All my cabinets are in pretty bad shape, but realistically I do not have the time resources to dismantle, strip and refinish them all properly.
My mom hired someone to paint her house who also says he can refinish cabinets in one day. I asked him how and tried it. These are the steps:
- Give them a really good wash with TSP
- Rinse
- use an oil based “one-step” varnish with stain mixed in
- the colour should match the original colour, or be pretty close
- apply to your wood with a rough, absorbant rag, like terrycloth
- let dry and repeat with a second coat.
He says that over time, the varnish on cupboard doors gets full of tiny fissures, so the stain seeps in and then the varnish adds the shine and seals the wood.
We tried it on my mum’s cupboards, which went from looking in pretty good shape already to looking brand new.
For my cupboards, I added some steps:
- sand out any dark damaged spots
- gave everything a light sanding before I started, because the old varnish that was left was rough in spots, thick in spots, and gone in spots
- light sanding after the first coat
My heavily damaged woodwork looks much better. I can’t say it looks new. But it does look presentable, the embarrassment factor is gone. The wood’s colour is rich and mostly even, and there’s a nice shine. Doing it this way is not a task for a perfectionist, but I would highly recommend it to anyone to busy to do it “right” and needs a solution in the here and now.
With drying and cleaning time it’s not realistic to day this can be done in a day (not with kids, anyway). But easily can be done in small steps over a weekend. Maybe a few weekends for the kitchen.
