Tips for a perfect kitchen transformation

As well as changing the doors and the worktops on your old kitchen there are additional tasks you will need to carry out if your new kitchen is to look like a quality new kitchen.

Non-matching cabinets

The most obvious requirement is that the colour of the old cabinets will almost certainly not match your new replacement doors. Although the insides of the old cabinets will not matter, unless one has glass doors and it is going to be used as a display cabinet, the exposed ends of the cabinets will not look good if they are, say, white and you are fitting new dark walnut doors.

The answer is to fit panels to the cabinet ends to match the doors.

Tip: make the panel the right height to match the cabinet so you have a finished edge at the top and bottom
but order it a little deeper than the cabinet to be fitted, so that you can scribe the back edge to the wall for a perfect fit.

Sometimes you will not have enough room to fit a panel because of the thickness of the panel which is 18mm. examples of this would be:

• Where there is insufficient overhang on the worktop to accommodate a panel attached to the base unit underneath. (the panel would protrude beyond the worktop)
• Where you have a tall housing unit like a fridge/freezer housing with wall units running up to one side. (If you put an 18mm panel on this side of the housing it would stop the wall cabinet doors from opening!)
• Where there is a space for an extractor and you want to fit a chimney hood. If you put a panel on each side of the 600mm opening, the space would then be too narrow to take the extractor which is normally 595mm wide

The answer to these problems and other where there is insufficient space for a solid panel, assuming you are using a vinyl or melamine door, is to use matching self-adhesive veneer, which is less than 0.5mm thick but very tough and hardwearing. It can be bought by the metre and is 640mm wide to cover most eventualities without joining it.

Trims

Cornice light pelmet and plinths

The obvious trims which will need to be changed are the cornice on top of the wall cabinet, the light pelmet on the bottom of the wall cabinets and the plinths, sometimes referred to as “kick boards”.

All these are easily changed by ordering new matching cornice, light pelmet and plinths to match whichever range of doors you are buying. You will need to be able to use a professional mitre saw to make the joints, or know a man who does.

Tip: Don’t blindly replace cornice and light pelmet if you are buying a plain, modern door. Many people leave them off for a “cleaner” look. If you have old fashioned fluorescent under-cupboard lights, which the pelmet normally conceals, change them for new spot, under-lights, designed to be used without pelmet.

Feature units

The other trims that need to be replaced will be open end wall or baseunits, sometimes called “quad” units, wine racks or open tray-space units. These can be bought in material to match the doors and in the exact size to replace the old ones if required. Ask your door supplier to recommend another supplier if he is unable to supply such goods. You can also solve the problem by putting a special size door over a tray space unit or other open unit to convert it to a normal cupboard instead. Tip. Sometimes this will make a very narrow cupboard. If you have a cupboard to one side or the other, think of making a new door to cover BOTH cupboard and tray-space (maximum width 640mm) so you have one wide door, covering both units, instead of two narrow ones.

Corner posts.

You can buy corner posts like the one pictured but only 40mm or 30mm square. Often a corner post is irregular in shape. If this is the case, make a new one using a spare piece of plinth and fitting two pieces together into an “L” shape, screwing them together from the back.

Sometimes it is easier to veneer what is already there, but you will need to make a judgement based on your particular circumstances. “L” shaped corner cabinets.

These often have doors which open separately. This can be frustrating because one has to be opened before the other and you often forget which door has to be opened first! It is quite easy to join the two doors together with a piano hinge, or better still, using two bi-fold hinges. You will need to measure for the doors, see “measuring for your new doors”. Order two bifold hinges from your door supplier and they should come with instructions on how to fit them.

Please note you will have to drill the doors for the hinge holes on site, but this is relatively easy. You will need a hinge-hole cutter which will cost £10/15 from a DIY store.

Any other queries.

Please ask Maurice or one of the other staff in the showroom and we will be pleased to help. If you have any tips from your own experience transforming your kitchen or bedroom, please let us have them for posting here for future use.