Can You Reface Formica Cabinets

How to resurface laminate cabinets.

Can you reface formica cabinets.

Refacing is about 1 3 the cost of total replacement. Scuff all the exposed surfaces with a medium grit sandpaper then wipe down all surfaces with a tack cloth. To save a lot of money you can simply replace your cabinet doors with solid wood doors and completely upgrade the entire look of your kitchen. Measure and cut plywood panels to fit the exposed ends of the cabinet.

Special tools for working with veneer. Those avocado green cabinets so popular in the 70s can be transformed into the contemporary sleek white of the 21st century. But you can still reface cabinets with full overlay doors which have no face frame and flush inset doors on which the face frame is on the same plane as the doors. I would not paint these formica cabinets.

Apply carpenter glue and affix the plywood panel to the cabinet. With laminate or wood veneers laid over the existing cabinet boxes you can change the style color wood type even the associated historical era. During cabinet refacing installers adhere the sheets of formica to the faces of the cabinets which are typically constructed of medium density fiberboard referred to as mdf or some other form. Laminate cabinets often make kitchens look outdated.

If you are going to upgrade the counter tops to quartz or granite i suggest you look into refacing to get a more up to date look. The style of your cabinets reflects the 60 s and no amount of paint will change that. Kitchen remodels are expensive especially if you choose to gut and replace the cabinets. If you can measure and cut accurately you shouldn t have any trouble.

In some cases you will need to remove old formica. Press in place then secure with 2d finish nails. Refacing cabinets does require attention to detail and some experience working with tools but you don t have to be a master carpenter. This is an easy cost effective method of giving your kitchen a fresh look without doing a lot to the rest of the room.

In both cases you have to be careful to order doors that match the size of the ones you re replacing rather than just measuring the cabinet openings and adding an inch to create. The conditions that require old laminate removal include loose panels warped or bubbled segments or areas that have too tight of a fit to add the one sixteenth inch layer of new formica. Refacing formica cabinets is most easily done by adding a new fresh layer of formica laminate over the old.