Replacing your old kitchen cabinet doors and drawers - Naked Kitchens

Buying bespoke new doors and drawers for your existing cabinets is the smart way to transform a tired-looking kitchen. Here’s a guide to why, when and how to do it…

The state of your kitchen has a big impact on the look and feel of your house. And the visible part of your kitchen is mostly made up of cabinet doors and drawers.

If those are starting to look dated or damaged – or if you’re just plain bored with them – then switching them up for beautiful, high-quality new fronts is a savvy, cost-effective way to transform your kitchen and inject some fresh new style into your home.

Without having to rip the whole thing out you can have a completely new look and generally feel a lot better about life. It can save you a lot of money and it’s also pretty easy: in most cases, all you need is a measuring tape and some basic DIY skills.

So changing your kitchen doors and drawers can give you serious bang for your buck.

This guide will tell you everything you need to know about buying replacement kitchen doors, specifically bespoke ones from Naked Kitchens.

For kitchen hackers: adding bespoke doors to new Ikea or Howdens carcasses
Some clever people design and build their own kitchen layout with new cabinet carcasses from Ikea or Howdens, and then add beautiful bespoke fronts from Naked Kitchens to get a high-end finish for a bargain price. Read more about our doors here.

Why replace your old kitchen doors with bespoke new ones?

Here are some of the most common reasons for buying new bespoke kitchen cabinet doors and drawers:

You did your kitchen years ago and now you’re fed up with it...

• It’s tired and tatty and you have no idea what you were thinking with those colours... But the layout is fine and the surfaces are ok. Keeping the carcasses and changing up the cabinet fronts is a fast, low-cost way to give the kitchen a facelift.

You’ve bought a new property and you want to stamp your style on the kitchen

• If you’ve just moved in and you need to update an outmoded kitchen, or if you want to give a new build house a bit of personality, then bespoke kitchen doors in the colour and style of your choosing are a super-effective way to make the place feel truly your own – especially if a whole new kitchen isn’t within your budget.

You’re redecorating and want your kitchen to fit the new look

• If you’re transforming your home – new flooring, paint, curtains etc – then updating your kitchen cabinet doors and drawers with complementary colours, styles and finishing touches is a smart way to make a big impact.

How do I know if my kitchen is suitable for replacing the cabinet doors?

Kitchen cabinet carcasses tend to last reasonably well. They’re hidden away and protected from sunlight, spillages, bashes and wear and tear. It’s the doors that take a battering. So in most cases carcasses will outlast doors.

However, before you start buying doors, it’s worth examining your kitchen properly.

First, are your cabinets frameless?

In a frameless design the door is overlaid onto the cabinetry, so that only the door is visible and none of the carcass behind it can be seen.

But in an in-frame design the door or drawer sits within the frame, which is visible around it. If you have an in-frame kitchen and the frames are fixed to the carcass, then replacing the doors alone will still leave the frames needing to be refinished.

So if you have an in-frame kitchen, a doors-only replacement might not be a good option and you’d be better going for all new cabinets.

Some other reasons NOT to consider door replacement are:

• Serious damage to the carcasses – look out especially for water damage in cabinets around sink areas
• An awkward layout that doesn’t suit the way you actually use your kitchen
• Storage that’s inefficient or appliance housing that doesn’t work for your purposes.

In any of these cases you’ll probably be better off looking at replacing some or all of your cabinet carcasses, or even going for a full kitchen redesign.

But if the carcasses are generally in good condition, and you’re happy that the layout and storage work for you, then door replacement should be fine.

Do I need to have a standard kitchen to be able to replace the doors?

The short answer is no. At Naked Kitchens we can make bespoke doors to any size cabinets, so it’s just a case of measuring accurately and sending us the dimensions (see below for how to do that).

If you do have a standard kitchen – for example, from Ikea or Howdens – then you can easily order doors from us in their standard sizes.

See more about our bespoke doors, drawer fronts and end panels in set Ikea Metod sizes here. And see more about our doors for Howdens carcasses here.

How easy is it to replace kitchen cabinet doors?

Physically removing your old kitchen doors and replacing them with new ones is a relatively simple matter. Usually you’ll just need a screwdriver, the right fixings and some basic DIY skills.

However, the important bit is making sure that your new doors fit perfectly on your old cabinets. If the fit isn’t spot on, the whole look will be wrong. That means you’ll need to measure carefully and send us the correct dimensions (see below for how).

But if you’re not 100% confident, we recommend using a local fitter to help measure up and to install the new fronts.

How to measure for new kitchen doors and fronts

Measuring door sizes

When you’re measuring for new kitchen doors make sure you:

• Measure the height and width of the door in millimetres (not centimetres or inches)
• Measure your old doors rather than the units. And measure the back of the door rather than the front, as the front may have a rounded or profiled edge, giving an inaccurate size
• Doors need to be 3mm smaller than the cabinet to allow them to open. For example, a 600 x 800mm carcass will require a 597 x 797mm door. So bear that in mind if you don’t have the old doors to measure.

