Best Methods for Making Cabinet Doors!

When the do-it-yourself bug bites, many of us scratch the itch by looking for a project in the kitchen. Therefore, it is not surprising that the most common kitchen remodel project is installing new cabinets. While replacing cabinets is not all that difficult, replacing the doors alone often makes more sense. If you have the equipment and skills, making cabinet doors yourself as opposed to buying them makes even more sense.

The biggest pitfall to replacing cabinets is that those without extensive experience often make the mistake of thinking that you just tear out the old cabinets and screw new ones into place. More experienced hands know that the process can quickly become much more complicated, disruptive, and expensive than that.

What happens more often than not is that the homeowner finds himself sliding headfirst down a slippery slope that leads to stress, regret, and a hopelessly busted budget. Starting with the best intentions, one project invariably leads into another one until the end result is a complete kitchen replacement. Rarely do kitchen base cabinets come out without new countertops becoming part of the process. Replacing the countertop backsplash usually results in damage to the walls, which in turn, leads to drywall or tile repair and a complete new paint job. In addition, once the new countertop is down, who wants to put that ugly old sink back in place? Before it is all said and done, someone has managed to put a huge tear in the vinyl floor, which requires it to be replaced as well.

If your old cabinets are structurally sound to begin with, a less expensive option with much less potential for project creep is to simply replace the old doors with new ones.  After all, ninety percent of the visible cabinet area is the doors themselves and new doors, for all intents and purposes, equal new cabinets. Once you have decided to replace the doors, you can either measure and order new doors from a kitchen supply house or build your own.  If you are looking to spend as little as possible, MDF cabinet doors are the cheapest you can get.

If you already have a small wood shop in the basement or garage, anyone with some basic woodworking skills can undertake the job of making cabinet doors from paper plans or an internet resource. You can choose the design and materials yourself and it is a great way to personalize your kitchen. If you do not feel that you are up to the task of building the doors from scratch, consider buying stock doors and doing some custom routing work or adding an inlay pattern yourself.