How to Keep Your Kitchen Cabinets Looking New
Cabinets rarely wear out all at once. They wear where hands, water and heat reach every day: the doors by the sink, the drawer under the cooktop, the panel beside the dishwasher. A few habits in those spots keep a kitchen looking the way it did the week it went in.
Clean them the gentle way
- Use a soft cloth, warm water and a few drops of mild dish soap. Wring the cloth out well: damp, not wet.
- On stained finishes, wipe with the grain. Then dry the surface straight away with a second clean cloth.
- Skip abrasive pads, scouring powder, bleach, ammonia and solvent cleaners. They dull paint and stain and can take the sheen off in one pass.
- Skip oily polishes and sprays. They leave a film that holds dust and kitchen grease.
- Never steam clean a cabinet face.
For cooking grease above the range, the same soap and warm water, a little stronger and a little more often, removes most of it. Grease that is wiped weekly never gets hard to shift.
Keep water off the edges
Water is what a finished cabinet likes least, and it gets in at the edges. Wipe drips off door and drawer edges when they happen, especially around the sink and the dishwasher. Do not hang wet towels over a door, because the damp sits on the same spot for hours. Let the dishwasher finish drying before you open it next to the cabinets, so the steam does not roll onto the face frames.
Every so often, look under the sink for a slow drip at the supply lines or the trap. Our cabinets have a plywood box, which survives an occasional leak far better than particle board does, but a drip caught early is always cheaper than a cabinet dried out later. Here is why the box material matters.
Watch the heat and the light
- Run kettles, toasters, slow cookers and coffee makers out from under the wall cabinets, so the steam goes into the room rather than onto the cabinet bottom.
- Keep the clearance between the range and any cabinet or panel beside it that the appliance instructions ask for.
- Strong sun changes wood over time. Gradual color change from light is a natural part of real wood, and a blind on a sunny window slows it down.
Check the doors once a year
Every door hangs on concealed soft-close hinges that adjust side to side, up and down, and in and out. Doors drift a little as a house settles and the seasons turn. Once a year, check the gaps between each door and its neighbors and turn the hinge screws a quarter turn at a time until the line is even again. Tighten any pull that has worked loose before it wears its hole. The installation guide covers how the doors are set.
Touch up chips while they are small
Every finish we sell is real paint or real stain, never paper, thermofoil or melamine, so a chip or a scratch can be touched up instead of lived with. We carry a touch-up kit for each finish. Clean the spot, let it dry, and build the color up in thin coats rather than one heavy dab. Find the touch-up kit for your finish, or read how paint and stain wear.
Read the warranty before you need it
Our cabinets carry a five year limited warranty against defects in materials and workmanship, published in full with its exclusions. Moisture damage and improper installation are among them, which is one more reason the habits above are worth keeping.
Planning a new kitchen? Start with our cabinet resources, or order a sample door and see a finish in your own light. A full sample door is $19.99 and a quarter door sample is $4.99, shipping included, and the sample price is refundable.