copyright © 2002 Jackie Mulrooney

Part I: Evaluating the Cabinets at Hand

Perhaps you have a 1970s kitchen and the cabinets are a real eyesore. The dark brown color is depressing and makes the room look smaller than it is. The countertop is scratched, stained, or an unbearable color. All in all, it screams "Order take out! Nobody sane would cook here." Is it possible to save $5,000 to $15,000 by giving your kitchen a new look and saving your cabinets? Thinking through a kitchen remodeling project or a kitchen update for an old house is not a trivial task. (We'll assume that you want the kitchen to match the style of the house and that you would not even think of installing a plastic Euro kitchen in your 1920 colonial. The mere thought makes me shudder. )Let's explore the issues involved in making a decision to save or not to save your cabinets. In this part, we'll look at the process of evaluating your cabinet situation; in the next issue, we'll talk about how to refinish or repaint your cabinets.

As with any other old house project, the budget decisions you make should be based on how much you want to spend and exactly what you want to change. The question to answer is, "Can you afford new cabinets or should you try to save the existing ones?" The cabinets represent a major portion of a kitchen remodeling budget, and many of the others elements of the kitchen interact with the cabinets and affect, and are affected by, the cabinets. If you can eliminate the expense of new cabinets, you may be able to cut your remodeling costs in half. To be honest, most of the time it is better to replace the cabinets. If this is not affordable, there are at least four options if your cabinets are of a good quality and in good condition.

Ask yourself which do you have more of, money or time? If you have good quality solid wood cabinets, you can save a lot of money by stripping and refinishing them yourself. But it does take time and effort. Alternatively you can hire someone to come to your house to strip and finish them. This can cost a few thousand dollars so make sure first that either you really love the cabinets, you are saving them for historical purposes, or that there is no chance of buying new ones in the near future. A third option is to send your doors and drawers out to a shop to be stripped and then strip and sand the frames yourself. If you do not have solid wood cabinets and stripping is not an option, a fourth option is to have someone reface the cabinets with new veneer and replace the doors. In any case, the crucial factors are the condition and construction of your current cabinets.

Saving the cabinets may also eliminate the major expense of a new floor. If you change where the cabinets or appliances are, the floor might need to change as well. The cost of changes adds up quickly. To keep costs down, change as little as possible. If the result of keeping everything the same as possible is terribly boring and no more aesthetically pleasing or functional, some changes should be made. Confusion is often the result at this stage. In fact there is so much to think about, an initial consultation with a kitchen designer is often a must.

But a word of caution is needed here. Many people who refer to themselves as kitchen designers are, in reality, just retail sales people. They may enthusiastically push you into the latest and greatest kitchen fads which are uproariously expensive and totally unnecessary. Do you really need a 36 inch professional gas range? Do you really need a $4500 Sub Zero refrigerator? Unless you are running a French restaurant out of your home, I doubt it. If the good old Amana refrigerator is still hanging in there, keep it. If all you want is another new 30 inch range similar to your old one, you can always get it next year. Spread your expenses over two to five years if possible.

Current remodeling trends dictate that if you are redoing the whole kitchen, the appliances are picked out before a new cabinet layout is done so that the new sizes of refrigerators or stoves will fit. If you are saving the cabinets, you should plan for any new appliances to fit in the existing cabinet layout. If you are getting new appliances, make sure that you measure the openings between the cabinets before buying the appliances. Measure the height, width and depth of your current openings for the range, range hood, and refrigerator. Write them down and put them in your wallet so you will have it when you go shopping. (Note: the vast majority of dishwashers are a standard 24" wide. Some are easier to connect if they are to the left of a sink and others are easier to connect when on the right side of a sink. Buy the model that will be easier to install. Unless you have both electrical and plumbing skills do not install a dishwasher yourself.)

First determine if your cabinets are worth saving. The best candidates for saving are solid wood cabinets. Don't be fooled by wooden doors, though. Often, the doors are solid wood but the boxes made out of particle board and might bow or collapse if they get wet or if a new heavy countertop like granite is installed on them. (If you have to have granite or slate, you had better go with new and strong cabinets.) If you are not sure what you've got, the best person to ask is someone who strips cabinets or a local reliable kitchen contractor. Make sure you talk to the actual contractor and not the sales person. Alternatively, someone who refaces cabinets and puts on new doors can shed some light on your situation. Talk with enough people so that you are confident about what you've got structurally.

Drawer construction often offers clues to the cabinet quality. Pull out a cabinet drawer and look at the sides. If you see side-mounted rails or stapled drawer sides, it is not a good sign. You probably have a low quality box. If you see dove tailed drawers and under-mounted drawer rails it is cause for hope. Wiggle a drawer when it is pulled out. Is it too loose? Can it still hold the weight needed? If you have a really old kitchen (before 1950), your drawer boxes may be all wood with no drawer slides at all. That also is a good sign because if they are solid wood then they can be stripped. If the doors have been painted, take one to a furniture stripper and see what it looks like after stripping. You may have a lovely old oak door which can be stained. If you don't like the result, you can always paint over it again.

