Operation DIY Hogwarts Great Hall Thanksgiving is complete and I am here for it! I haven’t been this excited about a project in a while and I love how it turned out. Are you as excited to see these pictures as I am to share them? I’ve been asked, why create a Hogwarts-inspired Thanksgiving? Well, a big reason for this project was my kids. They are obsessed with Harry Potter, especially my kid Blake (watch this video to see his reaction). So why not turn this space into the Hogwarts Great Hall? I had to bust it in real-time to finish this room in time for Thanksgiving this year. Now that the holiday has passed, I can share all of the details with you.
Wow, it’s finally done!! Last year I decided to transform this space into the perfect playroom for my kids. I thought the space was really cool already (I mean look at those before and after pictures below). But I still felt like there were some details missing to give it that magic. So I picked up my tools and got back to work. Before sharing the full loft playroom DIY reveal, let me take you through the process.
Introducing the Angela Rose cabinet door line with Nieu Cabinets! I am so excited to finally share these doors with you so that YOU ALL can affordably have a custom designer-look kitchen…just by replacing your door fronts! My doors come in custom sizes and come PAINTED in any color (mine is Dream Dusk). Below is an FAQ for everything you need to know!
I’ve been working for months and months designing the perfect cabinet doors for your existing cabinet boxes (or ikea boxes). I designed the Angela Rose Slim Shaker and Angela Rose Slim Shaker Detail doors to take the classic shaker door and update it to mimic the current top designer looks. By slimming the width of the outer rail and slimming the depth, I gave a fresh and custom designer look to the timeless shaker door. It’s your favorite shaker, but elevated and AWESOME! Can’t wait to see you transform your spaces! Stop pinning. Start DOING!
FAQs
What is refacing?
Refacing is the act of replacing all of your cabinet door and drawer faces with new ones in a fresh style and color. Not to be confused with refinishing, which is the act of having existing doors repainted. Often times, the cost to paint what you already have is more than replacing all the doors, but you’re still stuck with a cabinet door style you don’t LOVE!
If you have perfectly great cabinet boxes but your doors just aren’t your style, why would you rip everything out and throw it away just to change your look? Refacing saves you time, money and headache, and you don’t have to eat takeout every day for months without a working kitchen! For many people, refacing is a project that can take a weekend with some help to switch out doors and drawer faces, and apply paint as needed. PLUS, it’s DIY friendly, and typically 50-60% less than ripping out your kitchen and starting over. It also isn’t money spent on painting cabinet doors you don’t like the style of!
Before knowing the steps you’ll need to take to reface your kitchen, you’ll need to determine if you have a framed or a frameless kitchen! Here’s how to tell.
Framed Kitchens
More popular in the US than Canada, face framed kitchens, commonly called “framed” consist of cabinets that have a face frame around the cabinet opening, on which the cabinet door rests when closed. Amongst face framed kitchens there are a variety of hinge overlays – the most common being half or full overlay, or inset doors. The type of hinge overlay used on framed cabinets can also result in different looks of cabinetry as the doors cover up more or less of the frame.
Many kitchens built around the 80s have half overlay hinges. When your doors are closed, a significant portion of the cabinet frame will show around the door. Some folks want a more seamless look in their kitchen, and want to change their doors to a full overlay door to cover up more of the frame and achieve a more modern look.
Not sure which overlay you have? This video will help you determine your existing cabinet door hinge overlay.
Frameless Kitchens
Popular in Canada and Europe, frameless cabinets are often called Euro-Style cabinets. IKEA has made frameless cabinets a hit with DIYers as they are easy to assemble and install in a variety of spaces. Frameless cabinets don’t have a face frame, and use the wall of the cabinet box to mount hinges and drawer slides. A benefit of frameless cabinets is that the full interior of the cabinet is accessible, with no hindrance from a face frame.
