No matter how expensive or contemporary the cabinets, someday they will seem outdated. Perhaps they do. Possibly a busy household has left its mark on the cabinetry. Dents and gouges, stains and missing hardware, and normal wear and tear leave the cabinets and drawers looking tired and old. You don't need to spend a fortune to upgrade your cabinetry are you stuck with what you've got. Forget painting or refinishing and sanding. Try refacing.
What's Cabinet Refacing?
Cabinet refacing -- sometimes known as resurfacing -- strips the doors, doors, and hardware in the present cabinets. After that, a new"skin" (really timber veneer) is placed on the old"bones" (the cabinet base, together with the old face still attached) prior to replacing the removed items. The result: new-looking cabinets in a fraction of the price tag. That is not the only benefit to refacing cabinets, either. Think about the benefits and the pitfalls:
Benefits -- Realistically, you've got three choices. Using veneer often gives the best choice, however. Consider the benefits that your customers will see:
Save money.
Enjoy being"green" By salvaging the cabinet bases, you stop plenty of stuff from taking space in a landfill. Even water is absorbed to make new cabinets.
Eliminates hassle. Ripping out old cabinets is not exactly fun, and you must worry about damaging the wall and flooring. Installing new cabinets is a much greater pain. Refacing cabinets eliminates all the work.
Refacing requires less time. You can probably do it in a day or two, depending upon your own ability and the size of your cabinetry. Better still, you can use your kitchen throughout the procedure. Replacing cabinets generates more mess and leaves you waiting for the job to be accomplished.
Disadvantages -- Nothing is perfect. Considering all the benefits which refacing offers, there are still drawbacks.
It does not allow for rearranging the kitchen. Refacing will create the cabinets look better, but it will not fix a lousy workflow design.
It's frequently regarded as a cheap, fake sheathing applied to poor furniture commonly made from particle board. It might surprise you to know what types of veneer, which is an ultra-thin sheet of genuine wood, were preferred and adorned at least as far back as in the royal courts of the Renaissance (and appeared in King Tut's tomb as well).
Unlike older veneers, contemporary veneers (from around the 1970s on) aren't appropriate for sanding or refinishing. When held up to the light most veneer now is practically translucent, with a depth of approximately 1/64 of an inch. Whether covering solid wood or particle board, it enables manufacturers to maintain the furniture is wood.
When choosing veneer for cabinets, encourage your customers to shop around. You can locate veneer in a broad selection of woods, whether hardwoods or soft, from oak, cherry, and walnut to mahogany, bamboo, or eucalyptus. Needless to say, some woods are more expensive than others, so keep your budget in mind.
Choose between buying veneer and glue separately, purchasing a kit, or getting pressure-sensitive veneer instead. Veneer and conventional adhesives are the toughest to use. Pressure-sensitive veneer is a bit simpler -- the trick is in understanding that it sticks to whatever it touches. A steady hand, plenty of patience and an eye for detail is crucial when refacing cabinets.
The best thing about using a veneer kit is that which is supplied. Not only is every kit sized to pay a particular quantity of cabinetry, it features a veneer cutter, a scraper, tack cloths, and whatever else you will need to install the veneer correctly. Veneer kits also include detailed diagrams and instructions. For best results, select the thickest veneer potential. Additionally, it will enable little touchups in certain circumstances and is just as simple to install.
From the time you're finished with your job, your cabinets will look new... Chances are, nobody will believe they are not.