It’s so much fun to walk through the kitchen displays at home improvement stores and look at the beautiful cabinets that are available. For most people, these shiny cabinets make the ones at home look pretty shabby. Years of use, buildup of cooking grease, fingerprints, and regular bumps have probably taken their toll. Add those blemishes to the fact that the cabinets you have look like they came out of the 1970s, and it’s no wonder you’re not happy with the look of your kitchen. That’s when you start to wonder if there’s an inexpensive way to replace kitchen cabinets.

There are several ways to update your kitchen cabinets without removing the existing ones and replacing them entirely. These methods will cost much less than demolition and replacement, and much of the work you can do yourself. You know how much that can save you! When it comes to your cabinets, you basically have three options: replace, reface, or restore. As we have said, of the three, replacing the cabinets completely will be the most expensive option. However, if your existing cabinets are made of metal or are flimsy and poorly made, you may want to consider this option. There are salvage yards and discount lumber dealers where you can buy new kitchen cabinets at a fraction of the price you’d pay at a home improvement showroom.

The refinishing and grinding processes start the same way. Remove all cabinet doors and hardware and thoroughly clean wood surfaces. Once you see the condition of the doors, you can decide if you want to restore and reuse, paint or reface them. Refinishing or painting will certainly be the least expensive methods of updating your cabinets, but they will also be the most labor intensive. If you want to keep them and refinish them, it will mean stripping the surfaces down to bare wood, applying a coat of stain, and then adding several coats of hard polyurethane. With siding, you’ll need to hire someone to veneer the cabinets and put in new doors. While more expensive, it’s definitely an easier way to revamp kitchen cabinets.