Cabinet Renovation

[Dan Case LR]

Our home was built in the early to mid 1970's. The kitchen cabinets were built-in-place, about 99% plywood including doors and face frames, with no effort whatsoever to hide the edges. I've turned finicky as I've aged, and the exposed plywood edges are hideous to me, particularly the routing of the doors that left voids showing on the edges. The cabinets also don't have backs--the back of the cabinet is the sheetrock on the wall where they're mounted, painted brown when tyhe cabinets were finished. It's hard to believe this was considered "upscale" in the '70's!

We've been waffling around trying to decide how to best update them on our minimal budget. We've discussed replacing doors and drawers and painting them white, which may be the easiest route. I was ruminating over coffee this morning in that kitchen, and had a thought about replacing the face frames. Is this worth doing with this style of construction, or does it put me over the line where it's better to just gut it and start over?

Thanks!

D.

[Mel Fulks]

Hard to cover flaws with white and your friends will tell you they like "that retro look". I would consider a faux finish or replace all.

[Von Bickley]

Dan,

If the cabinet construction is in good condition, and you are satisfied with the layout, you could resurface your existing cabinets with 1/4" oak or cherry plywood. Then you could build or buy new cabinet doors and drawer fronts to match. This would probably be the least expensive way to have new cabinets and would be the least amount of down-time for the kitchen cabinet project.

[scott vroom]

Hi Dan,

You didn't mention if you're a wood worker and whether you have tools to build cabs/faceframes/doors/drawers. If you do have the skills/tools, then you should consider building everything new. If budget is a concern you could build the boxes with C2 maple ply and the FF/doors/drawer fronts from solid maple (or poplar which is less expensive but softer as well) and then paint it all.

On the other hand, if you don't have resources to build your own (and budget is a concern), then you could do as Von suggested and reface.

Tell us some more about yourself, and if possible post a few pics of the existing cabs.

[Todd Burch]

I have found, on site built cabinets, that as the face frame is removed, the cabinet usually comes with them. Prepare for the snowball.

My suggestion would be doors and drawer fronts, maybe drawer boxes and slides too, and leave the boxes and face frames alone, unless you also want to remodel the backsplash, countertops, sink, .... oops! There's that snowball!!

Now, if the face frames are plywood, and it where mine, I would consider adding thin solid wood edging to the exposed edges of the face frame, fill, caulk and paint.

[Tony Joyce]

Like has been said if the box construction is good and you decide to reface. You can the skin the ends with 1/4" plywood, and you can use 1/4" solid to skin the face frames so you have no exposed ply edges. If you go this route and need a source for the 1/4" solids(or plywood, or doors), shoot me a pm.

Tony

[Stephen Cherry]

Take a look at the cabinets with painted and glazed doors. Youtube has plenty of videos on this, and they look great.

[Bill ThompsonNM]

Three weeks before I sold our last house I purchased cabinet doors, end panels and stick on veneer from Scherr's cabinets. With new countertops it looked like a new kitchen. It was the same plywood face frame construction that you describe. If I wasn't selling I would have bought or built new drawer boxes that I could install slides on. As is I just replaced the fronts and installed some plastic rollers on the plywood slides. They have a website. Prices are good even with shipping since they're building them in ND. Low cost of living there I bet. And that long winter leaves lots of time for cabinets.

[Rick Potter]

Plus one on either the stick on veneer, or 1/4" plywoodfor the face frames and cases. Hard to beat for a budget redo. If you can make basic panel doors, that would look great. If not, there are a lot of door making shops around, that aren't too expensive.

Rick Potter

[William C Rogers]

Dan

My house was built in 1983. The cabinets that was installed were so-so with slab doors. They were face frame cabinets. The previous owner painted the cabinets. I decided to do the remodel as you are thinking. My goal was to replace the face frames, build new doors, and skin the exposed sides with 1/4 ply. I didn't know if the face frame would come off without the cabinet as Todd said. I did prepare myself for having to rebuild the cabinets. I took a punch to the inside of the cabinet and started tapping with a hammer and eventually separated the face frame from the box. I don't think much glue was used, but they used some sort of weird staple that was meant to stay in place. Took awhile, but I was able to remove every face frame without damaging the cabinet box. I used cherry and did some pull out and other things such as replacing the counter tops and sink. It really changed the way the kitchen looked. Below are a few before and after pictures. So it can be done, but it is not a small undertaking. I guess i spent 3-4 months, but I still work full time.

248023248024248025248026248027

[Carl Beckett]

William, that is a dramatic difference!

How long do you estimate you had in the current project?

[William C Rogers]

I thought about 4 months for the bulk of the work. My wife says more than 6 months. I had never build a face frame or cabinet door before this. I also build two new cabinets not pictured, one upper and one lower for additional space.

[Rich Engelhardt]

These were regular run of the mill birch ply/pine face frame with orange shellac when they went in in the 1950's.
Our tenant decided to strip them down and stain them. She got part way into it and quit beacuse it was too much work. We had to fix the mess she left.
Here's a before and an after.

Total budget for this, IIRC, including the new floor was about $750.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Here's a couple more - same birch ply/pine frames w/orange shellec and white paint on the before.
Different house from a few years ago.


This one was a really tough one. SWMBO gave me a budget for this that really had me scratching.
Total cost on this, including the new laminate floor and birch wainscoat was well under $500. - with the bulk of that cost being the floor and the wainscoat.



248038248039

[Dan Case LR]

Hi Dan,

You didn't mention if you're a wood worker and whether you have tools to build cabs/faceframes/doors/drawers. If you do have the skills/tools, then you should consider building everything new. If budget is a concern you could build the boxes with C2 maple ply and the FF/doors/drawer fronts from solid maple (or poplar which is less expensive but softer as well) and then paint it all.

On the other hand, if you don't have resources to build your own (and budget is a concern), then you could do as Von suggested and reface.

Tell us some more about yourself, and if possible post a few pics of the existing cabs.


Yes, I'm a woodworker, and well-equipped to build cabinets/faceframes/doors/drawers. In fact I'm building a little cabinet with 9 drawers (baltic birch and maple) as I type. it will make use of that empty spot under the table saw's extension table.

My wife's preference is for a simple shaker-style flat panel door. A pretty easy thing to build.

The current cabinet doors are routed plywood. The drawers are butt-jointed plywood, 1/2" on the sides and back, 3/4" in the front with an outer wrap of panel moulding.

Here are a few views:
248067248068248069248070

D.

[Dan Case LR]

Beautiful transformation, William!

D.

[Jim Andrew]

I used to build cabinets similar to what you described in new houses in the '70's. Customers used to prefer the built on site to the factory cabinets. Now I build in shop and hang at the job. You could face out your old cabinets with 1/4" solid and either use 1/4" plywood on the end panels or make solid wood decorative panels. Doors and drawers are the same in remodel as new. There are lots of remodelers specializing in facing out old cabinets. As far as using the wallboard for the backs, a pest control guy told me once that backs in cabinets are a real problem for him, bugs get between the wall and the back, and he can't get chemical in there to kill them.

[Mike Wilkins]

My home was built in 1985 and has the same built-in -place plywood cabinet system as yours. As a temporary spruce-up I sanded, primed, and painted the plywood cabinets several years back, and they have held up well. I have future plans to build a custom kitchen, building high quality plywood for the carcases and hardwood for the faces. About the only way to jazz up cabinets like yours is to use my method of painting, or apply some hardwood veneer to the faces and build/buy some new doors and drawer faces.