Painting Kitchen Cabinets: Lipstick on a…?

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Painting kitchen cabinets is a staple of an HGTV, budget-friendly, kitchen makeover. And while I love HGTV, I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of painting kitchen cabinets. There is a time and place where it makes sense, but it’s not as durable or as easy to do as you might think.

Is it worth it to paint your cabinets? It might not be as durable or as easy as you think.

When Does Painting the Kitchen Cabinets make sense?

If you plan on staying in your home less than 5 years, it might be a good solution.

Even if you have the work professionally done and the cabinets are properly sanded, primed and several thin coats of a premium grade cabinet paint are applied, you’re still looking at a useful life of about 5 years. If you plan on moving before that, then painting the cabinets might be a good fix.

if you’re going for a “shabby chic” look

If you paint the cabinets a base color,  topcoat with a different color and sand and scrape the corners and edges to allow the base to show through you can achieve a worn, vintage look. The advantage to this is when you get the inevitable scrapes and dings, it just looks better.

In a lake house or weekend cottage

The kitchen in a weekend getaway home doesn’t see the daily use that your main home does, so painted kitchen cabinets will hold up longer than they will in your main home.

When is Painting Kitchen Cabinets a Bad Idea?

If you’re a neat freak

It doesn’t matter if the paint can says it’s scrubbable. The kitchen cabinets get more use than any other woodwork in he house. Weekly wiping, cleaning and scrubbing will take it’s toll after a few years.

if you plan on being in your home for more than 5 years

With a 5 year or longer time frame, painting kitchen cabinets is a chore you’ll have to repeat again and again. And whatever you do, don’t even think about installing granite countertops on painted cabinets or you’ll be locked into the repaint cycle for a very long time.

Painting Kitchen Cabinets: Factory Finish vs. Repainted

After all this discussion about the pitfalls of painted cabinets, does the same hold true for factory-finished painted cabinets? In a word – no. The process that is used in a modern cabinetmaking facility can’t be duplicated in a local shop. One of my favorite cabinet component suppliers, Walzcraft Industries in LaCrosse, WI achieves their solid color finish with a catalyzed conversion varnish with an integral pigment applied on a state-of-the-art finishing line and UV cured to a hardness that just isn’t achievable with a solvent based finish.

So if you’re moving, have a weekend cottage or like the shabby, vintage look – painting kitchen cabinets might be a good idea. But if you like neat and clean and plan on staying for awhile, put down the paint brush.

-JP

Kitchen Cabinet Refacing: Pros and Cons

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Back in the early 80’s, my parents undertook a kitchen cabinet refacing project. I remember the contractor from Sears came out, sanded the old cabinets and glued down some sort of plastic laminate on the cabinet boxes.  The contact cement he used made the whole house smell like an airplane-glue factory for a week.  After he was finished, we were the proud owners of a new kitchen with white laminate doors and faux wood-grain sides and backs.

 The New Face of Kitchen Cabinet Refacing

Over the past 30 years, a lot has changed in the world of refacing. There are still companies out there gluing down plastic laminate and installing faux wood-grain doors, but using solid wood products has become the preferred method today. So I’m going to focus on refacing with real wood and talk about the different methods that are used and the pros and cons of each.

Covering the Cabinet Boxes and Frames

After the cabinet doors have been removed, we’re left with the cabinet boxes. The boxes need to be covered to match the finish on the new doors that will be installed later. Our options for covering the boxes are to use a veneer, plywood or slices of solid wood.

Veneer is probably the most common. A veneer sheet is an extremely thin slice of real wood, less than 1 millimeter thick. Sometimes it comes from the factory with an adhesive and paper backing already applied. The cabinet refacer only has to cut it to size, peel off the paper backing and press it in place – just like applying a sticker. The advantage to this method is that it’s relatively quick and easy to do. (If you’re considering kitchen cabinet refacing as a DIY project, this is the most ‘user friendly’ method. The main disadvantage to refacing with veneer is that the adhesive used to attach it can fail. I’ve been out to redo cabinets and have been able to peel of the veneer in sheets like wallpaper. I’m not saying that all veneers fail – but there is that potential, especially in areas that are subject to a lot of heat and steam.

Plywood is another alternative. Prefinished pieces of 1/8″ or 1/4″ plywood are attached to the cabinet boxes with adhesive and usually with a pin nailer. Plywood will stay in place. The only problem is that the cut edges of plywood don’t look very nice. If the plywood is cut into strips to cover the cabinet frames, the exposed edges look rough. But on cabinet sides, plywood is the best option for sure.

kitchen cabinet refacing toolCovering the face frames is the tricky part of a kitchen cabinet refacing project. The best way to go about this is to use thicker slices of real wood. If the thickness is between 1/8″ and 1/4″, the material can be held in place with pin nails as well as adhesive and won’t be prone to blister or bubble like a veneer. It can be quite time consuming to custom trim each piece to form a tight joint, but the payoff will be a more durable, better looking kitchen cabinet refacing project.

 

Kitchen Remodeling Costs

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Time for an upgrade – how much does it cost to update a kitchen?

So you’ve finally had it with the Whitewashed Oak cabinets and chipped Formica counters in your 1990’s-era kitchen. It’s time for an upgrade so you go to check out  kitchen remodeling costs at the displays in the ‘big box’ stores. There’s a price tag of $9500 on some nice-looking cherry cabinets on the display. That doesn’t sound too bad, so you sit down with the store salesperson and 27 computer printouts later you start to understand why the average mid-grade kitchen remodeling project cost is $57,494. according to Remodeling Magazine’s 2012 Cost vs. Value Report (The average “upscale” kitchen remodeling cost comes in at an equity-draining $110.938!)

