Refacing and Redesigning Kitchen Cabinets



Posted: Friday, January 11, 2008

by
studiok

Nowadays we live a dynamic life which unfortunately becomes more and more expensive. Newspaper and money magazine articles constantly urge us to make the smart money decisions. Among those are renovation projects around the house which actually bring back a return in house value. Current market research shows that a renovated kitchen or bathroom returns the favor once the house is put on the market. However, those renovations become really costly. According to Remodeling Magazine's 2006 Cost vs. Value report, an average kitchen renovation recoups 80.4% of its cost.

One way to save money on kitchen or bathroom renovation projects is to reface the cabinets instead of replace them with new ones. Market estimates show that the cost for cabinet replacing for a small 30-40 year old kitchen can easily go up to $25,000-30,000. The same studies show that cabinet refacing saves customers half of that investment. And, if it is done right, the two are virtually indistinguishable. Another pro for cabinet refacing is that in many older homes the existing rugged cabinets are still of better quality than what the market currently offers.

There are a lot of different materials that we can use for cabinet refacing and redesign nowadays. That gives us the chance to individualize and personalize any project. The variety of materials which can be used on both the cabinet frames and the doors and drawer fronts includes the well-known laminates, traditional veneers and solid wood, as well as exotic veneers, copper and aluminum laminates. Those let us direct any project to the personal taste of the customer. When we start a kitchen cabinet refacing project we try to find the best choice of materials depending on customer demands. We try to keep the individual character of the project and match our customers' needs. My favorite kitchen cabinet refacing and redesigning materials are the exotic veneers like crotch mahogany, mappa burl, rosewood, etc. From them I create panels which I later install on the kitchen cabinet frames.

In refacing and redesigning kitchen cabinets we also have a large choice of new doors and drawer fronts for the kitchen cabinets. The traditional styles include Shaker, Classic, Roman and American arched doors; the modern European styles involve seamless doors and creative use of non-traditional materials. When we start a kitchen cabinet refacing job we take into account the style and color palette of the whole house. We very often match the color and style of the doors and drawer fronts to the existing furniture in the house.

In most cases it is possible that the new doors will come with the new hidden hinges and the choices of pulls and handles are practically unlimited these days.

Some people like traditional materials like veneer, others like plastic laminates that look like wood, yet others like copper. We can mix and match materials to achieve special accents in those special, most visible places. This way we create a kitchen with a personal style and we get unique results for what the customers want. So it is possible to create a custom project out of any refacing project. What we do very often looks like a piece of art, not just a simple cabinet reface.

Author; Ilia Kurktchiev,

Studio K

Studio-rfc.com

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