Update the Tired Look of Your Kitchen with New Cabinet Doors

Published: December 17, 2020

Sleek Modern Shaker Panel Cabinet Doors and Drawer Fronts

Since we've all been stuck at home for most of the year and in turn you've probably been spending a lot more time in your kitchen. With all this extra time you're spending in the kitchen you've probably started to notice more and more things you don't like or want to change.

Replacing your Cabinet Doors

When you look around your kitchen the first thing you will probably notice is your cabinets. This can either be a good or a bad thing. Good if you are happy with your existing cabinets and/or cabinet doors and bad if you are not happy with the current style of your cabinet doors. Perhaps your kitchen currently has a more traditional raised panel door and you are looking for something more modern or even a rustic farmhouse look. Making this update can be easy and cost effective by just replacing your existing cabinet doors instead of replacing the whole cabinet itself.

Replacing your existing cabinet doors is a fairly simple straight forward DIY process that you can likely accomplish on your own. The first step will be taking the correct measurements so that your new cabinet doors will fit correctly. If you are going to be keeping your existing hinge hardware you can use the measurements of your existing doors, this is probably the easiest path to take. Now if you want to change the positioning of your doors from an overlay door that sits on the outside of the cabinet box to an inset door that sits within the frame or bounds of the cabinet box you will need to measure the inner dimensions and subtract 1/8-inch from the width and height to allow the door to open and close properly. Now if you're switching from inset to overlay you will want to look and see how big your face frames are and go from there, typical face frames are 1-inch thick so you would want to add 1-inch to the width and length of your measurements to give a 1/2-inch overlay on each side.

Replacing your Drawer Fronts

Why just replace the cabinet doors and not also update your drawer fronts to match. Much like replacing cabinet doors, replacing your drawer fronts can have a dramatic effect on your kitchens appearance. And just like cabinet doors you will want to make sure you have the correct measurements so your new drawer fronts fit and look good.

The most direct way to measure for new drawer fronts would be to measure your existing drawer fronts. However if you are looking to switch out overlay drawer fronts for inset you will want to measure the opening and subtract a 1/8-inch from the width and length. Just like you would for switching cabinet doors from inset to overlay you will want to follow those same steps so that everything lines up nicely.