Kitchen cabinet door replacement - tips and advice please

[Screechypants]

Has anyone replaced their kitchen cabinet doors? Ours are on their final legs - much painted, but now the particle board is chipping and bulding in places, the paint looks awful and they are getting increasingly difficult to clean.

We really can't afford a full kitchen refit and my brain is too small to work out a proper redesign (and actually our lay out pretty much works for us), so I though we could just replace the doors and the counter tops on the existing carcasses.

The doors and drawers seem relatively straightforward to measure and purchase but there are loads of other elements to consider and match in. How does that bit work?

X8 cupboard door
X6 drawers

1 blank (looks like a drawer but isn't) below sink
1 blank below oven
Two corner pieces
Kickboards x4
End pieces x3?
Boxing for the boiler

I found a company that looks straightforward and easy to deal with (Happy Doors), but I can't work out the details of the extras properly.

Any thoughts on this most welcome, worried i will end up with a half done bodge.

If your budget will stretch why not get someone in to help order / install. You don't need to go to a kitchen company, just search through Facebook or somewhere like Check-a-trade, find a local handy man with a joinery background and you should be good to go. If its a straight forward replacement job it shouldn't be much more than a days work, if it's more involved than that then it's probably out of your scoop anyway.

Yes, was thinking much beyond replacing the door hinges, I wouldn't be able to cope with.

We bought doors and drawer fronts on line. So much cheaper. If you are not able to fit them yourselves find a recommended local tradesman. When we were looking around for a company to do this work it worked out the same price as a new kitchen.

We did this we replaced the doors, floor, tiles and worktops. The unit in the kitchen were in good condition but every single floor tile was cracked when we moved in and we wanted to rejig the layout but mostly keep the same number of cupboards. It's a kitchen-diner but kitchen units in the dining bit so essentially a large kitchen with a table in it and we wanted two separate spaces. We needed to buy two units one tall one to house the over and a floor unit to replace the space where the oven used to be. It came to £8k but we went with solid wood painted doors - 13 doors and 7 large drawer fronts, 4 small drawer fronts and 5 end panels (£3k) and quartz worktops (3k). We had the worktops fitted but we did the rest ourselves.
We also turned some of the drawers into cupboards and added extra shelves to other cupboards as we find 3 shelves preferable to the standard 2. This was in 2023-24

Oh and we previously have fitted a second hand kitchen. We got it off a family friend who was replacing a 3 year old kitchen for personal reasons. We refitted all the units and doors, bought new laminate worktops, kickboards and end panels and retiled. We did the whole room for £1200, £500 of which was the worktop, although in 2018.

When we sold all the people commented on how nice the kitchen was. It really is about finding the right bits to spend your money on and working out where savings can be made.

For us the worktops are usually the bit of the kitchen that stands out the most so we try to pick the best quality we can for our budget, followed by the cupboard doors. We have put the basic metro tiles from b and q in pretty much every kitchen or bathroom space we have done up and have never been disappointed. Solid wooden plinths and kickboards can be more cost effective as they don't get damaged as easily.

Doors are easy if they are the common laminated or shrink wrapped ones made of chipboard or mdf (I don't recommend wrapped ones). If they are making them to order you can get any size you want, and the hinge positions to match your existing cabinets (AFAIK there are only two standards for hinges, and the manufacturer will know them). Laminated and edged are very durable but are flat.

I actually got mine by buying remaining warehouse stock of a discontinued wood line (you may not get all sizes) and I have used two dealers that specialise in that trade. Sadly my previous supplier has retired so I haven't got a recommendation. There are vendors on ebay. Some specialise in cheap rubbish for the rental market.

Oh, some really useful tips there. - thank you so much. I like our tiles and hoping not change them, but good point about worktops. I prefere wood, but I think it will be difficult to maintain.