Replacing the doors on a fitted kitchen

[EmilyintheUK]

My elderly parents have a fitted kitchen about 30 years old.
It must be good quality as they have had very few issues with it until now.
However it’s very dated now and the doors and drawer fronts are starting to break.
They can’t afford a full new kitchen.
Please can you tell me your experiences of replacing the doors etc and maybe the worktops and using the original ‘carcass’?
Is it more trouble than it’s worth or has it been a good compromise?
Thanks.

Replaced the worktops and retiled when we took back a rented house from tenants who had rotted it and broken the tiles by the oven. I say go for it - most door companies let you buy as many as you need so start with 1 and try it before committing. Unless you don't like the layout keep the carcasses.

It's quite possible to do. If the units are standard size, the DIY sheds all sell doors, you may need a chippy to fit hinges and catches. Or you could get custom made doors, I investigated it once, but it was ££££, but I suppose if the cabinets were all custom made originally it might have been worth doing. Don't discount having the existing doors sprayed or wrapped, add in new hinges and handles and you could have a fairly economic solution. Worktops again are fairly easy to have changed, remember that if there is a gas hob inset you will need a qualified fitter to remove it and replace.

We did it last year.

The actual cupboards themselves, the carcass, were still in good nick. We had a local 'door changer' company come in, measure up, show us our options and we chose new door fronts, handles and worktop plus, all the tiles replaced, and had paneling to one wall and a custom made coat hooks and boot/shoe area built in and the whole thing, plus labour cost us 6K.

They did the whole job in just a few days. It looks like we have a brand new kitchen. Very happy with the result.

We've just revamped our 25-year-old kitchen. The carcasses were sound, but as it was custom-built originally we used a local kitchen company to replace the sink, doors and worktops, and also fit a new oven and re-tile. It cost just under £16,000 in total, but the finished kitchen is well worth it.

Thanks for the replies. It definitely looks worth getting some quotes.

Blinking heck £16K just to revamp an old kitchen!!!😱

I've just had a new Wren kitchen supplied & fitted by local builders including a quality laminate floor, new light (with fancy-pants remote that changes it to white light, yellow light, dimmed & can set a timer to come on & off when wanted), cladded ceiling, all tiling new light, new fridge/freezer, slim-line dishwasher, sink, decorating walls, induction hob, oven everything for £13K. I'm over the moon as previous kitchen was the original 1980's kitchen from when our bungalow was first built. Oh - and for the £13K they're also going to sort out some of the rendering that is a bit dodgy & they even put in my ring doorbell & took away some old fencing that I was going to take to the tip. 😍

Is it the actual doors or the outer skins? If the latter, look into vinyl wrapping. We had our kitchen wrapped last year for about £2.5 K - 10 cupboards and 4 drawers.

It can be done - make sure you have the right measurements and shop around as some places will be more expensive than others!