Believe it or not, the interior of your kitchen cabinet is an important part of your kitchen decor.
If it looks great, then everywhere would shine and bloom, and if it looks dirty, dingy, beaten up or smells, then it can disconnect the flow of artistry in the kitchen.
If you have a cabinet interior that is not in a great shape, there are a few things you can do to freshen it without spending much (or anything at all).
This articles discuss some of the simple and easy ways to refresh the interior of your kitchen cabinet from cleaning and deordorizing to painting and wallpapering.
Cleaning Does Half The Work
The first step to successfully refreshing the interior of your kitchen cabinets is cleaning.
You may not believe it, but the dust and dirt, grime and gunk that accumulate on the inside of your cabinet can actually make it look far older and beaten up than it actually is.
Taking your time to clean every dirt and grime could be all that you’re looking for, and if you’re still not yet satisfied, you could always fall back to more cabinet refreshing techniques that we discuss below!
To begin with the cleaning session, first remove everything inside the cabinet from utensils to foodstuffs and removable shelves. Now is also a good time to check for lose hinges, door handles and get them fixed with the simple turn of a screw!
Next, it’s time to dust.
Take a dry cloth, broom or vacuum with soft brush attachment to go over all the areas in the cabinet interior that you can access. For difficult to access areas, a vacuum with a cervix attachment might work.
If you are particularly sensitive to dust, it’s a good idea to wear nose protection to prevent allergies.
Once you’re done sucking out and pulling away every ounce of dirt, it’s time to treat stains especially at the top and handle regions for both upper and base cabinets.
The most common types of stains you’ll find on kitchen cabinets are food stains, grease stains and water stains.
Water stains are caused by moisture seeping through finishes and altering their transparency or further progressing into the wood itself and causing near-permanent damage.
Depending on the kind of finish you have and the stain itself, removing water stains may or may not be as easy as applying mayonnaise or gentle heat over the affected surface.
For food and grease stains, you could typically remove them using a simple solution of mild dish soap (like Dawn) and water, or using Murphy oil soap.
For the dish soap and water solution, it’s best to spray on a gentle cloth and use the cloth to wipe off the stain. For stubborn stains, you can spray only the affected region and scrub gently using a brush with hard bristles.
Afterwards, go over the surfaces with a dry cloth to make sure everything is completely dry in order to prevent mold and mildew growth, although that’s unlikely to happen with the kind of finishes we have on modern properties nowadays.
After drying the cabinets, small scratches might become apparent, and you can tackle that using a fill stick.
Remove Smell
Of course, a kitchen refreshing exercise is never complete without odor removal.
If your cabinets have a funky smell lurking in them, you can try removing the odor with vinegar (pour it into a shallow container and let it sit in the cupboard overnight), or activated charcoal (place a few pieces of it in the corners of the cupboard overnight) or baking soda (sprinkle small quantities of it inside the cupboard and let sit overnight)..
All remedies are especially good at absorbing smell and so you shouldn’t have any odor issues by the next morning.
Another thing you can use is silica gel. Simply place a few packets in the cabinet and let it do wonders.
Install A Flexible Laminate
If cleaning the interior of your kitchen cabinet doesn’t do the trick, then you can try other ways to restore life to your cabinet.
One of these ways is to add a flexible veneer or laminate sheet to the interior of the cabinet if it doesn’t already have one.
Now only would it add a layer of protection, but also boost the aesthetics since laminates can come in really fancy and impressive designs.
My advice is to use a lighter color or design than what’s on the outside in order to create that atmosphere that sucks you in whenever you open the doors.
Adding laminate to the interior of the cabinet is quite easy.
Follow these steps (or better still, watch the video below).
- Take measurements of the sides you want to attach the laminate to.
- Transfer the measurements onto the laminate sheet and cut out the dimensions, or get a woodworker to cut out the dimensions for you.
- Sand the surface receiving the laminate board properly.
- Apply adhesive to the back of the laminate board according to the instructions on the adhesives manual.
- Carefully align the laminate sheet to the inside of the cabinet and press it in place.
- Use a roller to remove air bubbles and smoothen the surface.
- Wipe off any excess adhesive and allow the laminate to dry out before using the cabinet.
For peel n stick laminate board
- Simply peel away a chunk portion of the laminate from the attachment paper, and apply it to the target area.
- Press the paper from top working your way to the bottom and peeling more of the laminate as you move down to ensure a perfect adhesion.
Here’s a video demonstrating how to add a flexible laminate to a cabinet.
Paint The Interior Of The Cabinet
Among the myriad of finishes in the world of woodworking is painting. There are different types of finishes to go for as well as finishes.
Before painting the interior of your cabinets, make sure to sand it properly in order to create a rough canvas for the primer and paint to stick to, and this is especially useful when you’re painting over a laminate board or an existing paint as it would ensure you have an even and smooth coating that would last a long time without chipping.
Next, you want to apply a primer so the paint would stick properly to the surface of the wood, and so that the wood enjoys the added advantage of protection from moisture and pathogenic growth.
Applying a primer would also go a long way if you’re starting with an already painted cabinet or an old cabinet, as it would make it easy to change the color of paint without too many imperfections showing through.
If you’re painting the inside of your cabinet doors, consider removing it completely and painting it separately to avoid creating a mess.
Add Wallpaper To The Interior Of The Cabinets
A peel and stick wallpaper isn’t an ideal favorite for many since it may not hold up to wear easily, especially for base cabinets that hold plates and pots.
But adding these can really make the interior of your cabinets spark like gold, and it can also add to the overall decor of the kitchen especially when you have see-through cabinet doors.
You can install wallpapers on only the back of the cabinet or overall. Another interesting space to consider is the interior of the door too.
Create An Easy To Detach Wallpaper Out Of Foam Paper
If you want your refreshing project to be more exciting and fun, you can try a DIY removable wallpaper that doesn’t involve glueing anything to the surfaces of your cabinet.
What you’re basically making is sort of a wallpaper from a foam board.
Because a foam board mostly lacks pattern or design on either surface, we’ll attach a wallpaper, contact paper, patterned fabric or any type of design to one side of the board and secure it in place with a staple gun.
But first, we’ll cut out exactly the dimensions of the board we need by taking measurements of the cabinet areas and using a cutter to remove the area on the board.
Once done (and the pattern is attached), secure the board in place using double sided tape and voila, you have a wallpaper that can be removed at convenience.
Add Lightening
And lastly, to conclude it all, add lightning to the interior of your cabinet, whether puck or strips in order to take it from hmmmmm to wawwww!
Adding lightning to the interior of your cabinets, not only gives it life, but also helps to illuminate the spaces so you can find whatever it is you’re looking for easily.
For the options, you have the battery operated lights or ones that you’d have to hardwire.
I know we’re all fans of DIY projects but please, steer clear of hardwiring if you’ve never had experience with it before. Get a professional to help with that. Better safe than sorry!
For the battery operated pucks, all you have to do is simply place the battery in the battery holder and let the lighting magic happen, then, recharge or replace the batteries when they run down.
