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Originally Posted by jaydorn
Yeah that's my plan, I'm just looking for anyone who's been down that path before and any tips they have from their adventure.
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Theoretically it seems easy and a few days worth of work. It's not. Long story short, it's a god damn pricey PITA.
It takes a crap ton of time (1-2 weeks minimum, for me took nearly 4 weeks for my kitchen refresh). This is because every step has either a long half a day to full day drying time or cleaning time before the next step. It's not even a huge, huge cost savings and it comes with really annoying time requirements to complete. I think I had someone look at what we did. I think I spent like $7-8K on my kitchen refresh and for like $3-4K more, it could have been brand new and modern cabinets with soft close etc.
If you're replacing stuff, IMO all or nothing. Don't keep the old frame and just replace the doors. Get someone to show up and price out the whole thing. It'll look better because it will better match. Less likely to have crooked doors etc. You'd be surprised at what the prices actually can come to and spending 10-20% more so that your kitchen isn't non-functional for 1-2 weeks might be worth it. The cabinet frame is the cheapest part of the whole thing. The doors and hardware are significantly more expensive than the frame. Paint isn't horribly cheap either and you're using so little of it in comparison on the frame while spending extra to prep it to take the paint. Leaving that part in and replacing everything else isn't saving you much at all with the rework, patch etc.
You have to clean, strip (ie: bleach/TPS combo), sanding to rough it up so the paint won't flake, clean (ie: get rid of all the dust) and prime before attempting to paint otherwise, the paint might not stick properly (dust, oil etc.) and/or perhaps some issues with the look of the paint. You also have options for brush/roller painting vs paint sprayer. Spray looks way better, but then you spend like 80% of the time setting up plastic etc. before spraying.
Something worth experimenting with the truly cheap refresh route with is just leave the cabinets and doors as is. Do a basic clean and polish on all of it. Then replace the hardware (knobs, handles, hinges) to a different color/style and also change all your lights in your kitchen to a different color LED (it will surprisingly change the color of what the cabinets will look like). Going the route of modifying/replacing back splash can also accent the cabinets to make them look different. Under counter lights will also change the look as well.
Sink and tap wise, it should be one of the first purchases. Get those at the same time as the hardware/hinges. You want to have it on hand (not specs) to give to the counter top people so that they can machine the holes appropriately. You also want to see the metal in person to understand how it will look in the lighting you have.