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Archive for the ‘Cabinet Refacing’ Category

Hanging Your Own Unfinished Cabinets? Beware.

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Unfinished kitchen cabinets offer incredible design flexibility for the self-installer homeowner. If your cabinets are prepped correctly when you get them, there’s only the primer, stain, and/or finish to consider. And you have a great of colors and hardware to customize your cabinets to match your overall kitchen scheme. Those are solid pluses. I can look at the choices at Lowes alone for several hours.

If you’re one of our readers who intends to install unfinished kitchen cabinets but has no experience, it’s obviously essential that you know what you’re up against.

Painting looks simple, but if you use too much stain and end up with dark cabinets that look horrible, you’re stuck with them. If you’re uneven in your application, you get splotches. You can spend time touching up light splotches only to end up with dark color splotches. I sympathize. Be sure to test your stain on an interior face.

Reliable Remodeler has a good guide to cabinet painting. And after paint, you’ve got an assembly job on your hands. Putting kitchen cabinets together is not as simple as many first-time DIYers imagine.

Aligning and Hanging Unfinished Cabinets

Before you bought your kitchen cabinet kit, you decided the location for your cabinets, measuring several times to be sure. Now you need to mark the wall in pencil, using a plumb line to create the top and bottom edges of your cabinets. Many homeowners forget to leave sufficient room between the bottom edge and the countertops.

Use a stud finder to position the alignment of the first upper cabinet. Mark in pencil the successive studs, each 16 inches apart. You want to attach each top cabinet to the matching stud. Hang the frames first, then assemble the cabinets on the floor, attach them to each other, and mount them as a unit.   Are you up to it?

If not, perhaps you’re a candidate for refacing with green veneers.

Start Your Backsplash Planning

Friday, April 9th, 2010

It’s so easy to overlook the backslashes when installing new kitchen cabinets or kitchen countertops. You might consider backslashes, but do you put the same imagination to work on them as one might for new counters and custom kitchen cabinets? You can be penny-wise, and still create a complementary backsplash design that looks fantastic.

Do-it-yourself blogger Jenny O. used inexpensive stone vinyl tiles to cheer up a kitchen in a rental home. You can do the same by creating a scheme for remodeling your kitchen that includes colors, textures, and materials. That way you can integrate high-quality, low-cost tiles across the room in virtually any color and shapes of rock, brick, wood, or tile.

Fire Up Your Backsplash Plans

Get fresh ideas by viewing the latest cabinet styles for 2010 kitchens. You’ll discover a motif that’s a perfect complement to your flooring, fixtures, appliances, counters, and backsplashes. HGVT offers tips from rounding up sample tiles to take home and try, to pressing the backsplash tiles to the wall with a rolling pin.

Installing backsplash is not unlike finishing a mosaic. Create a crafts-paper template of the route around your backsplash. Put it on the floor or countertop and lay out your tiles. That’s the way to account for cutouts and ensure that you have the best arrangement of tiles before peeling off a single sheet of backing. It’s known as creating a “dry fit”.

The backsplash can be illuminated by under-counter lighting.  Your choice on colors and patterns can complete – or disrupt—the overall effect. Add the finishing touch with new, color-coordinated switches, plates, and outlet covers.

Creating Distressed Wood Cabinets

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Don’t be put off by the word “distressed”.  May homeowners love the look of distressed wood for their furniture and kitchen cabinets.  The effect is one of aged wood that can really complete a kitchen with an antique, Italian, Western, or historical theme.  You can even create the effect at home without buying expensive paint or treatments.

The difference between distressed and trashy however depends on your using the effect judiciously.  It’s become acceptable and stylish to use pastes, paint, a faux finish glaze to create kitchen effects. Crackle pastes create a distressed look without having to scrape, brush, or sand the paint finish.

Distressing Your Kitchen Cabinets
You employ two different hues in creating a distressed look; one is the surface color and the other is the base tint that shows through the distress.After applying the base coat, be sure to let it dry thoroughly overnight. You may want to add a second coat. Either way, be sure it’s dry before applying the outer color.

When the outer coat dries completely, you can create distressed marks and blotches with sandpaper, a wire brush, a soft mallet, or a wood file. Be sure not to gouge out the undercoat! Above all, remember that distressing is done on select surfaces and small areas. Distress the entire kitchen cabinet surface at it will look like something you plucked out of a swap meet.

