Refinishing Kitchen Cabinets

Overview: Refinishing your kitchen cabinets can save you a bundle of money. Refinishing the kitchen cabinets will make them look light new and give your kitchen a fresh new look. Refinishing your kitchen cabinets is DIY task for the homeowner. 

The typical kitchen today consists of a variety of different cabinets that cost upwards of $15k. If your wood kitchen cabinets are showing their age with nicks and scratches you can give them a new look by freshening them up with a new coat of paint or stain. Refinishing kitchen cabinets will save you a bundle of money by not replacing them. It involves ten simple steps, a few common household tools and will take approximately three or four days to complete the process. Refinishing your kitchen cabinets will give your kitchen a completely new look that you will take pride in.

1. Empty all cabinets and drawers.

2. Remove the doors and all the hardware from the doors and draws. Retain  hardware unless you plan to replace it.

3. Remove all the drawers and hardware. If the drawers has a removal front, usually held on with inside screws remove them and set the rest of the drawers aside.

4. Place doors and drawers (drawer fonts if removal) in your designated work area on a flat surface, bench, or table. Sand the doors and drawers faces and edges using an orbital or belt sander, whichever is appropriate. The sanding should be 100 grit paper followed by a finished sanding with 220 grit paper. If your cabinets are painted you may need to apply paint remover before sanding.

Note: If your doors are raised panel doors you will have to hand sand the inside of the panel, rails and styles.

                     

                    
  Raised Panel                                Flat Panel

6. Thoroughly clean and wipe with a tack cloth or damp cloth and let dry.

7. Sand the cabinet front frames and edges of the cabinets and thoroughly clean and wipe with a tack cloth or a damp cloth.

8. For a paint finish apply a primer first and two coats of finish paint or paint stain followed by a coat of furniture paste wax and buff. Paint all doors, drawers, and cabinet frame.

• For staining, apply the first coat of stain. I recommend a water base stain rather than an oil stain as you can vary the color by adding additional powder to the mix to get the desired shade. Let staining. Stain all doors and drawers, and the cabinet frames. 

• Once you obtain the desired color apply the first coat of varnish and let dry.

• Sand the first coat of varnish using 0002 steel wool. Insure that you remove all excessive varnish sheen.

• Apply second coat of varnish, let dry, and sand with 0000 steel wool.

• Apply two coats of furniture paste wax and buff to a rich finish.