Laminates crack, chip, peel and may even turn boring to look at with time. You might be wondering whether it’s possible to completely replace the laminates on your cabinets with a totally different one.
Can You Replace The Laminate On Kitchen Cabinets?
You can replace the laminate on kitchen cabinets with a new one by first detaching the worn out laminate using a flammable grade lacquer thinner and then attaching a new one using a wood adhesive.
How To Replace The Laminate On Kitchen Cabinets
You can replace the laminate on your kitchen cabinets in two ways.
- Professional Cabinet Refacing
- DIY Cabinet Refacing
Professional Cabinet Refacing
With professional cabinet, you’re hiring companies that specialise in refacing cabinets to do the dirty job for you.
Cabinet refacing companies, as they’re called, have people with perfect skills and knowledge to handle such tasks for you. These professionals will peel off the existing layer of mica or laminate board and replace it with the one of your choice.
The cost of such a project may depend on many factors ranging from the size of the cabinetry, materials used, add-ons and the experience of the contractor. Typically, you may end up spending between $5000- $15,000 when working with a reputable and standard cabinet refacing company.
Do It Yourself
For DIY, you’re basically doing everything yourself, from getting the necessary materials such as adhesive, laminate board, heat gun etc., to peel off the laminate from the board which may or may not be an easy task depending on the age of the laminate and the type of adhesive used.
Which Is Better?
Professional cabinet refacing is definitely better than DIY for a number of reasons.
With professional cabinet refacing, you have people with real knowledge, expertise and experience working on your cabinets, so the chances of messing things up is definitely reduced.
With professional cabinet refacing, there really is no cutting corners, meaning that every single step that needs to be addressed would be addressed to ensure the success of the project.
With DIY, cutting corners is mostly the norm as homeowners are looking for the cheapest, easiest and quickest ways to get things done, so compromises will be made that can be detrimental.
When you’re dealing with a professional company, you don’t have to deal with the pain of sourcing materials for the refacing job. Everything is taken care of by the company. All you have to do is pay, choose and wait for your cabinets to be redone.
When it comes to cost, professional cabinet refacing is definitely more costly than DIY, simply because the former offers a much better quality of service than the latter.
So many things are actually considered when calculating the cost of your refacing project. These include things like the size of the cabinetry, the expertise of the professional, the materials used, add ons, how difficult it is to work in the kitchen, etc.
Professional Re-lamination may be expensive, but the service is definitely worth picking over DIY when you’re not a woodworker.
Steps For DIY Cabinet Re-lamination
Materials
- Butter knife
- Lacquer thinner or Acetone
- Wood strips
- Gloves
- Eye google
- Heat gun
Steps
Put on the gloves and eye wear
This is important to protect you from flying bits of laminate chips and also the harsh chemicals used in the project i.e thinner.
Remove the door
So the very first step you would want to take is to remove the cabinet doors. You want to detach the hinges as well as the hardware installed on the doors and keep them in a safe space. Make sure to keep track of which hinge and hardware belongs to which door of the cabinet.
Create a void between the laminate and the substrate wood
In order for you to be able to peel off the laminate board successfully, you first need to create a void, which is a space in the joint that connects the laminate and the substrate.
Look closely at the wood and you’ll see the joint made by a defined line.
Use a putty or small butter knife to slide through the junction. You may need to apply a bit of pressure to create the first break, but make sure to slice through afterwards and not wiggle the knife which can cause breakage of the laminate.
Apply Lacquer thinner into the void
The lacquer thinner is what would loosen up the glue and allow us to pull off the laminate from the substrate successfully.
So in the void that you just created, drizzle the lacquer thinner from a bottle and wait about 3 to 4 minutes before you move onto the next step.
Make sure the substrate board is positioned vertically so as to drive down the lacquer easily into the board.
Peel off the laminate board
So now that our lacquer thinner has worked its magic of weakening the bond that keeps the two surfaces adhered to each other, we want to start pulling off the laminate from the substrate while simultaneously using the knife to serve as a slicer.
So with gentle pressure, use the putty knife to cut through the gum and pull out the laminate using your fingers.
Make sure to go very carefully with this step and exercise patience as much as you can especially when the laminate is one that has aged a lot.
Aged laminate boards will chip off and break easily when pressure is applied on them, and the pieces can end up flying into your eyes.
Continue to peel off the laminate
Continue to peel off the laminate in this manner from the very side you started with until the end. Do not move over to another corner and start peeling off the laminate from there as that can cause inconsistency at the junction where the two works meet up which will crack the laminate.
Use the strips of wood to keep the laminate separated from the board
The essence of the wood strips is to actually create an intermediary block between the two surfaces, so what you have peeled off does not attach back.
Use a heat gun as an alternative to a thinner.
Because laminates are actually attached to the surface of boards using adhesives, you can actually use a heat gun over the laminate (at a reasonable distance) to loosen up the glue, so you can pull off the laminate easily.
When doing so, make sure to go very gently to avoid damaging the laminate.
How To Attach A New Laminate
After you have successfully peeled off the laminate from the board, you’ll be left with some glue on the board’s surface.
Use the knife to scrape off this excess glue from the surface. You don’t have to take off all the glue you find on the revealed surface, leave stubborn remnants on the board as they would not be an issue.
There’s also no need to sand the surface of the board. But if you wish to, make sure to remove as much glue as possible, sand, and then use a damp cloth to wipe off dust and bits from the surface of the wood.
Also make sure to remove any solid particles that can cause the laminate to not stick properly onto the surface of the board.
When you’re done, apply an even coat of adhesive on both the surface of the laminate and the board. If you’re using a self-adhesive laminate, then you don’t have to perform this step.
Make sure the laminate you’re using overhangs the specific portion of the cabinet you’re applying it on by about 1 to 2 inches. This is to enable a perfect trim.
Depending on the kind of adhesive you’re using, you might be required to place the laminate after waiting for a specific time.
Contact cement is the most popular wood adhesive of cabinet projects, and if you requested for a wood adhesive from a store, it’s likely the one you’ve been given, and you’re required to let it sit on the surfaces until it dries completely, which takes about 15 minutes or so.
After drying, gently line up the laminate on the cabinet making sure that it overhangs on all sides. Gently smoothen it out to eliminate tiny bubbles and wrinkles that may form and end up affecting the overall aesthetic appeal of the laminate, and then proceed to trim it out.
Can You Re-Use A Laminate?
You can certainly reuse a laminate if the laminate was installed not quite long. If you have the intention to reuse the laminate, exercise patience and great care when removing the laminate using the procedures we mentioned above, as any damage and cracks on it will make it not attractive or suitable for use again.
If you’re dealing with an old laminate, it’s going to be almost impossible to detach it from the base wood without causing damage to it.
So it’s best to do away with old laminates and replace them with a new one.
Can Peeling Laminate Cabinets Be Repaired?
Peeling laminate cabinets can definitely be repaired, and the only thing you need for the repair exercise is a wood adhesive.
Preferably, use the adhesive that was used to attach the laminate in the first place. Most times, it’s contact cement, but you can contact the woodworker or the company for clarification.
When you’re ready to attach back the peeled surface, make sure to sand the base surface to rid it of dirt and dust that can affect how smoothly a reattachment turns out.
Can You Laminate Over Laminate Cabinets?
You can definitely laminate over laminate cabinets by simply sanding the previous laminate in order to create a rougher surface for the new laminate to attach to.
Generally though, it is advised to just detach the previous laminate (using the methods we outlined above), and then attach a new laminate over the bare board surface.