I need help fixing my cabinets before I sell home.

I want to sell my house and want everything to look the best it can.  I know I need to paint the walls but what should I do about my kitchen and bath cabinets?  They don’t look very good, particularly the areas around the sinks which are damaged by water.  The finish, which is a natural stain, has cracked and broken down due to long term water exposure.

CC

Response

Dear CC,

First you are right, paint as much as you can.  Try not to pick colors that will offend a potential buyer.   Don’t forget to clean or replace flooring and touch up or regrout tile areas.  Caulk cracks at base boards and around wood trim, including cabinets and around sinks/tubs.  Do everything you can to clean and tighten up your home.

As for the cabinets, you can repair the cabinet finish often by just cleaning and then rubbing the surface with lemon oil.  I like Formby’s Lemon Oil Treatment.  The lemon oil will restore the finish and prevent the wood from absorbing water.  It also sounds like your cabinets have a lacquer finish, which will repair well after being treated with lemon oil.  Cabinet finishes after 1991, in California, are water based but if your cabinets were finished before 1991 you can use a Deft Clear Wood Finish spray lacquer to add to and repair the depleted finish material.  Be sure to select either the satin or high gloss finish that matches your cabinet finish.   Apply lemon oil after spraying to blend the old and new lacquer.  Always pick an area to test first, like the inside of a cabinet door.

To upgrade your cabinets relatively economically, you could consider replacing just the cabinet doors.  I would highly recommend hiring a cabinet maker to either order the doors or make them.  Also hire him, or a qualified painter, to finish the new doors to match the cabinet frames, which is probably beyond what most do-it-yourselfers can do well.  One more option for your cabinets is to paint them.