How does the cost get so high, so fast? Just remember the acronym, CASF. (I wish I could make a memorable word out of that). It stands for Cabinets, Appliances, Surfaces (counters, floors and backsplashes) and Fixtures (sink, faucet, lighting, etc.).

Let’s start with the cabinets. The price on the display at the Big Box is for an ” L” shaped 10×10 kitchen, with about 16 lineal feet of cabinetry.  Unfortunately,an average-sized kitchen is closer to 200 square feet, with about 30 lineal feet of cabinets, with an island or a peninsula. The nice cabinets on the display will actually cost 18,500 for your kitchen. And that price means the cabinets are sitting in boxes in your garage, uninstalled.

Next come the appliances. The stark white refrigerator, cooktop, dishwasher and oven looked okay with the old oak cabinets. Not so much with the new cherry. You don’t need a huge “restaurant grade” range – (who does?) but you want some quality appliances in stainless. $7000 later, you’re all set, with appliances befitting your new kitchen.

You’ll want to top those new cabinets with a solid surface countertop. You opt for a quartz top with a bullnose edge and a finished sink cut-out for an undermount sink. Total cost: $5500.  Taking up the ceramic tile floor and having hardwood professionally installed tacks another $5000 to your ‘surfaces’ cost.

Finally you have the ‘fixtures’. Stainless steel undermount sink, single-handle brushed nickel faucet, pendant lights over the island plus the labor to install them: $2000.

So our kitchen remodeling costs come out to:

Cabinets: $18,500
Appliances: $7000.
Surfaces: $10,500
Fixtures: $2000.

Total: $38,000.

That’s a lot of money, but we got it done for a lot less than the national average. Except for one thing…our cabinets are still sitting in boxes in the garage.

Cabinet installation, including moldings, end panels and toe kicks add about 50% to the cost of the cabinets. Even more if you have existing cabinets in place that need to be removed and discarded. Adding a few pullout shelves, a couple of glass doors and, of course, the cabinet hardware, put the installed price of the cabinets at 28,500. Quite a jump from the 9500 on the store tag.

So including installation of our new cabinets, our project cost for a nice mid-sized kitchen overhaul comes in at $48,000. All this assumes that our kitchen remodeling project doesn’t have any expensive surprises. ( “Ma’am, the subfloor under the refrigerator is pretty well rotted.)

But let’s not end this on a discouraging note. There are ways to make your kitchen an asset and still be able to send your kids to college. I’ve become a big fan of solid wood cabinet refacingto keep the kitchen remodeling costs under control.

In addition, in my experience, coordinating your kitchen  project with a smaller cabinet shop instead of a big box will usually result in better service and, maybe a little surprisingly, lower costs.

-JP

 

Replace Cabinets Without Replacing Countertops?

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Can you replace cabinets without replacing countertops? Let’s say you got rid of your old laminate countertops and installed some beautiful Emerald Pearl granite. You really love the way the iridescent flecks in the granite catch the light. Your old oak cabinets, however, now look even more hideous by comparison. Now what? Can the granite be re-used on new cabinets?

Not likely.

The slabs (which may weigh several hundred pounds each) have probably been joined at the seams with an epoxy product, as well as a silicone adhesive attaching them to the base cabinets. You may find a contractor willing to attempt a slab removal – but you will almost certainly have to sign off that they can’t be responsible if and when the slab cracks.

So do you bite the bullet and discard a few thousand dollars worth of granite? No, you have options. One option is painting the cabinets. But this option is less than ideal. If you have oak cabinets, the bold grain of the oak will telegraph through the painted finish no matter what sort of primer you use. It’s okay for a quick facelift, but painted oak cabinets almost  always have an amateur DIY look to them. In addition, you’re still stuck with the same door style, even if you paint them a different color.

A better option is refacing. I’m not talking about that RTF,  faux wood-grain stuff that your parents did to their kitchen back in the 80’s, but honest-to-goodness solid wood doors, drawer fronts and cabinet box covering.

A solid-wood cabinet refacing job can give you the cabinet upgrade that you want without having to discard your granite countertops.

 

Removing Soffits Above Kitchen Cabinets – Worth It?

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Many kitchens that I’m called in to evaluate have a 12″ drywall soffit above standard 30″ wall cabinets. When people are considering kitchen remodeling one of the first questions they have is if it’s worth removing the soffits above the kitchen cabinets and installing tall 42″ cabinets.  The obvious, and biggest potential problem lies in the fact that behind the soffits may lie plumbing, ductwork and electrical conduit. Wiring isn’t too hard to deal with, but if ducts or pipes are located behind the soffit – I don’t think the payoff of 42″ cabinets justifies the hassle and expense of relocating them. One way (the only way I know of) to investigate what lies behind the soffits is to cut an access hole large enough to place a light inside the soffit and reach inside with a mirror, (or cut it large enough to stick your head in the hole – just be careful not to loose your footing!)

If you find the coast is clear, it’s much simpler, of course. But you will still have to deal with demo, drywall, taping, mudding, sanding, (repeat 2x) priming and painting.

If you have your heart set on the elegant look of tall cabinets but have decided it isn’t worth removing the kitchen soffits, this approach might interest you:

I refaced these oak cabinets with a prefinished maple and used the same material to cover the soffits. The crown molding at the ceiling completed the look.

So unless you’ve decided that your kitchen project is going to be a complete tear-it-down-to-the-studs overhaul  – I’d recommend keeping the soffits above the cabinets. Removing them is a lot of extra work for a little reward.