I have been wanting to remove the desk from my kitchen since the day we bought our home.  At the time I would have never guessed that I would be the one doing a DIY kitchen makeover myself. Originally, I had planned to hire a contractor to do a complete kitchen renovation, but as you can imagine a complete remodel comes with not only the inconvenience of the kitchen being unusable during construction, but also a hefty price tag!  According to Houzz.com the average kitchen remodel cost is a shocking $25,000, with US homeowners typically spending between $13,700 and $42,000!  That is a lot of money and my creative brain knew I could make a huge difference at a fraction of the price that is budget friendly.  So, I decided to update my kitchen by simply replacing the cabinet doors and drawer fronts and changing the color of the cabinetry. 

As a social media influencer, naturally, I wanted to share my DIY kitchen makeover journey along the way with others, so I decided to make my kitchen makeover journey part of the Fall 2022 One Room Challenge.  I knew having the project timeframe set by One Room Challenge would push me to finish within a certain timeline.  It’s sort of like knowing you have company coming to visit and you want to finish a project before their arrival. You’ll do whatever it takes to finish by a certain date.  I am pleased to say that I met that deadline and in the process transformed my kitchen into that beautiful vision that I had carried around in my head for so long!

This is a photo of what the desk area (which is near the breakfast nook) looked like when we bought our home.

I knew that I wanted to make it look separate from the kitchen and more like a buffet and these are the steps that I took along the way to transform my kitchen desk into a beautiful tableside built-in buffet with cabinet doors and drawer fronts from Cabinet Now.

STEPS INVOLVED IN REPLACING KITCHEN CABINET DOORS and DRAWER FRONTS:

• Decide on the new style of cabinetry you want.  I already had raised panel kitchen cabinet doors, so I knew adding shaker style doors and drawer fronts to the new buffet would instantly set it apart from the kitchen.

• Measure for new cabinet doors and drawer fronts.  Having doors already in that space made measuring easy, but when unsure, the general rule of thumb is that front face cabinet doors should be installed with a half inch overlay around the frame.  See Cabinet Now’s helpful measuring guide
• Place your order and if you’re not able to router the doors for hinges, order your doors that are pre-bored.  Make sure you are working with a company that is helpful in your ordering process and values the importance of customer service.  Trust me, you will have questions along the way and you’ll want a company that has a human aspect behind the eCommerce experience that will continue to work with you after the initial ordering process.  For my kitchen makeover project I worked with 2 cabinet companies and a local contractor for cabinetry in various areas of the kitchen. As a result, I experienced first-hand that Cabinet Now was able to provide quality products and the level of customer service that I needed (and appreciate) when tackling a project.
• Remove the old cabinet doors.
• Sand cabinet boxes. I used 150 grit sandpaper to partially remove the stain from my cabinet boxes and smoothed with 220 grit prior to priming.
• Use Bondo to fill holes from the existing hinges (your new cabinet door hinges may not align with the existing holes and it’s best to start from scratch).

• Tape off pre-bored and dowel holes to avoid paint build-up.

• Paint the cabinet boxes and new doors and drawer fronts. I used my go to primer Zinsser primer and then painted using my favorite cabinet paint Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel by Sherwin Williams in Ultra White Satin Finish.  I apply 1 coat of primer and 2-3 coats of paint, sanding in between each coat with 220 grit to remove any flaws and/or rough up the paint so that the new coat of paint has something to adhere to.

• Measure where the hinges will be screwed into the existing cabinets and pre-drill holes.  I use a pencil to mark the boxes a half inch below face frame opening to align the bottom half of the new cabinet doors and drawer fronts.  I later clean the pencil marks with Magic Eraser sheets.
• Install hinges on the new doors.  I decided to change my existing hinges and add a soft close hinge to my doors.
• I added these beautiful mullions to my glass front cabinet doors to give them that extra “wow” effect!

• Attach the doors to the cabinet box. 
• Use a screwdriver to adjust cabinet hinges to make sure everything is hanging evenly.
• Drill holes for handles.  I always use blue painter’s tape to cover the entrance and the exit of the drill bit to prevent the wood from splitting.
• Screw in new cabinet hardware.
• Light fixture was provided by Kichler.

A beautiful result is worth every bit of hard work!

Now I’m trying to decide if I want to paint my countertop on the new buffet area like I did in my guest bathroom. Be sure to post a comment and let me know if you think I should paint the countertop or not.

The advantage of replacing doors vs. a kitchen renovation:

• Saves money
• Causes less upheaval
• Kitchen can be completed in less time