Once you have assessed the drawer construction, look at the interior condition of the base and upper cabinets. Let's say that they all look good except for the cabinet under the sink. If the bottom shelf is rotting from water damage or stained from leaking bottles of cleaners, the bottom of the cabinet can be replaced with a piece of plywood from a local hardware store. Measure the existing wood with a metal tape. Also measure the exact locations of the holes for the pipes and draw a picture of the board with the measurements noted on paper. Measure it again the next day and compare the accuracy.

Now when I did this for my sink cupboard, I did not even own a saw. I knew nothing about carpentry. What drove me forward was the burning need for a clean kitchen. New cabinets were not even an option for me, especially when I found out that cabinet installation was going to cost another couple thousand, on top of the cost of the cabinets themselves. So I forged ahead into uncharted waters. I figured that the worst that could happen is that I would ruin a $4 piece of plywood. Fortunately the store cut the plywood to size for me. They even cut out notches for the plumbing. I removed the old rotted board with a hammer. To my delight, my careful measurements paid off and the new plywood fit like a glove. Before permanently putting it in place, I primed and stained it. Two coats of polyurethane went on to keep it looking new. (Don't skip these steps or the plywood will warp and separate.)

One last thing to check is the condition of the door hinges. Do you have broken hinges? Also, find out if hardware stores still sell new ones in the same style. Take a door off, remove the hinge and take the hinge along with you. I found out that my 1975 hinges were no longer made. After some searching I fortunately found a local family-owned hardware store that still had them in stock. Or perhaps you can pick some up from a neighbor at a garage sale. The longer you have had an old house, the more accustomed you become to doing your hardware shopping at antique stores and flea markets. Look up architectural antique stores in your yellow pages or on-line for more sources.

If you can't decide whether to save the cabinets or buy new ones, move your research ahead by pricing new cabinets. Look in the yellow pages under "Kitchens." Visit at least four show rooms. Most cabinet retailers will send someone out to measure your kitchen and give you a ball park estimate for free. Before they come, think of adding some decorative touches to the cabinets such as fluted columns, dentil or rope moldings, or mullion glass doors. These extras are well worth the price for an old house look. In order to get an estimate you will have to go to their show room to pick out a door style. If you can afford the $6,000 to $20,000 cost for your dream cabinets, and the neighborhood is worth investing in, go ahead and replace them.

In most cabinet lines there are three price levels: stock cabinets, semi-custom, and custom. Warning: if you are trying to create a true period look with new stock cabinets, you are in for a real challenge. Moving to semi-custom cabinets can increase the price by 50%. Moving to custom cabinets with the old look you really want can easily triple that cost. The exception would be to create a period look with shaker style doors, which are readily available in stock lines and are relatively inexpensive. Just remember you are also going to have to buy a new counter, sink, faucet, and maybe a new floor. Now add in the cost of the contractor installing all of that. You are now probably in the $15,000 to $35,000 budget range. Gasp!

At this point depression can set in. Your already taxed brain starts to spin from the realization that the kitchen you really want is voraciously consuming all of your financial resources and then some. You have four options: 1. Go with a less expensive cabinet and try to dress them up with upgrades like wood trim and glass doors. 2. Marry a wealthy kitchen contractor. 3. Go live in a kitchen showroom. 4. Refinish your cabinets.

I will wait here until you pick one of the four. Ready? Is it number four? (Choice three is my favorite.) OK, you are smart enough not to go into debt for a new dream kitchen. You are also lucky enough to have something worth saving. For most people debt is not a sensible decision. Ignore all those sales people telling you that, "You might as well get what you really want!" "What I really want," I say to myself, "is to stay out of debt and to get rid of all these kitchen sales people."

Aim for a functional, attractive, and clean kitchen. Save money by keeping whatever is not an eyesore and still works. Maybe the floor has to go, or maybe one old appliance needs to go. Hopefully you can save the cabinets and just put in a new countertop. Ceramic countertops cost much less than Corian, slate, soapstone, or granite and will look appropriate in an old 1920s kitchen. In fact they can cost only a bit more than Formica countertops. Now that you have returned both to sanity and a view of your financial future unobstructed by rabid kitchen sales people, in the next issue, we'll see how we can finish those cabinets while staying within a manageable budget.

About the Author: Jackie Mulrooney has been restoring old houses since 1986. The job discussed in the article was for a 1975 townhouse. Although not a professional contractor she has bravely fought her way through many "potential disasters" over the last 16 years. She is currently working on a kitchen make over for a 100 year old Virginia farmhouse. This is her first submission to Old House Chronicles.