Kitchen cabinet installation and replacement is something best left for professionals to handle.
It’s a tedious task that can take many hours of work (or days) to complete. Still yet, cabinet replacement isn’t hard per se (depends on what hard means to you).
It’s just expensive and take sometime.
Here’s why replacing kitchen cabinet is not hard
Replacing the kitchen cabinet is not hard unless you decide to do it yourself, and alone. With professional service, cabinet order, removal and replacement could happen in a matter of weeks or months. Upper cabinets are easier to remove because they’re held in place using screws to the face frames and the back panel of the cabinet. Base cabinets are very tricky, as they have the countertop on them.
Can I replace kitchen cabinets myself?
You could replace kitchen cabinets by yourself if you have previous experience with cabinet removal and installation. If you don’t, forget it, as it’s a venture super easy to mess up.
There’s more to cabinet installation than simply screwing nails through the back panel of cabinets.
There’s leveling, which you’ll find very essential (for base cabinets) when you come to install a countertop, because you’ll need the bases to sit in the same plane in order for the countertop to align perfectly.
Leveling, positioning, shiftin (i.e electrical and plumbing elements), measurements, remodelling (of walls), and installing cabinets in general require experience (sometimes professional) and tools, and also knowledge of these tools. That, in my opinion, should be left to the professionals.
What is the average cost to replace kitchen cabinets?
The average cost for a kitchen cabinet replacement project is $7000. But this is far from explaining anything at all.
There are a lot of factors that really make up the final price of a kitchen cabinet and we’ll be (quickly) discussing them below.
With that said, when picking up a kitchen cabinet replacement project, expect your expenditure to fall anywhere on or in the range of $3,500- $80,000, and sometimes even more.
As mentioned earlier, many factors dictate the final cost of a cabinet replacement venture.
These include:
Type of cabinet construction: Hardware choice, Decoration, Add-on etc.
Obviously, this factor would only apply if you are purchasing a cabinet from a specific company and bringing them in to install it for you.
If you purchased a “ready to assemble cabinet” from stores like Home Depot or IKEA, then you shouldn’t have to worry as everything has already been factored into the original price you paid for, and the thing you need to worry about now is the cost of installation.
With companies you’ll invite to build custom cabinets for you, they usually take into consideration the type of construction when deciding the final cost. As you might have guessed correctly, a certain type of construction technique can be more expensive and time-consuming than the other.
So the different techniques of constructing cabinets each have different qualities. Opt for a cheaper quality construction (a simple box made of cheap wood, with no add-on accessories, cheaper hardware or decoration) and your prices will fall on the lower range, and the opposite is true too.
Sometimes, this wouldn’t be an option for you as a consumer, because the company has already set a standard which they always follow for their work. So you have no choice but actually pay for whatever kind of service they render!
Number of cabinets
Also, another important factor that decides how much you end up paying for your cabinets is the number of cabinets you have. The more the cabinets, the higher the price and vice versa.
Kitchen layout
Kitchen layout also impacts on the final price of a cabinet replacement project. Some layouts are way easier to work with than others. For example, the single wall kitchen layout is easier to work with as compared to a gallery or a U shaped kitchen.
Cabinet Assembly
Also, whether or not your cabinet has been assembled is also a factor that can also dictate the final price.
This is specific to store bought cabinets (and sometimes custom made cabinets) that would be installed by a different installer.
So if the cabinets have been pre-assemble, then you wouldn’t have to pay for someone to assemble it for you prior to installation, but if it hasn’t been assembled, then you will have to pay for assembly.
How long does it take to remove and replace kitchen cabinets?
How long it takes to remove and replace kitchen cabinets will depend on three things.
The first is the complexity of the previous installation. Second is the speed of the installation team, and third is the size of the project.
With this in mind, you can expect a replacement to be done in under a day, or sometimes a couple of days.
What is the cheapest way to redo kitchen cabinets?
