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Can kitchen cabinet gaps be fixed by refacing? Is there any hope?

5 years ago

This drives me nuts. The doors on our cabinets are all about 1.5" apart. I want to reface all of them and have that nice clean look where all the doors meet and there aren't these big gaps.
I'm guessing the problem has to do with the cabinets themselves and not the doors. is that right?
The previous owners added a peninsula and the doors there do what I want (see last photo).
Is there any hope for a quick, relatively inexpensive fix for this? Or am I stuck with this horrible busy mess?

Comments (10)

  • 5 years ago

    You can get larger doors, but you can’t cut out that center stile. Looks like there’s room above the cabinets? How much?

  • 5 years ago

    I prefer the look of the styles rather than the full overlay doors, myself. I wouldnt mind yours at all.

  • 5 years ago

    @rowan1099 We've considered the backsplash as well. I like the layout of the kitchen, just not the doors. If I got full overlay doors would it alleviate the problem?

    @emilyam819 The soffets are 18" and we want to put cabinets up there with glass doors. I hate that dusty space.

  • 5 years ago

    Are the doors and the cabinets a slightly different shade of white? It's hard to tell from.the photo, but maybe that is attracting your eye. I've never done anything other than paint the walls in our kitchen and change hardware, but I've imagined changing it for a long time, so I understand where you are coming from. From my understanding, it would be possible to change out doors and drawers, but again, the cost to paint cabinets can be in the thousands. I entertained that for my own kitchen and decided against it. I think the backsplash would be a more impactful change. My two cents.

  • 5 years ago

    @rowan1099. yes. the doors and cabinets are slightly different shades of white. The previous owners must have changed them when they remodeled and didn't match them. We're going to do this remodel bit by bit. so step one is buy all new full overlay doors to hide the slight difference in color.

    Then we'll change out that backsplash.

    I'm just glad we don't have to buy all new cabinets.

  • 5 years ago

    How many upper cabinets do you have? It might be easier and even cheaper to get all new uppers.

  • 5 years ago

    You also have to remember that, if you have new, larger doors made, the hinges you have will all have to be replaced to prevent the edges of the new doors from jamming into the frames as you start to open them. I'm not sure this project is going to fall in the category of a "relatively inexpensive fix."

    If it were me, and this cosmetic feature was a big deal, I'd wait and simply save up to get entirely new cabinets rather than spending a lot of money on sort of fixing things.

  • 5 years ago

    We have 7 upper cabinets of varying sizes.

    The cabinets themselves are all just fine. I still think getting doors and hardware vs all new cabinets has to be cheaper. No?

    I'm gonna have to price this out and see.

    we're also gonna do this in pieces. So we won't have to take on the cost all in one go. More like one step per year. The doors will probably be last.

    Right now we're changing out all the lighting thought the house to be more modern.

  • 5 years ago

    If you use the hinge shown below, you can reface all of your doors and drawers fronts (assuming drawer fronts are removable) and have the look you want without modifying cabinets. Of course you'll have to leave space at the inside corners. Your drawer fronts would be offset on the drawer body.