Reworking kitchen cabinets

[Curtis]

Our house is 30+ years old and the kitchen cabinets are showing a good deal of wear so we've been contemplating reworking the kitchen a bit. Our cabinets were built on-site as opposed to drop in modules and looking at the construction, it looks like they are made of plywood with about 1/4" (maybe a little less) veneer glued on all of the faces. What I'm wondering is if there is some say of getting the veneer off to be replaced? If I could replace the veneer and make new doors, I could freshen things up a good deal without having to do a complete tearout and re-build (which I'm not even sure is within my capabilities and I hate to mess with the the contertop which had fresh formica put on 7 years ago).

[Swingman]

A very pracitcal approach for many.

With well built cabinets, replacing the doors and drawer fronts, and sprucing up the end panels is an excellent way to "rework" your kitchen. If you don't feel up to the job, there should be someone in your area that actually specializes in doing just that.

[Eric Johnson]

There are some tricks to breaking down old glue. DAGS for ideas. If the glue was contact cement it's there to stay. Reface 'em.

[Rkola]

The "better" refacing outfits put a 1/4" solid wood face over the existing face frames, exposed sides and bottoms. This is accompanied by new drawer faces and cabinet doors. Failry expnsive to have someone else do it, but not too difficult to do yourself, with time and the right tools/material.

[loutent]

Hi Curtis,

You might check out Rockler woodworking. There catalog shows several products that you could use to spruce them up - veneer etc.

Lou

[Pat Barber]

Look in the book for "cabinet refacing"...

or if you have the skills, get the book

either case, if your boxes are still well built, refacing is sure an option. Some folks even use laminate as the finish coat.

Curtis wrote:

[Earl Creel]

If the existing cabinets are well made a rebuild is the way to go. If are located here in the heart land of USA custom made doors in red oak or maple are available at reasonable cost. What wood is the 1/4" veneer on the face frames? 1/4" thickness gives you plenty to work with. Perhaps you can just scrape off the old finish, sand and refinish. If you want to change the wood on the face frames you may be able to remove the 1/4" layer but it may be stuck (glued) so good it will not be worth the effort. In which case I would scrape away the old finish and glue a new veneer over it.

Don't miss the opportunity to make any cabinet modifications that are needed. For example: 30 years ago microwave ovens weren't as popular as they are now. If you have one taking up space on the counter top now would be a good time to move it up and build it into the cabinets. Some older cabinets don't have good drawer slides and in some cases the drawer boxes weren't made well. If your drawer boxes are okay then reuse them but at least consider an upgrade of the drawers that get a lot of use. Earl Creel