There are certainly ways you can make your kitchen look newer without spending a lot of money. Let’s check them out.
Replace only affected cabinets
Instead of removing the entire cabinet because a single cabinet is damaged, why not just focus on the damaged cabinet, remove and replace it instead.
Read our guide on how to do that below.
Can you replace one kitchen cabinet?
Re-do the finishing
When it comes to redoing the finish, it basically means that you retouch or even change the finishing of your cabinets.
Your cabinets might be painted white, and you’d choose to do it a different color, or even the same color to give the kitchen a brighter look.
You may even opt to change the finishing completely, from paint to laminate or acrylic. Or use decorative paper on the cabinets.
Reface
Another option you have is to reface the cabinets. In refacing, you keep the cabinet carcass in place and change the doors and the hardware in them.
Replace refacing is obviously the costlier option among the three and so only be done when you’re fed up with the looks of your kitchen, want to change something, but on a tight budget.
For the common range, a kitchen refacing project should cost you between $2000 to around $6000.
Can you replace kitchen cabinets without replacing countertops?
It’s possible to replace the base cabinets without replacing the countertop, but that’s if your countertop installation wasn’t complex to begin with.
Countertops made of wood are typically held in place using screws, and it’s only a matter of removing these screws using a power screwdriver to get them to lift right off.
Other types of cabinets like the stone cabinets for example, can be removed by simply cutting through the silicone sealant at the edges and sliding them right off.
For some cabinets, especially those made using wood, glues can be used to hold them in place, and this can make it almost impossible to remove the countertop without causing damage to it.
Just so you know though, you can always mend and fix damaged countertops and even put them back in place.
No money should go to waste!
Is it cheaper to replace or reface kitchen cabinets?
It’s obviously cheaper to reface your kitchen cabinets as opposed to replacing them. When you refacing kitchen cabinets, you’re basically replacing or changing a specific portion of the kitchen cabinetry (like finish or doors and the hardware on them) as opposed to taking off the entire cabinetry and replacing it with a new one.
To put things in perspective, you should expect to pay between $4000-$20,000 for a kitchen replacement project, and $2500-$10,000 for a kitchen refacing project.
And one more thing, refacing does an equal job of changing the looks of the kitchen like replacing would.
Is it cheaper to paint or replace kitchen cabinets?
It is way cheaper to paint kitchen cabinets than to replace them. The good news is that painting the kitchen cabinets can almost immediately transform a with a new look. Good or bad will depend on your color and finish choice.
With painting, there are different finishes you can opt for from the high gloss to matt as well as different shades of color to choose from too.
Is it hard to change hardware on cabinets?
A lot of people think that it’s actually hard to replace the hardware on kitchen cabinets because they come in universal form or standard sizes.
The truth is however, kitchen cabinet hardware are not universal.
Cabinet pulls come in different shapes and forms, and so do hinges, handles and knobs.
When it comes to replacing kitchen cabinet hardware, for pulls, the most important metric is the “center to center distance” as that guarantees a perfect and successful replacement.
Knobs are typically held to the drawer wood using one screw, and you can easily go bigger if you started with smaller screws.
When you need to scale down, for instance, when you have a large screw hole and the new hardware you have uses smaller screw holes, use knobs that have plates to cover up the shift to a new area.
How hard is it to replace cabinet hinges?
Cabinet hinges too aren’t hard to replace. Find out the type of hinge you have and get the same type for replacement.
For upgrades, like switching over to a soft close alternative, it’s as easy as getting the new hinge, detaching the previous hinge using screwdrivers and attaching the new hinge where you detached the previous hinge. Where it doesn’t fit, make a new screw hole and fix.
Depending on the size of your cabinetry, it might take you between 1-2 hours to fully replace all kitchen cabinet hardware.
Check out our comprehensive article titled: Is kitchen cabinet hardware universal?
You’ll find all answers to all questions you might be having concerning kitchen cabinet hardware selection as well as replacement. Make sure to check it out.