Whole new kitchen or just the fronts?

[MrsAvocet]

I know nobody can give a definitive answer as you can't come and inspect my kitchen, but just after some general opinions!
Our house is about 25 years old and still has the original kitchen units which are now obviously looking dated and some of the doors and drawer fronts are damaged. We replaced the flooring with Karndean about 10 years ago and the appliances are all fairly new.
The kitchen isn't huge and there's not really much scope for changing the layout, plus I think the floor is still fine. DH disagrees on that, he thinks we should replace it, but he never really liked it from the outset so I think it's more about that than it actually needing to be replaced.
So, given that I don't actually want to change the layout of the kitchen, I was wondering about just getting new drawer/cupboard fronts and worktops and keeping the insides of the units.DH thinks we should just have the whole thing ripped out and start again. We can afford it, but at the same time it seems daft to spend more than we have to and to throw away stuff that's still ok. DH reckons it's a false economy and that the things we keep will wear out before the new doors. (I think he just wants an excuse to change the floor whilst all the units are out!)
Any opinions or experiences? Do the insides of cupboards really wear out? Will keeping the insides limit the choice of doors etc or are they fairly universal sizes? Any suggestions gratefully received!

You will have to measure the units and check. We absolutely couldn’t get doors to fit our old units, none of them were standard sizes!

DIY kitchens gets very good reviews, there’s a kitchen fitter on TikTok that also does howdens and he says diy kitchens are superior quality.

If the units are solid then they won’t wear out before new doors and drawer fronts, but I can see the appeal of a whole new one -just not the upheaval! Replacing doors would be quicker and easier. However, why does DH have to live with a floor he doesn’t like? I’d hate to have to live with something like that tbh.

IME the insides of the cupboards get scratched up, but you can by mdf to replace and replace shelves etc.

Water is the big problem. In areas around the sink and dishwasher if you have mdf doors then water soaks into the door and swells the mdf. It may rot the doors but also the underneath of the worktops as they overhang the doors.

So it really depends on how bad this is. if you are doing up a kitchen to sell you might get away with just replacing the worktops and doors if the buyer does not look too carefully (many don't, but some will).

I just replaced the worktops and doors, it looks fine, but a lot of the mdf underneath the overhang of the new worktops is damaged. But you wouldn't see it unless you looked very carefully.

It may be that your panels around the dishwasher/sink are actually water damaged and you just haven't looked hard enough.

My neighbor replaced her kitchen fronts instead of a new kitchen (kitchen is coming up to 5 years old, so fairly new). It looks fabulous and for a fraction of the price of a new kitchen.

I had my extremely solid but dated 20+ year old kitchen sprayed from natural wood to a solid colour a couple of years ago. Also changed the worktops and backsplash for something a bit less 90s.
Absolutely thrilled with the result; everybody assumes I have a new kitchen.

if the cupboards are in good condition, and you can get doors to fit, I'd just do that - my consideration is from an environmental perspective. There's so much unnecessary waste from renovation.

If this is your forever home then complete new as you would love, if this is a 'for now' home just the doors

We replaced the doors on ours and it looks so much better. We cant really do anything with the layout anyway. The insides of some of the cupboards started to wear, where the door hinges screwed to them, so we bought some plates from B and Q that go over the existing hinge holes and create stronger places to screw the doors to.

But, as above, if it is your forever home, and there is some wear to the insides of the cupboards, I can see the appeal of starting from scratch.

You would need to measure to see if standard sizes. When we measured found out whole kitchen was custom made so that made the only options everything out or a joiner. The kitchen looked very high quality and period home so we went with a joiner. It probably came to same cost as new kitchen but nicer. I would replace floor, makes a big difference. Our units are solid wood and most have survived fine, a few had water damage which joiner replaced.

You can sand and paint pretty much anything these days. Have you thought of painting the floor and the kitchen panels/fronts?

What does your DH dislike about the floor?
We have a tiled floor and because of the pattern we don't like, we plan to paint it (with the v33 renovation floor paint).

We also replaced all the doors and panels but the kitchen in the house we bought was only 5 years old and we found out it was bought in Selco. So standard sizes and easy to replace.

so it all depends.

if you're brave enough to post a photo, I would tell you what I would do ;)

I liked the layout of my kitchen which was 25 years old so just replaced the doors, drawer fronts and worktop. Everyone assumed it was a brand new kitchen and I avoided the hassle of having to empty all the cupboards. If you remove the kick panel under the cupboards you can replace the flooring with the cupboards in situ. I did that a couple of times, you then just clip the kick board back in place once the flooring is complete

It's a bit of a stop gap, but if i remember from a few jobs ago, the cabinets tend to be 'warrantied' for 25 years? Something crazy.

I did the the doors in my first house- i didn't plan on being there forever and it was massively cheaper. Spruced it up, though obviously did nothing for the worktops, floors etc.

I will say though ,i found a company at the time (2016?) that did the doors made to order. Had a couple of weird sizes covering the boiler and it was no trouble.

Thanks all.
I'm still undecided! I guess the first thing to do is take some measurements and find out whether the units are standard size (we didn't live here when they were put in) and see if just getting the doors is even feasible. I admit I had just assumed they would be and hadn't really thought that through. Half of me wants to take the easier option and mimimise the upheaval but the other half thinks we should do everything in one go and get it over and done with! Realistically we will be looking to downsize in the next decade as youngest is off to University next year and retirement is on the horizon for us. If we do the full thing now I guess it's unlikely we'd need to do a lot more with that room before we sell.

Definitely keep the carcasses, unless they're knackered. They're probably better quality than new ones and if you're not changing the layout it's just a waste of money and the earth's resources. I think it's bonkers to rip out perfectly good units