Kitchen Cabinet Veneer Preparation

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The preparation of the new face for your kitchen cabinets is pretty simple, just some hole location and sanding. Most generally hinge screw holes are inside the kitchen cabinet doors, so they're ok since you haven't worked on the insides. Rustic hinges are usually on the outside, so you'll have to locate them so that the hinges will go back on in exactly the same place.

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Hole Location

The veneer is thin enough that it's pretty easy to find any screw holes or holes for knobs or pulls. Locate the general area where the holes may be then press with your thumb all around the area.

If you're brave slide your thumb back and forth over the area, there shouldn't be any slivers to get into your thumb (normally), but I wouldn't guarantee it. The hole locations should be indicated on the veneer from the pressure of your thumb.

Take a nail and poke it through the veneer from the veneer side only. If it's screw holes that's the only side you can poke from, but for pulls and knobs the holes will probably go clear through, so be sure not to poke through from the back side, because it may splinter around the hole.

Fill Any Imperfections

If you've joined veneer pieces anywhere on your kitchen cabinets and there is a sliver of a crack between them, now is the time to fill the cracks with wood filler. Don't glob filler on the crack and surrounding area or it will show when you're all finished. Very carefully fill just the crack and fill it just a little higher than the surrounding area to allow for shrinkage.

There is a procedure for filling all the pores of the wood to make an extremely smooth surface, but your kitchen cabinet refacing project isn't somewhere to practice a new procedure, so I won't cover it here. There is a step coming up which will make the surface just about as smooth on most kinds of wood, except for deep grain, like oak.

I prefer to have the grain show in oak, since if you fill them and make the surface mirror smooth it looks kind of like a plastic laminate.

Sand Your Newly Veneered Kitchen Cabinets

It's very important to get all of the surfaces of your new veneer on your kitchen cabinets sanded evenly, so hand sand very carefully and thoroughly or use an Electric Finishing Sander. If you don't sand evenly the parts that aren't sanded enough will take stain darker and make a blotchy appearance, so sand evenly. At least if you have some blotchy places when you stain your kitchen cabinets, all is not lost, just give another light sanding and restain. Don't use a belt sander. If you try a belt sander you'll probably have to do the job over.

You shouldn't need any preliminary sanding, so one sanding with 220 grit sandpaper should give a good surface to work with.

Door and Drawer Reference

Remember, the veneer is thin so don't over sand and go through the veneer. NEVER SAND ACROSS GRAIN Sand all the edges of the new veneer very carefully, although it's very thin it still shows if it isn't properly prepared.

Final Steps

Now we get to the final steps Stain and Finish and take a look at all the extras that can be added to your kitchen cabinets to make them extra special or you can go to the Menu to review the other pages in the refacing section.