Cabinet doors - any alternatives to 2pac?

[chippenchen]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum, having discovered it accidentally (and happily) while googling around. We're about to purchase a new home, and whilst the rest of the house and location is AWESOME, the kitchen is unfortunately quite underwhelming. You might be able to see from the pic that the countertop is a dark granite-looking stone top (not sure what it is), and the cabinets are quite old-fashioned wood.

I have been thinking of getting a cabinet maker to change the cabinet doors, maybe spruce up the place with a shiny white material like 2pac. Also change the doors and drawers to be soft-close. Are there any similar products to 2pac? A cabinet maker told me about kreatech (?spelling), but I was unable to find anything about it on the internet.

Also thought about changing the top cabinets, but it's a bit tricky with the few corners and the skirting. And installing a nice glass splashback behind the stove.

I would really appreciate any comments, ideas, suggestions. And if you would be happy to recommend any good (and cheap) cabinet makers in Perth, I would be extremely grateful. Apologies for the long-winded post!

[Julie-Ann]

Hello Chippenchen and welcome to the forum. How exciting to be moving into a new house.
It looks to be a well built kitchen and I like the stone on the benchtop.
The glass splashback would be very simple to do but should be the last step.
The upstand is a little different to normal. Do you have a picture of the other side of the kitchen where you see the whole upstand?
Are there any overhead cabinets on the other side of the window?
With cabinetmakers we are now approaching the silly season. The good cabinetmakers are most likely to be booked out until January next year. If you can wait until February/March next year more should be available and usually for a better price.
Replacing the drawer systems to soft close should be easy to do. Replacing the doors with 2 pak painted doors can be more difficult. It's all the frames, bottoms of overheads, end panels- all the fiddly bits that makes it difficult. A cabinetmaker would have to look at it and see if it needs to be all removed to or just bits replaced.
You can look at painting it yourself- others have done it but personally I wouldn't risk it not having a good finish.

[nqmummy]

You're lucky to have gorgeous stone benchtops already so I'd definitely just have the kitchen painted in 2 pak. If you don't want to do it, check with panel shops, they might even paint the doors for you (if you remove them). My husband is an ex panel beater and painted an old pine chest of drawers for me in 2 pak white and it looks awesome.

Check out this thread here, she's had her timber kitchen painted white.

http://community.i-do.com.au/index.p...ic=143292&st=0

[Julie-Ann]

Gee they got a nice finish on those doors. You could get the doors painted as nqmummy suggested. And then use the same paint to paint the frames and fixed panels. How are your painting skills?
Also some companies have different brand names for their painted doors. Laminex call theirs Colourtech (from memory).

[chippenchen]

THanks for the replies and suggestions. To tell you the truth, we have only seen the kitchen once. Now waiting for the settlement to go through, so I can't even get a cabinetmaker into the kitchen to have a look. The photo is from the realestate.com website.

I didn't realise that I can re-finish the doors in 2-pak. Might make the most sense (and least cents !). If cabinet makers are too busy at the moment, who else can do this ? My painting skills are dodgy, I once tried to refinish the kids old Boori cots to spruce it up before selling, and ending up spilling half a can of it over the carpet.

Julie-Ann, if you have any recommendations to make for good cabinet makers, pls don't hesitate to PM me !

[Julie-Ann]

Unfortunately my cabinetmaker only works for a few designers and no one else-sorry I can't help with the names of just a cabinetmaker. Which is all you really need.
You could get a painter in to paint the kitchen for you instead. Or you could take the doors to have a 2pak paint finish added at a paint shop and get a painter to paint the frames in the house.I can recommend you a painter but he may be booked up for the rest of the year. You would not believe how come September everybody wants every thing done by Xmas.
When is the settlement date?

[chippenchen]

Settlement is in late October. I might take on your suggestion of going to a paint shop, otherwise will hunt around and try and secure the services of a cabinetmaker. We were also thinking of designing a custom island bench - dining table, hence the question about a cabinetmaker. Many thanks for all of your suggestions.