Refinishing kitchen cabinets is well worth the time it takes to do it. You start out with a room that is dim and dingy and end up with a brighter, cleaner kitchen. It only takes a few basic steps to refinish your cabinets.
Decide How You Will Refinish your Kitchen Cabinets
The first thing you need to do is decide what you will do with your cabinets. You can paint the cabinets or stain and varnish the cabinets. It all depends on what look you want your kitchen to have. You can paint after about any finish has been put on. You will be limited, though, in what stains will work with your wood. In other words, if you have a dark wood like mahogany, you will not be able to put a light pine finish on it. It just will not work.
Gather All the Materials You Will Need
After you determine how you are refinishing your kitchen cabinets, get all the materials you need. Get the paint or stain and finishing agent, of course. However, you will also need: degreaser, medium grade sandpaper, tack cloth, primer (if you are painting) and good quality paintbrushes. This is not a job where you want to use rollers or sponges.
Now, you take the cabinets down. If you are just refinishing the fronts, take them down. This is easily done by unscrewing a few screws and taking off the hinges. Most drawer pulls are put on with screws also. You do not even have to empty the cupboards or drawers if you do it right and you have standard hardware.
Clean the Cabinets
Take the cabinets or cabinet fronts into a room or garage where you will do your refinishing. Make sure the room is one where the cabinets will be able to dry without having too much dust stick to their surfaces. Your next job will be to clean the cabinets. If they are like most kitchen cabinets, they are covered with grease and grime. All of that has to come off before you can start refinishing them. Use a good degreaser and scrub them hard.
If you are refinishing a kitchen cabinet that has been painted or varnished before, you will be removing that substance as well, in most cases. You can use oil paint over latex, but if you use latex paint over oil, it will peel. Therefore, if the original paint was oil and you want to use latex, you will have to completely do away with that finish. Ask your paint dealer what kind of chemical product to use to remove the old finish that is on your cabinet. Take along a sample drawer front for your paint dealer to inspect.
Sand First, then Stain or Paint, then Sand Again
Next, you have to sand the cabinets to smooth them. Use medium grade sandpaper and sand them thoroughly and evenly. Be aware that if you are refinishing your kitchen cabinets and you start sanding too soon, you will be grinding grease and dirt right into the surfaces of your cabinets. When you do sand, you want a clean, smooth surface to work with.
When the surface is ready for stain or paint, you can apply it with care. If you stain, wait the recommended time before you put on a varnish or polyurethane finish. If you paint, let it dry for several days. In either case, put on the paint or varnish in several thin coats and sand between each coat. When you are finished, do the final sanding with fine sandpaper. The final step to refinishing them is to install them and reinstall the hardware. Once you have done that, you will have a brand new look.
Ernest Jarquio is a successful Webmaster and publisher of The-Kitchen-Sink.com. He provides more resources on topics such as Kitchen Aid parts, kitchen remodeling Cincinnati and kitchen cabinet organizers that you can research on his website even while lounging in your living room.
Update Your Kitchen Cabinets
Kitchen cabinets are one of the most important fixtures in a kitchen. They are a storage place and a necessity. They need to look good and function well. Nice kitchen cabinets can make the whole kitchen look great. In the ether hand, bad kitchen cabinets can make the whole kitchen look bad. The kitchen cabinets tell a story about the whole kit...
Kitchen Cabinet Updates On A Budget
One of the easiest ways to change and improve a kitchen is through the kitchen cabinets. The improvement of the cabinets can be designed to fit your budget quite easily. A smaller budget allows for refinishing and repair of the existing cabinets, where a larger budget will allow for complete replacement of the cabinets. Either way is a fine meth...
Kitchen Cabinet Refinishing - The Molding Tops Off The Job
Try taking your kitchen cabinet refinishing job one step further by adding some molding to the fronts of your flat surface cabinets. You will create an interesting touch to your room without spending much more money than you will to do a simple refinish. Putting molding on your cabinets can be done easily.The Basic TasksThe first thing is to do the...
Painting Kitchen Cabinet - Remodel, Reface or Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets?
You kitchen cabinets take everything from grimy hands to cooking grease to messy spills. They really take a beating. If your kitchen cabinets need eventual remodeling, but you are short on money right now, painting kitchen cabinet may be a cheap and easy solution.You will spend far less than you would for replacement or even refacing. And, if yo...
Luxury Kitchen Cabinets and Kitchen Design
If you thought that luxury kitchen cabinets are only the privilege of the rich and elite, then you are wrong. You too can have a cost effective solution for a designer kitchen complete with luxury kitchen cabinets.Luxury kitchen cabinets do not necessarily mean the cabinets that adorn the house of celebrities. It can mean quality functioning cabine...
How To Choose The Quality Cabinets For Your Kitchen Remodeling Project
Are you sick of looking at the same kitchen cabinets, every other day? Even though a lot of homeowners enjoy their kitchens, including their kitchen cabinets, there are many who are peeking for a change. If you are going to be one of those homeowners, the ones who are looking for a different kitchen, you might want to think about remodeling your k...
Getting Kitchen Cabinets Of Your Choice
Have you always wanted your kitchen to look like the ones that you see in interior design magazines?It is not very difficult to achieve especially if you know how to go about it. With the right amount of planning, you too can have a kitchen that looks and functions equally well.The first step towards a designer kitchen is kitchen cabinets. Do not l...
