Kitchen cabinets -- the secrets
Let me tell you the story about how we changed our kitchen cabinets.
It all started when we decided we would put our home on the market. It is about 50 years old but the kitchen has been remodeled. That was probably 30 years ago however. (It had strange, round, brass kitchen sinks in the bench top!) And although we repainted it when we moved in, that was over 10 years ago. So we thought we needed to update the kitchen to get the maximum price for our home.
We had a friend who builds houses and he helped us. First job, he said, was to look up the kitchen cabinet manufacturers in our area and select a kit set kitchen we would be happy with. So we did that, looking at unit sizes and company service, and matching the available range of doors and door knobs, hinges and accessories with the shape of our room.
To my surprise this was not so difficult. We early on decided we would have painted kitchen cabinets, not stained wood. And that we would not have metal cabinets. Kitchen designs are fairly standard, and given that and the shape and size of our existing kitchen, we soon had a plan laid out and were ready to install kitchen cabinets in place of our old ones.
Next we had to rip out the old ones. My friend and I did this one morning, and I spent the rest of the day reducing the timber to firewood and stacking away what could be burned ready for the coming winter. Next day the kit set cabinets arrived in their flat packs, and they were easy to assemble. Our friend had ordered the bench top for us, and while this did need some skill to install -- the wall it sat against was not perfectly plumb and I think my friend's measurements were not 100 percent correct because we had to slip a row of tiles along one edge of the bench top when we had installed it. But eventually all the cabinets were assembled in place, under the bench top, even and upright. they looked great and already our kitchen had taken on a new atmosphere. A much more modern, current atmosphere.
Next day a plumber came and joined up the pipes and we were cooking once again!
So I would say a DIY kitchen cabinet install is not too difficult. Get a friend who can help you, though, because some parts of the work need experience, like leveling the bench top and lining up the cabinet doors.
And also take your time looking at all the kitchen cabinet designs you can get your hands on. there are many of them out there, and while they are generally all the same -- and often offer the same modular sizes -- there are many variations: some are painted, some are metal, some come needing refinishing and so on.