For a Tuscan cabinet effect, you can use a padlock or small chain to dent small surface areas of the cabinets.  It’s all about creating accents, rather than a uniform face.  Be sure to clean your cabinet doors and surfaces completely before beginning any painting project.

Remove Your Cabinet Paint Safely

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Some homeowners would rather repaint their kitchen cabinet doors and drawer fronts than add new veneer. The process can take time and muscle.  The stripping chemicals can be highly toxic, so it’s vital that you work safely and give yourself sufficient time to do the job right.

The first step, of course, is in taking the cabinet doors and fronts apart, marking them carefully with tape to ensure you put them back where they belong. You can move the marker as you work, opening up the wood face where you’re going to apply the stripper.

Caution: Danger Ahead

Paint stripping agents like methylene chloride emit caustic fumes.  Be sure to work your cabinet doors in a well-ventilated area, wearing chemical-resistant gloves, goggles, and a mask. Be sure your arms are covered down to the wrist.

You can apply cabinet door stripper with a brush or cloth. The old paint will bubble up and blister almost instantly.  That’s when to use a putty knife to peel off the layer of old paint.

Repainting Kitchen Cabinet Doors
After stripping the old paint, you can use a fine grain paper to sand the wood into a smooth surface.  Some contractors prefer priming the kitchen cabinet doors with an oil-based top coat, although sprayed-on latex works well, too, if you can do the job in a garage or open area where stray paint won’t land on kitchen walls.

Doing it yourself takes patience. If your cabinets are in poor shape, consider other alternatives including veneer or complete replacements.

Cabinet Paint and Design Options

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Looking to get the most bang for your dollar in refreshing your kitchen? Adding fresh paint and new cabinet hardware are a provide a straightforward fix that can suit even a slender budget. Try refacing or select from a wide range of finishing options to provide a new look and feel for your kitchen. But you can do so much more if you take the initiative, from choosing new “green” paints and products, to considering some of the latest, trendy design ideas for storage.

Better Homes and Gardens recently cited ten trends in cabinetry that might influence your decision. It’s researchers found that homeowners wants cabinets that offer a range of functions, increasing storage efficiency, creating display space for heirlooms and china, storage options that disguise or hide appliances, offer a range of décor options, match or look like existing furnishings, and provide attractive accents.

Choosing Cabinet Designs, Paints, and Finishes
The National Kitchen & Bath Association recommends that homeowners consider design efficiency with the same scrutiny they’d use in selecting materials. Only after you consider traffic flow, overall kitchen space, and the arrangement of appliances, should you get down to brass tacks of paint and hardware.

At the same time, you can employ so-called “green finishes” that safeguard your family against potentially toxic cabinet finishes.

Green building experts recommend against choosing particleboard materials that can contain formaldehyde glue. Finishes that are water soluble or semi-gloss paints with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) offer the best protection from toxic fumes and solvents. Most manufacturers offer at least one or two brand options that have low VOC emissions while providing good sealing and protective qualities.

Handles complement your kitchen cabinets

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

You just repainted your kitchen cabinets and they look stunning. However, something is missing…oh yes, the handles!

Picking the right handles to compliment your newly painted kitchen cabinets is absolutely key to completing your new look. So you ask, what color, shape, or material should you use? The easy answer is, “it depends on what color you painted your cabinets.” When I repainted my kitchen cabinets white, my options were limitless. However, with white (or black) cabinets comes the added burden of selecting a great, detailed handle because the handle will really stand out on a white (or black) cabinet.

When I went to my local hardware stores, I found several different color and material options, such as brushed nickel, shiny metal, antique brass, gold painted, plastic, and wood, just to name a few. There were also several shapes, like curved handles, thin handles, and round knobs. In terms of pricing, the metal handles were the most expensive, averaging $5-6 per handle, whereas the plastic and wood handles were $3-4 dollars. After weighing my options, I went with a curved, brushed nickel handle that was $5 per handle.

When you are ready to finish your cabinets with nice handles, I would recommend buying 3-4 different types, taking them home, and trying them all on your cabinets to see which one works best. It is one thing to look at the different styles in some hardware store, but quite another to see the handle in “action.”

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