Refacing Kitchen cabinets

Dan Thibert

Member
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183
Location
Leominster Mass
Now that I am a master woodworker :rofl: I would like to tackle refacing my kitchen cabinets. I was not sure what style I was going to do this in till I noticed at breakfast this morning that I liked the doors and drawers on the hutch we have in the kitchen and thought, why don't we have them match :D

It looks like they are a simple frame using a tongue and grove with a center piece made of 3/4 wood routed down at the edges to 1/4 to fit into the frame.

I can sort of guess how I am going to do this and I know there is going to be some trial and lots of error to get it right :eek:

Looks like I will need to join pieces together to make the panels for the doors and without a jointer or planner it will be more difficult but not impossible.

My question is what would be the best wood to use. I would like a wood that would be easy to work with but would also stand up. The cabinets do not take to much abuse. Also looking for a wood that would be fairly inexpensive, but I do not want to be cheap with it either since we will be looking at them every day.

Your help would be much appreciated.
Dan
 
well are you looking at refaceing or replacing the doors? and if your replacing then once figure in your materials and time,, you might be further ahead to buy ready made doors there are many companys that sell just doors and drawers for this reason.. but if time is no object and the dollars are good then by all means make your own..as for what to use that is a question that only you and your better half can answer.. we the members here all have differnt tastes and may not be the same as yours or hers:D:thumb:
 
I suppose some of the answer depends on what finish you want. Are the hutch doors painted, stained, or finished natural? If painting, i'd go with a close grained stable wood such as poplar for the frames and a birch plywood for the panels. Of course, if the panels are raised panels instead of flat panels, plywood won't work. If they're raised panels and you'll be painting them, you might consider something like mdo or mdx (waterproof mdf). It machines and takes paint quite well. It's also dimensionally stable, so you won't need to deal with seasonal expansion/contraction.
If you're staining or finishing the doors naturally, why not match the wood of the hutch doors? For flat panel doors, you can generally order plywood with the top veneer in a variety of choices - oak, clear pine, birch, maple, cherry, etc.
If you really want the doors to match the hutch doors, your answer may be staring right back at you.
If you're staining the wood, i'd recommend buying an extra length of the wood to do a series of test samples - trying different combinations of stains and finishes until you get one you feel works the best with the existing doors.
Have fun with it.
I had planned on doing the same until i realized how cheap and deteriorated my kitchen cabinets are. There's no saving the partical board boxes. They were cheaply made, badly installed, and abused. I'm toying with having new custom boxes made at a local cabinet shop while i make the fronts myself.
Keep us updated on this project - should be fun to follow.
paulh
 
Replacing, I do not know all the lingo :rofl:

I know I can buy ready made doors, but they would not be my own, that would not be a a project to work on.

There is no rush I figure I can work on a couple of doors at a time and even if it takes months no big deal. Money is an issue with us right now but I would think that if I use something like Poplar the cost would remain low. I have about 20 or so doors and 7 drawer faces. There are several different sizes so I may work on one size at a time so I can cut them together!

I will have to figure out a better finish since I am not to happy with the water based poly I have been using. The hutch doors are stained. Maybe the Danish oil I have been hearing about? Not sure where I would get it though :huh:

Would Poplar be a good wood to use, it seems reasonably priced and easy to work with?
 
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The doors are raise not flat. Of course I do not have to match the hutch exactly I could match the frame and its routered edge with a flat plywood insert? That woudl be alot easier and less expensive and still look good?
 
can you get us a pic of what you have and then we could do better in making suggestions popular isnt much for staining in my opinion its more paint grade lumber and in some places its not cheap. where as the oak or cherry or maple is more the norm for cab doors.
 
My wife said she will take a couple fo pics this afternoon and I will post them. I thought about it this morning and quickly forgot, it is tough getting old :huh:
 
Dan

This is the cabinet I built for my Dad to go over his washer & dryer it has frame & panel doors the are made of red alder with a 1/4" birch panels. I used a table-saw, jointer, planer & shaper. I don't envy you trying to make doors like this without any one of these tools these were my first doors of this type & even with the right tools it was a struggle with many mistakes. With out the proper tooling I would probably buy the doors. Balance out the costs of a jointer, planer & if you don't have one a router table against the cost of buying the doors.
 

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My wife took the pics, here they are.

She took two pics of the hutch and one of the current doors on our cabinets.

Thanks
Dan
 

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My wife took the pics, here they are.

She took two pics of the hutch and one of the current doors on our cabinets.

Thanks
Dan

The doors in your pix are red oak, and the finish looks to be a natural oil-based finish - something like a clear oil-based varnish or poly. There might be a 'golden oak' stain under the varnish/poly, just to even out the coloring.

To match/approximate the raised panels, you'll need a router bit - and a router table. For economy's sake, take a look at the profiles available on the MLCS site. They're pretty good bits, and priced lower than Freud, CMT, etc. They're not production shop bits, but for a single kitchen job, they're great.
 
The doors in your pix are red oak, and the finish looks to be a natural oil-based finish - something like a clear oil-based varnish or poly. There might be a 'golden oak' stain under the varnish/poly, just to even out the coloring.

To match/approximate the raised panels, you'll need a router bit - and a router table. For economy's sake, take a look at the profiles available on the MLCS site. They're pretty good bits, and priced lower than Freud, CMT, etc. They're not production shop bits, but for a single kitchen job, they're great.

They are about half the price of freud, cmt and IMHO the same quality. My wife bought me a cabinetmakers 6 piece set for $120. I've completed 2 projects with them and they are still just as sharp as when she bought them. Plus the shipping is FREE:thumb:.
 
Looks like red oak with a honey oak finish. In the kitchen, i'd really recommend a poly finish because of the proximity to water.
Poplar won't finish anything like the hutch doors. It has a wide color variation and a very different grain pattern. With a LOT of work, you may be able to get a similar color on the lighter areas of wood. The dark streaks will be another matter.
About the poly, i've not used the water based. I'm not very happy with oil based right out of the can so i thin it down and apply a couple of extra coats. It works well for me.
You can make raised panels on a table saw. You can cut the dados in the door frames with the table saw. If you have a hand plane, you can flatten and join reasonably good stock without much headache. Then you mentioned easing the frame edges with a router. Sounds like you have everything you need, though if you could pick up a decent used 4" jointer, it would make your life a lot easier preparing the door frame stock and panel segments for glueing up the door panels.
I see them regularly for less than a C-note (often much less).
Good luck with it,
paulh
 
dan, I dont know where you live, but youre more than welcome if youre somewhere in the northeast and want to get alot of stock edge jointed and face jointed, youre more than welcome to contact me and use my jointer if you can get it here.
 
They are glued, how do I pull it apart in one piece:huh: I could probably get it apart in 100 pieces :eek:

You could do like the folks did that made the cabinets in my house: Not leave enough space for the panel to expand when it gets humid. The doors will gladly bust apart all on their own! :) :)

I've got 4 or 5 cabinets doors that are literally busting apart at the seams because the panel was cut to big. One of them got to be so bad that I went ahead and pulled it apart (only lose an inch or so of the back of the stile that I removed), cut about a 1/4" off 2 ends of the panel then glued it back up again.

If you want to make doors just like the ones in the pictures you'll also need a rail and stile set. You can get them as a single combined bit. I've not used the single bit but I think it's a bit less expensive than buying 2 separate bits. A less expensive alternative that looks almost as good is to butt joint the rails and stiles using pocket screws to hold them together. You can route the inside edges first to get something of a profile there. I've never made a door that way but I have experimented with it and it worked OK.
 
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