How One DIYer Made Her Existing 2000s Cabinets Look 2x the Price

These days, the term “kitchen renovation” doesn’t have to refer to gutting anything. Homeowners are getting more and more creative with how they upgrade their kitchens, from refreshing appliances and coating on a new layer of paint to upgrading door fronts to give old cabinetry a new lease on life. The best part? These smaller tweaks can have a major impact — so much so that sometimes, it looks as if you went ahead and gutted the room anyway. 

Perhaps that’s why it was so impressive to see just how transformative creator Cass Smith (@cassmakeshome) was able to be with her recent kitchen renovation. Determined to make her existing cabinetry work for a new and improved aesthetic, Smith dreamt up a series of impactful changes to refresh the space, including installing decorative toe kicks, extending the top of the cabinetry up to the ceiling, new hardware, and a fresh coat of creamy taupe paint. The change that moved the needle the most, though? Inset fronts. 

There’s just something about inset cabinetry that looks incredibly luxe. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with the alternatives, cabinet doors that appear flush with the rest of the cabinet box — also known as inset — add a seamless and minimalistic appeal, transforming the aesthetic of your space to something more tailored, modern, and custom. The catch? Typically, scoring this type of cabinet front is only possible by completely refreshing your doors and the cabinet boxes. Unless you’re Smith, that is.

The DIY pro took matters into her own hands, using several pieces of wood (which she cut into custom widths) to frame out each cabinet door and bring them flush with the “new” cabinet box fronts. Of course, adding that extra perimeter of trim made it difficult to open the existing cabinet doors properly, so Smith added blocks to the inside of the cabinets to adjust the hinges and allow the doors to open and close as intended.

While her solution is certainly more budget-friendly than a full-blown kitchen renovation, it’s definitely not without its hard work. That said, if you’re someone who is comfortable around power tools — or willing to hire someone who is — this project by Smith has demonstrated that a dreamy, nearly custom kitchen is only a few cuts away.