There comes a point when your kitchen just looks dated and needs a makeover. The most obvious place to start is with the kitchen cabinets. Just making some changes to the cabinets will transform the kitchen and make it look brand new. This can all be done yourself with a bit of elbow grease and the right strategy.
You don’t even need to do a total kitchen remodel to make it look brand new. With a cabinet update, you can freshen up the style, and give yourself more storage space. If your kitchen is lacking space for things, then start looking at your cabinets to solve the problem.
In this article, we will give you several tips that you can use to take care of your cabinet issues yourself.
Replace them yourself
There are some types of cabinets that aren’t going to respond well to being painted, stained, or covered up somehow. These are the ones that should just be replaced. Luckily, you can buy ready to assemble cabinets from suppliers like Kitchen Cabinet Depot that can be installed easily even if you aren’t very handy.
The old ones can be sold for a bit of money on places like Craigslist no matter how old they are. As long as they are in working condition you will get some money for them. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, after all.
This gives you an opportunity that you don’t get if you simply paint or redo the cabinets you have. You can get a lot more space to use for things like small kitchen appliances and dishes for storage when you buy new ones.
Some older cabinets are also very narrow so adding new ones in the space that you have can still give you more space than you had before.
Stain them
If you have old cabinets that would be nice since the style still works, then you can strip and stain them and they will look brand new. Often, old cabinets made by hand have a lasting appeal and really should be kept. However, old ones typically have been painted over many times over the years and badly need to look updated. This is where staining comes in handy since it brings them back to their former glory. The best part is that it costs a fraction of what you would spend on buying new cabinets.
First, you need to use some paint stripper to get those layers of paint off. If it is just one or two layers then you may be able to use a heat gun and scraper to remove it quickly. Once the paint is off then you need to choose a stain.
The most popular right now is one step stain and finish. It is the easiest to apply and fast to finish since it does two steps in one. Usually, the effect is something like natural wood in various shades. You can make it look like cherry or walnut if you like dark finishes, for example. Or, light ones like pine and maple could work.
