Refinishing our Kitchen Cabinets – The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly

Refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets - The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly - BorrowedBlessings.net

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You may remember that I refinished our dining room table as practice for the kitchen cabinets.  We’re DIYing our home renovation and didn’t have it in the budget to buy new kitchen cabinets.  Armed with Pinterest and HGTV, I set out to conquer refinishing the cabinets myself.  Boy, was I in for quite the adventure!

Refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets - The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly - BorrowedBlessings.net

Before Refinishing

CABINET DOORS

The first thing I did was remove the fronts off all of the kitchen cabinets and remove all the hardware.  We labeled and saved the hardware, but then ended up buying new hardware.  We also labeled the cabinet doors with numbers {I used painter’s tape to put a 1 inside the cabinet and a 1 on the back of the coordinating door}.  Throughout this process, a few cabinet doors lost their numbers.  It was SO MUCH EASIER to find the spots for the numbered doors.  Seriously, number your doors.

Refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets - The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly - BorrowedBlessings.net

I read that TSP/TSP alternative is a great cleaner, but that it can do a great deal of damage if not properly washed off. TSP stands for Tri Sodium Phosphate… the TSP alternative option is TSP-PF – phosphate free.  {You definitely still want to wear gloves with either chemical!}  I opted for the TSP-PF.  You can purchase TSP as a powder that mixes with water or as a pre-mixed spray bottle.  I bought the TSP-PF at Lowe’s in powder form because it was the less expensive option.  Since it was late fall {and still warm out} when I was cleaning the cabinet doors, I took them all outside to wash them with TSP!  I mixed the TSP with water in a bucket according to the package instructions, then used a sponge to scrub each door lightly.  Since I was outside, I hooked the hose to the pressure washer and turned it on very low pressure to rinse the doors.

Once the doors were inside and dry {a few days later}, I sanded them super lightly with a sanding block {just enough to rough up the surface a little, then wiped them down with Clorox wipes.  I wanted to be sure that all the TSP was off – and this helped remove any lingering gunk.  You’d be amazed at the amount of cruddy grease that accumulates on those little ridges in cabinet doors – especially near the stove!

Refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets - The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly - BorrowedBlessings.net

I’m very blessed that we have a large basement where I could leave all of the cabinet doors set out for the staining process {it took a few weeks}.  I covered the tables with tarps, then used scrap pieces of 2”x4” wood as baby stilts to sit each cabinet door on {they make those fancy painter’s triangles, but I had a LOT of doors… and at 4 triangles per door, that would have been a hefty expense}.  Also, I cannot stress the importance of using good brushes enough!  I used a nice bristled brush on the cabinets, then a foam brush later for touch ups.  If you’re using the PolyShades, you DEFINITELY want a nice natural bristle brush.

Let’s throwback for a minute here to my first refinishing project — before I started the cabinet process, I refinished the dining room table using PolyShades then Polycrylic.

For the kitchen cabinets, I used the same Espresso PolyShades in Satin finish.  I stained the cabinet door backs first, then the fronts {2 coats of PolyShades per side with a day of drying time between each coat}.  What I didn’t realize at first was that PolyShades drips and runs HORRIBLY when not used on a flat surface.  Spoiler alert: there may have been a meltdown when hubby and I realized that all of the cabinet doors had puddles on the front sides where the drips accumulated.  I figured out as I went along that the PolyShades worked much better if I applied it, then used a Clorox wipe to wipe along the sides/bottom and catch any drips {then I went back about 5 minutes later and wiped them along the bottom again to get any puddles that had accumulated}.  After the PolyShades was dry {and I touched up spots where we sanded off drips}, I finished the cabinets off with Polycrylic.  At some point in this process, I discovered Wipe On Poly… also known as Manna from Heaven!  Wipe on Poly is thinner than Polycrylic {it’s basically Poly plus mineral spirits} and you literally just wipe it on using a lint free cloth {I used a clean, cut up tshirt}.  The Wipe On Poly goes on really thinly, so I put more coats of it than I did the Polycrylic.  It still took less time though!  Wipe On Poly is SO MUCH easier to use than Polycrylic.

Refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets - The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly - BorrowedBlessings.net

After 1 coat of PolyShades

 

CABINET BOXES

The lower cabinets stayed in the kitchen.  The upper cabinets were getting raised to the ceiling, so we took them off the wall to refinish them.  I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get all the TSP residue off the cabinets, so I just used Clorox wipes to clean and prep the cabinet boxes {seriously, is there anything you CAN’T clean with Clorox wipes or baby wipes?}.  I followed basically the same method… PolyShades {apply, then run a Clorox wipe along the edges for drips immediately and again about 5 minutes later} – 2 coats of PolyShades with a minimum of 8 hours drying time between coats.  After the PolyShades was totally dry, I applied 3+ coats of Wipe On Poly.

Refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets - The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly - BorrowedBlessings.net

So what’s my overall reaction?  I have a love-hate relationship with the cabinets.  I LOVE the deep tone {although it almost looks black… I would have preferred just a smidge lighter, but I’ll take it}.  I also love the overall cost of the project… the biggest factor here was time.  I spent hours and hours and hours refinishing the cabinets {especially with the roadblocks of sanding/scraping off drips and re-staining those parts}.  However, I really hate the PolyShades product.  It runs, drips and is really, REALLY difficult to get a professional finish {for a non-professional such as myself}.  It splatters pretty easily and is a HUGE pain to get off your skin {I was basically tattooed with PolyShades for weeks}.  I also hate the touch up work… Long story short, several of the cabinet doors got nicks as we were hanging them.  Because the PolyShades runs so badly, it’s terrible to try and touch up the cabinets.  {Spoiler: I ended up touching the cabinets up with the mojo of all refinishing projects – the General Finishes gel stain, then putting a coat of the PolyShades on top for the color match.  It was the only way I could get the bare wood spots covered.}  The cabinets are FAR from perfect and my hubby has mentioned refinishing them all again using the General Finishes gel stain.  I might have contemplated bodily harm against him when he suggested that.  Refinishing the cabinets was so much work, but the money saved was COMPLETELY worth the sweat and tears.

Refinishing the Kitchen Cabinets - The Good, The Bad and The VERY Ugly - BorrowedBlessings.net

Products used in this project {most of these items I bought locally – these links go to Amazon, so the products are similar but not always the exact brand I used}:

-Painter’s Tape
-TSP Cleaner {you can use powder or liquid, with or without phosphate}
-Sanding sponges
-New cabinet hinges
-Tarps
-Clorox Wipes
-Painter’s pyramids {or wood blocks}
-Bristle Paint Brush
-Minwax PolyShades
-Polycrylic
-Wipe on Poly
-General Finishes Gel Stain – Java color

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