granite kitchen counter

we are looking at a house that has the 80's laminate cabinets, but a fairly new granite counter.

what's the best way to go about renovating this? refacing the cabinets? or taking the counter off, use the same footprint, with new cabinets, and out it back on?


TIA - we haven't sold our house, but I'm just thinking...


ETA: I feel very wasteful getting rid of new, perfectly good granite KWIM?

Message edited 12/28/2009 11:08:07 AM.

Re: granite kitchen counter

I would re-face the cabinets or re-do the cabinets before I got rid of new granite.

Re: granite kitchen counter

re-facing costs close to the same as new cabinets and you still have the old insides. Not worth it if you ask me.

your best bet would be to have a contractor take off the granite, and reuse on the new cabinets. its usually possible since the granite is just glued in place. it will destroy the old cabinets when its taken off, but that will be ok since you wouldn't be using them.

My MIL had her cabinets refaced about 5 years ago, it save them $300 and the insides are the old, beat up cabinets. The refacing is not holding up well at all, my FIL is constantly gluing the edges, especially around the stove area where the heat that comes off of it has actually loosened the glue behind the laminate. it looks nice but for that kind of savings you may as well just get brand new everything except the granite. as for re-using it, you could do the same layout, or you could do a smaller layout and have the granite cut. but if you plan to do something bigger, it will probably be very hard to match the stone, so keep that in mind. you could also create an island and use it on there, and use a completely different color on the rest of the kitchen so that its obvious you weren't trying to match it

Re: granite kitchen counter

I had my cabinets refaced. It was a fortune, and I regret it. They did not come out, how I imagined. If I weren't planning to move within the next 5 years, I would redo them. Knowing what I know now, I would 100% buy new cabinets and have the GC place the granite on new cabinets. Good Luck!

Re: granite kitchen counter

I would reuse the counter and get new cabinets. Refacing is expensive. You can get new cabinets for almost the same amount of money. Check out Ikea for cabinets. They have different price ranges. You can install yourself or have someone else install. GL!

Re: granite kitchen counter

thanks! I didn't know that refacing was so expensive

Re: granite kitchen counter

If they are laminate cabinets, its going to be impossible to sand them and stain them since they are not real wood

So your best bet is just get new cabinets, shop around there are great deals out there

Re: granite kitchen counter

We have laminate cabinets from the 80's and painted them white. It came out nice and will hold us over for a while until we re-do the kitchen completely. That is always an option if the cabinets are in good shape. It was very cheap, just paint and materials (DH did the work) and new hardware.