look of your kitchen, and it won't be out of commission while you work. Put on new hinges and pulls, clean all the kitchen grime off, apply a new finish, and cut decorative grooves.
Short of a major addition, remodeling a kitchen is the most expensive home improvement project you’ll ever undertake. And by far the most expensive part of this project is replacing or refacing the cabinets -- so what’s the solution? There are millions of kitchens that could be brought out of the Dark Ages if the cabinets received new hardware, a good cleaning, a fresh finish and perhaps some creative accents.
This article will tell you how to perform this cosmetic kitchen surgery for only $6 and 30 minutes per door or drawer. For this average kitchen, the whole project took 20 hours and $250. Another benefit is that your kitchen won’t be out of commission while you work.
For this makeover, I removed and replaced all the hinges and handles, cleaned and refinished the doors, and cut and painted grooves in the faces. The plain-looking kitchen was reborn with a more stylish Craftsman appearance.
Goof-Proofing Tip:
Before you remove the doors and drawers, mark their location with a tape label and place it on the back.
How Far Should You Go?
One of the nicest features of this project is that you can take it as far as you want. For instance, you can stop after simply cleaning and refinishing the doors. On these doors, I noticed a dramatic difference simply after cleaning off 35 years of kitchen grease, grime and broken-down finish -- this cleaning made the wood grain reappear after years in hiding. The wood grain stood out even more after the finish coats were applied. However, the birch plywood doors on these cabinets have a very subtle grain
pattern, unlike oak or ash, so I decided they needed more drama and added the painted grooves for contrast. Your doors may not need that extra help. Or maybe you can develop your own groove pattern.
I replaced the old hinges on these cabinets with new self-closing ones. Self-closing hinges are convenient and less obtrusive. They also let you toss all those old door catches that get in the way when you use your cabinets.
Choosing New Hardware
Goof-Proofing Tip:
You can also fill the old hinge and knob holes using wax sticks. It’s easier to fill a hole level with wax and you won’t need to spot-finish afterward. However, wax sticks come in only eight colors and you can’t blend them for an exact match.
The kind of doors you have will dictate your hinge choice. The doors you see here, very common on older standard cabinets, have a 3/8-in. rabbeted inset with a 3/8-in. overlay. This type of door makes using a completely concealed hinge problematic, if not impossible. So, I chose face-mounted hinges made for an inset door. To make the face-mounted hinges less obtrusive, I used black lines and black knobs, plus a hinge color that blends with the wood. This method works because the black details draw attention away from the hinges. Face-mounted hinges are available at home centers and lumberyards for $3 a pair.
If your doors don’t have the routed inset, but instead have a partial or full overlay, you’ll use a different type of hinge. You may want to use a concealed, cup-style hinge that mounts to the cabinet’s interior. These hinges cost $5 to $8 a pair and are available at lumberyards and woodworking stores. They require some special tools and are harder to install than face-mounted hinges, but they’re a good option if you want a higher-quality, adjustable hinge.
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