How to Remove a Kitchen
Are you planning a kitchen renovation before the end of 2020? If you are, the first step in getting your new kitchen underway is removing your old one. Now, you could have your builder or carpenter do it for you, but then you’d have to pay them. Why not save yourself a good deal of money by removing your kitchen yourself?
I’ve just renovated my kitchen and took pleasure in removing my old kitchen. I could even sell it on Marketplace and put the profits towards my new kitchen! If you’re looking to save money on your new kitchen – or even make money on your old kitchen, then it’s easily donable with DIY kitchen removal. If I can do it, you can do it!
Today, I will explain how to remove a kitchen, providing all the steps to complete the task, including the tools you’ll need and a few tips along the way.
What You’ll Need: Tools for the Job
Removing a kitchen is a fairly straightforward task that takes only a few tools, a little patience and half a day of your time. In terms of preparation and tools, you will need the following:
- Hammer
- Screw Gun with Phillips Head drill bit
- Scraper
- Crowbar
- Baby Sledgehammer
- Stanley knife
- Safety Goggles
Get Prepared: Before You Start
Before removing a kitchen, you must contact an electrician to have all the electrical outlets and connections safely disconnected. This includes powerpoints and wired oven connection. You will be surprised by how many hidden powerpoints are in a kitchen. Don’t attempt to disconnect the power outlets yourself.
Once guaranteed the power has been disconnected and turned off at the power box, you can remove your appliances. Start with the built-in appliances such as your rangehood, and then clear away all other appliances.
It’s also a good idea to lay a protective sheet over your flooring if you intend to keep your existing flooring in your new kitchen.
Ease into it: Remove doors, drawers, and overhead cabinets
Doors and Drawers
There is an art to removing a kitchen, and special care is needed if you aim to do so with minimal damage. Thus, it helps to do things in the right order, starting with the removal of doors and drawers.
If you are looking to sell your old kitchen, go around to each cabinet and with a Phillips Head screwdriver or screw gun, unscrew the hinges to release the doors. You will want to collect all screws and hinges in a plastic bag to ensure you don’t lose any.
If you are not looking to reuse or sell your old kitchen, you can save some time by popping the doors away from the hinges with a crowbar.
Once the doors are off, go around and remove all drawers from the carcases.
Overhead Cabinets
With the doors and drawers removed, you can now turn your attention to the overhead wall cabinets. There will be screws at the back of the cabinets attaching the cabinets to the wall and screws in the sides of the cabinets attaching them to one another.
Have someone on-hand to support the overheads to make sure they don’t fall off the wall onto you and start unscrewing all the side screws to separate the cabinets from one another. Then, go along and unscrew the back screws that attach the cabinets to the wall. This should loosen them, but they are likely to also be glued to the wall. If this is the case, (ensuring that you still have someone to support them) take your crowbar and wedge it between the wall and the back of the overheads and lever it off the wall till it comes away.
Loosen it up: Remove surface elements
With the doors, drawers, and overhead cabinets removed, its time to prepare for the removal of the kitchen base cabinets. To do this, the surface elements need to be removed. Surface elements are those that are installed after the cabinet carcases and benchtops. Such elements include caulk, kickboards, and splashbacks. Survey the kitchen and identify all surface elements.
To remove caulk, take your Standly knife and run it through the caulk to break the connection between the two surfaces. You can wedge a small scraper under the kickboard to pop it away from the carcase. If you do not intend to reuse/sell your kitchen, you can hit it with a hammer for quicker removal.
It is best to remove the splashback at this time for clean removal of your benchtop. Cover your benchtop with a protective blanket if you indent to reuse/sell your used kitchen to avoid unnecessary damage.
If you have a tiled splashback, there is no saving it – its best to take your hammer or baby sledge to it till you break through to the wall cavity. This will allow you to get a grip of the plasterboard and tiles from the wall cavity so you can lever it forward away from the studs. Take extra precaution if you have a glass benchtop.
The breakup: Separation of benchtop and base cabinets
With the surface elements removed, you can now turn your attention to the benchtop and base cabinets.
Benchtop
Look under your benchtop towards the top of the cabinet carcases to locate the fixings. You should find screws fixing the benchtop to the cabinets. Take your screw gun and remove all fixings. Again, if you intend to reuse/sell your kitchen, be sure to collect and bag all fixings once they have been removed.
