Interactive Kitchen Design

Save Your Hard Earned Money With Kitchen Cabinet Refinishing

There comes a time in the life of just about every homeowner when the kitchen needs a facelift.  The least expensive way to accomplish this task is to refinish or reface your kitchen cabinets.  Replacing your cabinets and countertops can be quite costly, and in this economy not everyone can afford it.  In this case, the best solution is kitchen cabinet refinishing.  If you have real wood cabinets, it is mostly a matter of using materials to reface or stripping the wood and choosing a new stain (or freshen the old stain).  Naturally, there is nothing that says you cannot paint your kitchen cabinets.  Maybe you are looking to bring more warmth with colors to your kitchen.  This is when painting may be the best option. 

The sky is the limit with stains and colors for your kitchen when you choose to reface and/or refinish your cabinets and countertops.  What color paint or wood stain do you want for your kitchen cabinets?  This is determined by your own personal preference and the atmosphere you want to create as well as your kitchen décor.  You can create your dream kitchen with less expensive kitchen cabinet refinishing.  Once you know what look you want to achieve, you can pick your paint/stain.  Consider acrylic epoxy paint over oil based paint (this tends to yellow in the long run) so your kitchen cabinets look new longer.  Now the prep work begins.

You will need to know what materials you need before you begin the project.  This means you need to choose whether you want to and stain or paint.  The first thing you will need to do before starting a kitchen cabinet refinishing project is to clean the cabinets thoroughly so they are free from dirt, grease and grime.  Now you can start getting the stain or paint off the kitchen cabinets.  You may want to consider using a gel or semi paste soplvent so there is less dripping and mess during the process.  The alternative is to take the cabinets down which makes more work for you.  You will need to take off the cabinet doors and clean your kitchen cabinet hardware as well before you begin.  Be sure to make note of what kind of finish is on your kitchen cabinets before you choose your paint/stain solvent.  Make sure to patch scratches, nicks or holes in your kitchen cabinets for a smoother finish.  Once this prep work is complete, you need to use a primer before you paint.  You may not need primer with wood stain.

Once the prep work is complete, you are ready to paint or stain your kitchen cabinets.  Imagine the sense of accomplishment you will feel when your project is complete.