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Kitchen remodel or reface?

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cabri said:
Curious as to the purpose of the LED lighting under the cabinets.

Does the normal lighting for the kitchen not provide enough illumination?
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Its for those late evenings or nights when you don't want to turn on the super bright blinding light. The LED strips are dimmed down and provide a nice glow to get a glass of water or bowl of ice cream or whatever. They also provide nice ambience.
 
slag said:
Its for those late evenings or nights when you don't want to turn on the super bright blinding light. The LED strips are dimmed down and provide a nice glow to get a glass of water or bowl of ice cream or whatever. They also provide nice ambience.
Click to expand...

Ok - we accomplish the same with the water light in the refrig and/or the microwave night light
 
The biggest mistake people make with remodeling bathrooms and kitchens is when they use trendy materials. 10 years down the road after the FAD is done these kitchens look like complete hell. Remodel these rooms to go with the type of home you have instead using timeless finishes.

Avocado greens, harvest golds, brass and glass, will soon be joined by antiqued finishes, pho finishes and glass tile.
 
cabri said:
Curious as to the purpose of the LED lighting under the cabinets.

Does the normal lighting for the kitchen not provide enough illumination?
Click to expand...
It's task lighting. Our house has it (not LED but tiny T5 8w florescent) they are 100% out of sight and my wife loves them.
 
pho finish?

Pho-Beef-Noodles-2008.jpg


EDIT: Under cabinet task lighting is awesome.
 
Finally installed the lights (and knobs). Last photo is to show just the microwave light. The under cabinet lights look a lot better imho, and only cost $20.00 on amazon.com and took about 30 minutes to install. Cooking corned beef in the crock pot and man, it was so good.



HvCA71E.jpg
2Br8D7E.jpg

cloPy33.jpg
 
Thank you. We don't really like the cabinets. We refaced them years ago but its cost prohibitive in our home range to entirely redo the kitchen. I like maple and oak for cabinets and cherry also in the right setting, but these function. They were antiqued/stressed but our realtor said we should repaint them to look newer so we did.
 
slag said:
Thank you. We don't really like the cabinets. We refaced them years ago but its cost prohibitive in our home range to entirely redo the kitchen. I like maple and oak for cabinets and cherry also in the right setting, but these function. They were antiqued/stressed but our realtor said we should repaint them to look newer so we did.
Click to expand...
Yeah, we saw a couple homes with the distressed (what I would call Tuscan style) kitchen and it's definitely a matter of taste. White like you've done has pretty much universal appeal and offends nobody.
 
We have a contractor in the family and we were re-doing my kitchen yesterday. Initially, I was going to re-laminate a 30-year old counter with some Formica leftovers from a new restaurant in Boston. The job morphed into replacing the 30-year old particle board drawers that had deteriorated. We replaced 11 drawers with 3/4" pine with birch plywood and decent drawer slides. He stated that it was a $2,500-3,000 job. I just payed about $800 in materials, beer and got private lesson in laminating , as well as fabricating drawers. We reused the old faces on all drawers. It looks unchanged except for the counter. :sneaky:

Laminating isn't difficult. It's mostly prep work, then glue and then the difficult part... using the router. I'm still waiting for a 5'x12' sheet of laminate to be delivered tomorrow so that I can create a seamless surface on my island. I think that I'll practice a little more and construct a laminated table with drawers for my kid.

I don't think that new doors for existing cabinets would be difficult to make. If you buy a router you can make different designs in wood or MDF and just paint it. You could also surface cabinet doors in Formica. Either way you'll end up with a router, experience and money saved from labor.
 
slag said:
Finally installed the lights (and knobs). Last photo is to show just the microwave light. The under cabinet lights look a lot better imho, and only cost $20.00 on amazon.com and took about 30 minutes to install. Cooking corned beef in the crock pot and man, it was so good.



HvCA71E.jpg
2Br8D7E.jpg

cloPy33.jpg
Click to expand...

Looks great. I can't see any seams on your counter. Good job!
 
keird said:
We have a contractor in the family and we were re-doing my kitchen yesterday. Initially, I was going to re-laminate a 30-year old counter with some Formica leftovers from a new restaurant in Boston. The job morphed into replacing the 30-year old particle board drawers that had deteriorated. We replaced 11 drawers with 3/4" pine with birch plywood and decent drawer slides. He stated that it was a $2,500-3,000 job. I just payed about $800 in materials, beer and got private lesson in laminating , as well as fabricating drawers. We reused the old faces on all drawers. It looks unchanged except for the counter. :sneaky:

Laminating isn't difficult. It's mostly prep work, then glue and then the difficult part... using the router. I'm still waiting for a 5'x12' sheet of laminate to be delivered tomorrow so that I can create a seamless surface on my island. I think that I'll practice a little more and construct a laminated table with drawers for my kid.

I don't think that new doors for existing cabinets would be difficult to make. If you buy a router you can make different designs in wood or MDF and just paint it. You could also surface cabinet doors in Formica. Either way you'll end up with a router, experience and money saved from labor.
Click to expand...
I have a local cabinet shop make doors for me. I can tool up and make them but they do fantastic work.
I build the boxes and face frames using a table saw, cutoff saw and the kreg pocket screw system. I assemble on an old solid core interior door slab so things stay true.
 
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