Improving Cabinets on a Budget

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Repainting cabinet doors can make them look much better. You can also add some simple wood trim to flat cabinet doors to change their style. These are easy fixes that shouldn't take you more than a weekend, and they are also very inexpensive.

You will need 1/4 inch MDF, woodfiller, fine sandpaper, paint and a paintbrush, a screwdriver, a tape measure, a hammer, a nail punch, and a scraper.

First, take the cabinet doors off of the cabinets using a screwdriver. Remove the handles from the cabinet doors next. Now measure the cabinet doors so you'll know what size your MDF needs to be. You will want the MDF to border the cabinet doors in approximately two inch strips, but you may want more or less depending on what looks right with the size of your cabinet doors or drawer faces. You want two strips of MDF to run vertically on each side of the door all the way from top to bottom. Then, you want two strips to run horizontally at the top and bottom between the two vertical strips. You may want to take the trips to be cut by an expert, so you can get the precise cuts that you will need. Attach the MDF to the front of the cabinet doors with panel pins and a hammer. Use woodfiller to cover the holes when you're done. After the woodfiller is dry, sand the surface until smooth.

Now you are ready to paint the cabinet doors. You will probably need two coats of paint. After they are dry, reattach the handles and hang the doors again.

If you don't have flat cabinets to begin with, you can still paint your cabinets and refresh them. You can paint the inner panel a different color than the outer trim and paint the kitchen walls to match the inner color. This can look pretty cool.

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