Are you wondering about updating 80’s oak cabinets? There are basically several things you can do to update your old oak cabinets—to befit the nowadays style and use. This will include re-staining the cabinet, changing the little details, adding valance and crown molding, and to paint it anew.
Re-staining
To re-stain oak cabinets is different than painting the cabinets. Budget-wise, re-staining is said to cost lower than painting it. It is also said that the re-painted oak cabinet will look better than that with re-staining only.
In re-staining your old cabinets, you need to smartly consider what color you will choose. If you are choosing the lighter tone than the tone currently existed on your cabinet, the process will be slightly more difficult. All said, staining your cabinets with darker color is way easier. However, all comes back to your preference.
Replacing/adding the missing hardware
The next method of updating 80’s oak cabinets is replacing or adding the missing ‘hardware’. The hardware here means the colts, handles, knobs, and so many more. If your old cabinets are missing some of their ‘hardware’, replacing or adding the hardware will be a good updating method to choose. Why so?
The reason is simple: you will make the cabinet to look like a new piece. Combine it with re-painting or re-staining and your folks will ask whether you have just purchased cabinet.
To find the perfect handles, knobs, or so, you can search both online and in any nearest hardware stores. You can also seek for reference online so you can get better result while attaching it onto your cabinet.
Adding valance and crown molding
What are valance and crown molding? To be simply put, valance is like a ‘skirt’ of your cabinet—a kind of drapery attached in the lower part of your cabinets. Meanwhile, crown molding is the vice versa as it is placed over the cabinets, making it as a crown—just as its name.
Adding these may require you to call someone to help, especially if you are not accustomed to do this type of work. While adding this, consider to painting the whole cabinets so that the whole ‘package’ stays in uniform color.
Painting
In painting your cabinets, you will need to prepare a good budget since it will cost you more, especially when compared to re-staining or just replacing the handles or knobs. Also, if you are adding crown molding to updating old oak cabinets, this means also adding more bucks to spare.
So, which one of the mentioned methods will you choose? In updating 80’s oak cabinets, choose any method that suit your budget first, but if budget isn’t a problem at all, you can go with literally any methods mentioned.
