Kitchen Cabinets

I found a neat article that talks about kitchen cabinets. I know from experience that kitchen cabinets can cost an arm and a leg if you’re not careful. And this many times can eat up most if not all your potential profit. This article helped me to see things a little differently than I had in the past.
Enjoy.
By Pete Goode | This Old House – Wed, Jan 9, 2013
The basic refacing project consists of installing new cabinet door and drawer fronts and covering the exposed face frames of the cabinets with a matching wood or plastic veneer. Most jobs take two to four days, depending on kitchen size and extras like replacing counters or adding an extra cabinet.
The work itself is a standardized progression of tasks, generally handled by one or two craftsmen. They begin by removing doors and drawer fronts from cabinets and roughing up the old finish on face frames and side panels to prepare them for the new covering. They then glue and sometimes nail the new finish over the old, the nail holes filled and the seams and edges trimmed to make them unobtrusive. New panels or molding are used to trim out the exposed undersides of the upper cabinets to give them a finished look, and the base cabinet toe kick is replaced. Finally, new cabinet doors and drawer fronts are attached, and new hardware is mounted on each of them.
There generally are three finish options: plastic laminates, rigid thermo foils (RTF) and wood veneer. Refacing laminates come in a wide variety of solid colors and wood-grain looks. Slightly more expensive than RTF, laminates nevertheless lack malleability, which means they're limited to plain cabinet door styles when compared with RTF. RTF can be shaped and molded in a range of styles, including arched and cathedral doors, raised panel and eyebrow raised panels.
When Refacing Doesn't Make Sense
Refacing isn't for every kitchen. Most important, it doesn't address the issue of a poor kitchen layout. "If you go to the expense of refacing and still end up with a nonfunctional kitchen, you've wasted your money," says Cyndi Cantley, of Cantley & Co., a certified kitchen designer in Birmingham, Alabama.
Other conditions that rule out refacing include existing cabinets that are beginning to fall apart or aren't well built to begin with; metal cabinets that are rusting; and larger structural issues, like floors that have settled and left cabinets out of kilter. If you have any of these problems, you shouldn't consider refacing.
What Refacing Costs
How much you pay for refacing depends on the size of your kitchen, the materials you choose and how many options you elect to include. "Our typical refacing job runs $4,000 to $5,000," says Gerald Baldner of Kitchen Solvers, which has 105 refacing franchises in 30 states. "And that includes countertop, trim, molding, valences, new toe kick, shelf and drawer liner, as well as accessories and tax."
According to Carl Hyman, owner of Alure Kitchen Refacing in East Meadow, New York, which serves an upscale clientele and refaces about 150 kitchens a year, his company's average job runs about $8,500 (including countertops). The average refacing job by Sears, which operates its refacing business through its own employees in some states and through licensees in others, costs $4,000 to $6,000. As with any remodeling project, your best bet is to get a number of different quotes.
The bottom line is that it comes down to personal taste. "You can take the same kitchen and do the plain-Jane refacing for $3,000 or, for $8,000 or $9,000, do it with wood, Corian countertops, a new sink and some bells and whistles," says Brian Titus, of Cabinetpak Kitchens, which operates refacing companies in Washington, D.C., and Ohio. Whatever you pay, it's bound to be significantly less than the cost of a new kitchen.
Companies like Alure, Kitchen Tune-Up and Kitchen Solvers, which offer both refacing and full-remodeling services, maintain a complete remodel runs on average twice as much as a high-end refacing job. Kitchen Solvers' Baldner cautions customers who have been told at home centers and other retailers that they can have new cabinets installed for about the same price to calculate carefully. "There are a lot of costs added on that most people don't think about when considering kitchen remodeling," he says. "If you get a quote on new cabinets, make sure it includes handles, molding, installation, sales tax, delivery charges, refinishing your walls if the new cabinets don't line up with the old, any required plumbing or electrical work."