4 Ways to Restore Your Kitchen Cabinets

Want to restore your kitchen cabinets to their former glory? Our Phoenix cabinet experts are never short of ideas.

In this article, we’ll go over 4 ways you can restore your kitchen cabinets:

1. Deep clean your cabinets
2. Refinish the cabinets
3. Clean or replace hardware
4. Replace the cabinet doors and drawer fronts

Want a free quote to restore your cabinets with a refinishing or refacing? Contact us online or call (480) 641-9611 and we’ll send one of our cabinet experts to your home to give you a same-day, no-obligation quote.

Believe it or not, giving your cabinets a deep clean can bring a lot of life back into them.

If it’s been years since you’ve cleaned your cabinets, you’ve probably got a lot of dirt and grease (if in the kitchen) built up on them.

To deep clean cabinets:

• Find the right cleaning solution for your cabinet material. Different cabinet materials can handle different solutions. For example, acidic solutions like vinegar work great for laminate cabinets, but are too intense for hardwood cabinets.
• Spot scrub stains and build-up. Some spots may require a bit more elbow grease than just wiping with a soft cloth. You can use a special solution or a baking soda paste with a toothbrush or soft scrubber to work on stubborn spots and stains.
• Wash and rinse cabinets before and after cleaning. Washing the cabinets with warm water and soap beforehand helps remove any build-up. Wiping them down with warm water afterward helps remove any leftover cleaning solution, which can attract more dirt if left on the cabinets.

Learn more about how to clean grease off kitchen cabinets or how to clean wood cabinets in our blog.

Refinishing your kitchen cabinets is a cost-effective way to refresh the look of your cabinets—and a good excuse to change the cabinet color.

With cabinet refinishing, a professional will:

1. Remove the finish from your existing cabinet boxes, doors, and drawer fronts.
2. Sand and prep the cabinets for the new finish.
3. Apply the new finish of your choosing.

Need some kitchen cabinet color ideas? Check out our blog on the latest kitchen cabinet color trends.

If you’re changing the cabinet color, you may want to also think about new hardware.

You’d be surprised how much new hardware spruces up kitchen cabinets.

When choosing kitchen cabinet hardware, you’ll want to:

• Stick with the theme of your kitchen. Make sure your cabinet pulls and hinges match your kitchen theme in both style and material.
• Choose the type of pulls you want. You have the option to go with knobs, handles, or a combination of the two. Many Phoenix homeowners choose handles for drawers and knobs for doors if they mix pull styles.
• Coordinate fixtures and appliances. The metal of your cabinet hardware should work well with the metals of your fixtures and appliances. They can be the same metal, but you can also mix metals for an interesting look.
• Decide if you want to mix and match finishes. You can also mix metals among the cabinet hardware—going with different metals on drawers and drawer fronts or upper and lower cabinets.

If you don’t want to pay for all new cabinet hardware, you can clean your existing cabinet hardware to renew its luster.

For a more dramatic cabinet restoration, you can replace cabinet doors and drawer fronts.

Do your cabinets have a lot of outdated detail or beveling? Replace the cabinet doors and door fronts with new ones for a completely new look.

We often see the following cabinet door and drawer front styles in Phoenix homes:

• Raised panel: Often seen in more traditional kitchens, these doors and drawer fronts have a center panel that sits at the same level as the frame, which is set apart by beveling or carving.
• Flat panel: Sometimes called slab cabinets, flat panel cabinet doors and drawer fronts don’t have any recessions or beveling. The entire panel consists of one level.
• Recessed panel: Also called Shaker cabinets, recessed panel cabinets have a single panel that sits behind a four-piece frame. The recessed panel can be completely flat or stray from the traditional Shaker style and have panels with carvings or decorative paneling.
• Mullion panels: Mullion cabinet panels can have features of both recessed and raised panels. Mullion cabinet doors typically have glass or plastic panel inserts, but can also have dividing bars like those found in window panes.

Want to replace your cabinet doors and drawer fronts as well as the cabinet color? A cabinet refacing includes everything in a cabinet refinishing, but also includes brand new cabinet doors and drawer fronts.

Some companies, like Cabinet Coatings, will even replace your cabinet doors and drawer fronts with ones made of solid hardwood—helping your restoration last that much longer.

Contact us online or at (480) 641-9611 to schedule an appointment. Our cabinet experts will inspect the state of your kitchen cabinets to give you the best ideas for restoring them.

For more details about our work, visit our cabinet refinishing or cabinet refacing pages.