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There are many benefits to have your kitchen, bathroom or office cupboards remodeled by resurfacing them. There are a few things that are not so good. My views on the pros and cons of renovating cabinets in this way come from thirty years of custom kitchen And home renovations.
The process I will be discussing is recovering old Formica plastic laminate with new Formica.
The process of roughing up the existing surface with sand paper and covering over the top of the existing plastic .
Buying and Flipping Houses
One of the things that I have noticed is that contractors, Realtors and people looking to make a few dollars from buying and selling houses, oftentimes will get estimates on resurfacing cupboards.
Covering over the old laminate and installing new doors is a reasonably priced, quick fix way of remodeling an ugly kitchen or bathroom in comparison to installing new cabinetry.
One of the BIG PROS of resurfacing is that a contract can be signed today and the cabinets be completed within four days. That is if there are not special order doors involved and the plastic laminate is available for next day delivery.
Some Old Cupboards Still Have Wrinkles
Even though your kitchen may get a face-lift on the outside, many things will still “mark” the cabinetry as being old. Things like water damaged areas around the sink, drawers that just don’t move smoothly and dated materials used on the interiors of cabinets years ago will be noticeable.
Even though the outside will look like brand new-the inside of the cabinets almost always show signs that they are older cupboards.
How Good Will the New Surface Adhere?
If your existing Formica laminate is adhered really well, then the chances of the new plastic staying secured to the old are really good. If you have several areas that are coming loose, then you will have problems down the road.
Sure the installer can glue the loose areas down before gluing the new covering on top, but this is not going to stop the process of the old mica letting loose over the course of time. I would say that this is one of the biggest cons of recovering plastic laminate cabinets.
Design Limitations
What you see is what you get. There is not much that can be changed with an existing set of cupboards that are getting resurfaced. Sure, you can add a few drawers, maybe cut something down to make a new appliance fit and install a new cabinet or two, but the basic layout of the kitchen stays the same.