Kitchen retro-fit

This is our canvas

Since finishing the mug shelf, I've been spending whatever spare time I can manage down in the Waugh Woodshop trying to retro-fit kitchen cupboards for a friend who is selling her house in the Spring.

She was unfortunately blessed with having these horrendous melamine throw-backs.  The wooden 'handles' just scream of decades past, and when she was told by at least three other friends/companies that the only thing to do was spend at least $3k to replace them… I said NOT A CHANCE - let's see what I can do with this challenge.

Thankfully, she and I decided that if I took one pair of doors and got nowhere with them, at least then she'd know the only option was the $3k.  So, while I've been doing the two doors I took, she and her husband have bought a new backsplash, and shortened down the counter a bit to fit in a 'new' stove from Kijiji.

Let's see how I got on, shall we?  I took the two cupboards above the stove that you can see in the photo of the other half of her kitchen.

Step one - smash off the wood

Step two - put new bottom on

Step three - put on the trim

Step four - prime them and return them!  Woo Hoo!  It's taken a bit longer than I hoped but I think part of that
is down to not really knowing what would work best, or at all.  

Now that I have the process 'down', and know that it's a bunch of little steps with quite a bit of drying time in between them, I can maybe get an assembly line going down there to hammer them out.  I'm going to take the 6 huge doors from the left of the first photo next.  Keep your fingers crossed that it's full steam ahead once I get the next batch here… and that the trim work doesn't look weird with doors that are all a different size (seriously, why would they build a kitchen like that?!)

We've also discussed putting an addition on the top of the shelves to allow for some classy storage, and perhaps a wine rack or two (as they don't have one now and find it a pain). Something like this photo, we hope!

I'm glad she's on board to try this version of redoing her kitchen.  I know it seems like a lot of work, but I think that it really helps now-a-days to keep as much out of the landfill as we can.  I'm even going to try and find a way to reuse the handles I've torn off, but I can't quite find the inspiration just yet ;)

Here's the quick post about doors 3-8

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