Measuring for hinge hole location

You’ll also need to get the right measurements for pre-drilled hinge holes.

If you have Ikea or Howdens carcasses, Naked Kitchens makes this bit easy: just select the appropriate option during the order process.

But for custom or other carcasses you’ll need to provide measurements of the distance in millimetres of the centre of the hinge hole to:

• The top of the door
• The bottom of the door
• The nearest side of the door

Door thickness

All our solid, high-quality Naked Kitchen doors are 22-24mm thick, whereas you might find that your existing doors are only 18mm thick. This shouldn’t affect your ability to attach them to your cabinets, but it’s worth noting!

Additional kitchen front accessories: Drawer fronts, end panels, filler pieces, plinths and pelmets

In addition to the cabinet doors you may well have other visible elements of your kitchen that you want to match the new style. So you’ll need to measure the exact height and width in millimetres for accessories such as:

• Drawer fronts
• End panels
• Plinths (the long panels that run along at floor level the foot of your cabinets)
• Filler pieces and angled fillers (often used between end cabinets and walls)
• Pelmets (the optional trim that fits onto the bottom of wall units, often to conceal lighting)
• Cornices (the optional trim at the top of the wall unit - for which you can also use an angled filler)
• Corner posts (used to create a seamless join between two cabinets that meet at a corner)

Choosing replacement kitchen cabinet doors and fronts from Naked Kitchens

This is the fun part – choosing the bespoke doors that express your personality and style. All Naked Kitchen doors are manufactured right here in our Norfolk facility just for you.

Use our online order process to select:

Door style

The style of door sets the basic tone for your kitchen, from traditional styles like Shaker to sleek, contemporary Slab looks.

Finish

This is your chance to make a unique kitchen that looks a million dollars for a very smart price. Our beautiful, high-end finishes include exposed oak and walnut, Scandi birch ply and brushed limed grain oak.

Colours

Our painted doors are sprayed using an industrial sprayline and then passed under UV lighting to give an exceptionally accurate and durable finish. We have a range of standard colours inspired by the countryside around our Norfolk showroom, and we also offer a bespoke colour matching service.

Handles

Put the finishing touches to your new doors by choosing from a range of stylish handles, or customise one of our handle-less designs.

How to order replacement kitchen cabinet doors and accessories

Ordering Naked Doors online is beautifully simple. Create an account on the website and start building a quote by browsing items and adding them to your basket.

Once you’ve selected a style and finish, the site will automatically default to those settings as you add new items.

A step-by-step Naked Kitchen order process guide is here.

Naked Kitchens - Frequently Asked Questions…

Installing a brand new kitchen versus replacing just the cabinet doors: What are the pros and cons?

Keeping your existing cabinet carcasses and just replacing the doors will obviously save you a lot of cost, time and disruption compared to ripping everything out and starting again with a whole new kitchen.

But you’ll need to make sure your carcasses are in a decent condition if you want the ‘new’ kitchen to last. And bear in mind that with a door replacement approach you’ll have to settle for the layout and surfaces you have now.

In a full Naked Kitchens service we can help you design a truly bespoke kitchen: it will be beautiful, bomb-proof and tailored to the way you live. And because we combine stunning design with cutting-edge manufacturing processes, you’ll have a durable, top-end kitchen at exceptional value for money.

Can you put new doors on any existing cabinetry?

As long as the existing carcasses are in a good condition, yes. Naked Kitchens can make bespoke doors in any size, you don’t need to have a standard kitchen.

However, a Naked Kitchens service is only really suitable for frameless cabinet designs (where the doors are fixed on top of the frames and the frames aren’t visible). If you have in-frame cabinets (where the doors and drawers are set in frames, which are visible) then Naked Kitchens probably isn’t for you.

How easy is it to fit new kitchen cabinet doors?

It’s generally pretty straightforward to remove old doors from their hinges and replace them with the new ones, so long as you’ve supplied accurate measurements for the door sizes and holes. You’ll just need a screwdriver and some very basic DIY skills.

But if you’re not completely confident, we recommend using a local fitter to help measure up and to install the new fronts.

Do I need to buy new hinges?

Not necessarily. If you’re replacing existing doors then you can reuse your hinges if they’re still working well. If you need new ones then we can of course supply them with your doors.

Apart from cabinet doors, what else might I need to replace when redoing my kitchen?

Other visible items you might need to replace if you want a high-end, consistent look include: drawer fronts, end panels, plinths, filler pieces, pelmets, cornices and corner posts. Naked Kitchens can supply all of these in a matching style to your bespoke door fronts.

How much money can you save by replacing the kitchen doors compared to installing a new kitchen?

While there are a great many variables, you can generally expect a doors-only replacement to cost about a third to half of the amount of a full kitchen redesign using the same spec.