Now, take your crowbar and wedge it between the wall and the back of the benchtop. Use force to lever the benchtop free from the carcase. Take extra care if you are looking to sell your kitchen.
If your benchtop won’t budge, it is likely also glued. In some cases, where glue has been used, it will be near impossible to savour any of the benchtops – but you can try by carefully using a hammer and crowbar to level it away at various points. If that fails, go at it with the crowbar and expect damage.
With the benchtop out of the way, you can now remove the base cabinet.
Base cabinets
By now, all that is left of your kitchen should be your base cabinets and pantry.
Like you did with your overheads, start by going around and unscrewing all the side screws that attach each carcase to one another. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Then go along and remove all the screws that are attaching the cabinets to the walls. Again, this should loosen them, but they are also likely to be glued to the wall.
In which case, you will need to take your crowbar and ease them off the wall till they come loose. If the cabinets are stubborn, locate a wall stud and to gain more traction. You can also use a woodblock between the wall and crowbar. Don’t worry too much about damaging the plasterboard. It will likely be replaced or covered by your new kitchen.
The end: Almost!
Congratulations, you have just removed a kitchen and saved yourself a good deal of money. But, the job isn’t necessarily over yet. Clear your space free of all cabinetry and sweep up any rubble you may have created to expose the floor. The final step is to expose any packers that may have been used to level the kitchen and remove them from the floor.
Now you can pat yourself on the back and crack open a cold one.
What to do with an old kitchen?
As mentioned throughout this article, you can make good money from an old kitchen, but you can also spend money removing an old kitchen – even if you do remove it yourself. To ensure you make money and not spend money, you need to find a buyer for your kitchen.
I personally sold mine for $1200 cash, and it was 15 years old – AND, I DIDN’T HAVE TO REMOVE IT, THEY DID! That’s $1200 towards my new stone benchtop, a bunch of money saved on skip bin hire and a lot of stress saved in trying not to damage the kitchen in the removal process.
If you’re looking to make money from your kitchen, then set yourself a demo date, take a bunch of photos and place an add on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree. You can advertise the kitchen as is, where you remove it from them, or they have to remove it as part of the deal. Even if you get $200 for it, its $200 more than you would have otherwise had and a good $400+ saved in skip bin fees.
If your kitchen is way past its used by date and not worthy of being in anyone’s home, then a skip bin is your best method of removal. While it’s a shame that you won’t be able to make money off your kitchen, you won’t have to worry about finding a buyer in time or having to remove it without causing any damage. Either way, you really won’t care because you will be too focused on your beautiful new kitchen to care what happens with your old!
Conclusion
A new kitchen can cost a small fortune, even if you are doing on a budget. Thus, it only makes sense to save money wherever possible. One of the easiest ways to save on a kitchen renovation is by removing your old kitchen yourself. Thankfully, this is a fairly easy process that anyone with basic tools can do.
To remove your kitchen, start by getting the right tools for the job; a hammer, screw gun, scrapper and crowbar are essential. Then do your prep-work. Call in your electrician to disconnect the appliances and power outlets to ensure a safe environment. You can then remove your appliances and cover any surfaces you don’t want to damage ahead of the demo.
To remove your kitchen, start by removing the doors and drawers form all cabinets, then remove the overhead cabinets. Next, remove surface elements such as the caulk, kickboards, and splashback. You can now get into it. Sperate the benchtop from the base cabinets by first detaching the benchtop from the base cabinets, then complete the removal by detaching the base cabinets from the walls.
Removing a kitchen is relatively quick and easy to do, and it will save you a lot of money. Moreover, if you’re savvy about it, it can not only save you money, but it can make you money. If your kitchen is in decent knick, why not advertise it? Depending on the age and condition, you can make anywhere from $2000 to $5000 from your kitchen and save hundreds in skip bin fees… and if you get the right buyer, they may even remove it as part of the deal.
Now that you know how to remove a kitchen, the money you save can go towards your new kitchen. For this, look no further than Ross’s Discount Home Centre. We are the premier home for kitchen renovations in Perth and have everything you need to create the kitchen of your dreams, and at dream prices.
Visit our Guildford showroom or shop in the comfort of your home via our online store. From kitchen cabinets to benchtops, tapware to sinks, accessories to tiles, we have everything in stock and ready for immediate dispatch.
