Do you do your own home repair? How do you learn what do do?

United States
February 11, 2007 12:21am CST
We are in the process of tearing out a lot of water damaged cabinets and flooring. We do not want to pay someone else tons of money to do this or to put in the new products. What is the best way to replace the cabnitry under the sink without removing everything? Also, we want to keep the cabinets, but update them somehow as they are made of solid wood and are in great shape. Any ideas? Did you try to update or repair your home? Did it work out or not?
1 person likes this
4 responses
• United States
18 Feb 07
you can buy wood veneer for chancing the look of your cabinets. also new hardware(handles,hinges etc.)u can also paint the faces or restain & refinish them. none of these options are hard. just take time and do it rihgt and make it look good
• United States
18 Feb 07
since you mentioned floor damage and will possibly have to remove the cabinets anyway,now's the time to redo them
@emeraldisle (13139)
• United States
19 Mar 07
Our kitchen cabinets are from the 70's and they are that avacodo green wood grain look. We took the doors and in the center they had the rectangle inset section. In that section we put up contact paper with ivy all over it. It looks like they are the marble insets now instead. It brightened up the kitchen immensley and took away from the drab of the avacodo green. Might be something to look at for a cheap and semi-easy way to revamp the kitchen.
• United States
17 Feb 07
We redid the cabinets in our kitchen ourselves. We took out the old ones and put in ones we had "recycled" by sanding down and painting them white. We replaced the sink and countertops, too; so I'm not sure how you would "replace the cabinitry under the sink without removing everything" what do you not want to remove? You could just replace the doors and repaint the body of the cabinet if it is not damaged. If it is damaged, you will probably need to remove the sink and countertop to replace it. Usually, there are just a few screws under the countertop that hold it onto corner brackets in the body of the cabinet, if you take those out, the top should come out in one piece (take the sink out first). You just need to remove part of the back of the new cabinet to allow for the pipes to come through. As for updating the cabinets, you can either paint them a solid color with a primer and then a coat or two of oil-based paint (it smells, but it lasts longer) or you could strip, sand and restain them, which takes a lot more work. Adding some new hardware will really help finish off the cabinets whichever you choose to do. Good Luck.
@coolsanth (112)
• India
11 Feb 07
sometimes it will work out..sometimes not. ithink in many cases for me it is not... my home repair is only with electronics, which my mom always argue with me not to do, which ofcourse i will, sometimes i will sucseed, sometimes not