How to reface a framed kitchen
The most common way to reface a framed kitchen is to paint the exteriors of the cabinet boxes and face frames with paint to match your Nieu doors. Older framed kitchens may have exposed hinges, but new soft close concealed hinges as well as drawer boxes and accessories can be installed to make your project go one step further! Trim pieces such as toe-kick, filler and panels can be ordered as well. Panels are often used to clad the sides of an island, peninsula or cabinet instead of painting for a factory smooth finish.
DIY refacing of frameless cabinets is a straightforward process of replacing doors, drawer fronts, side panels, and toe-kick with custom made to measure materials. Most frameless kitchens use panels screwed on to the sides of those cabinets with exposed sides. By ordering new panels you can simply unscrew the existing panel and replace it with a new one made to match the color of your new doors. Toe-kicks and filler can be ordered to match your doors, and are easy to install. Hinges can be reused to save on cost or new soft-close hinges can be ordered and installed to give your doors a luxury feeling every time you close them. To learn how to measure to reface a frameless video, this video is helpful.
Budgeting for your kitchen refacing project
Nieu offers 16 cabinet door styles and a variety of standard paint colors to suit any design or budget! Having your cabinet doors arrive pre-painted is such a game changer and makes this project much more accessible for DIYers! If you’re looking to save even more, or are an experienced DIYer, you can also order their products raw/unfinished, or primed and finish and paint them yourself! For most DIYers, an at-home paint job won’t have that flawless finish like a cabinetry shop, so I love that the painting can be taken care of for you!
What is cabinet refacing?
Keeping your existing cabinet boxes, and updating the door style AND color. They make doors, drawer faces, drawer boxes, panels, trim, filler, toekick and floating shelves!
Why reface instead of paint your existing doors?
Painting means you still are stuck with your current door style. If that’s really not your thing, then you can make a big impact by updating the style and color at once!
Nobody makes doors my size, I guess I can’t use Nieu?
Not true! All our products are custom made to your exact measurements. We do not require you to fit into standard sized doors! We can make doors to accommodate tiny houses or very large kitchens.
What if I have exposed hinges and want hidden, soft close hinges?
It’s doable! The Nieu Team has a video showing you how to measure for full overlay doors with hidden hinges.
I want to order panel ready appliances. Will Nieu supply the panels?
Yes! We can make panels for your appliances to match your Nieu doors.
Where can I use these doors?
Lots of places!
Kitchens
Bathroom vanities
Laundry room cabinets
Entertainment/media units
Built-in office units/bookcases
And more!
Are these doors compatible with IKEA cabinets?
Yes! You can send the Nieu Team your IKEA planner PDF and they will create your quote from that!
They work with all IKEA cabinetry products including the new SEKTION kitchen system, or the discontinued AKURUM system. They also work with PAX (wardrobes), BESTA (media units) or GODMORGON (vanities).
What are the doors made of?
MDF! It provides a high degree of paint adhesion, and is dent and chip resistant. It also holds up better to changes in heat and humidity, meaning the door won’t warp or crack your paint like solid woods can.
I have frameless cabinets – do these doors work?
YES! We can accommodate frameless cabinets as well as framed. For framed cabinets we can accommodate half or full hinge overlay doors.
I want to make my doors larger to hide more of my face frames. Can I do that?
Yes! This will likely involve changing from a half to full overlay, as well as potentially making your doors slightly larger to reduce the reveal.
What about hinges?
Nieu sells soft-close hinges for a variety of overlays – and framed or frameless cabinets. Hinges are by Blum.
What about drawer boxes?
Nieu sells custom sized, wooden dovetail drawer boxes. These can replace old/stuck/broken drawers, or change a cabinet that is doors only into something more functional, like a Pot and Pan stack!
I want to paint my doors myself. Do you offer options like that?
Yes – we offer our doors Raw (meaning you need to finish sand them, prime, then paint), as well as Primed doors, so you can just do the finishing painting yourself.
You aren’t going to believe the before and after of this affordable entry makeover. Here are the projects that I did in the space. And as always, follow me @angelarosehome for more projects!
