My kitchen cabinet refacing project turned into a 3 week nightmare

I decided to reface my kitchen cabinets because the doors were fine but the boxes looked horrible. Got all the new veneer and trim pieces from the local hardware store in Austin. Thought it would be a weekend job, maybe two days tops. Nope. The old adhesive from the 80s would not come off no matter what I tried. Spent 4 days just scraping and sanding down the cabinet frames. Then I realized the new veneer was way too thin and showed every single imperfection underneath. Had to buy a second batch of thicker stuff and redo half the work. Total time from start to finish was 21 days. Has anyone else run into a simple project that just snowballed into something way bigger?

3 comments

3 Comments

maxl9319d ago

Oh man, that reminds me of when I tried to paint my bathroom vanity and ended up having to rip out the whole thing because the paint reacted weird with the old varnish and bubbled up like a science experiment. Took three trips to Home Depot plus a emergency run for chemical stripper.

danielm8018d agoMost Upvoted

That "bubbled up like a science experiment" part hits home because I bet the real issue was using the wrong primer. You gotta sand and use a bonding primer on anything with old varnish, @maxl93, otherwise the chemicals fight each other every time. Ripping the whole thing out sounds like a pain, but at least you got a fresh start instead of fighting that mess again.

thomas_price18d ago

You tried shellac based primer? That stuff seals almost anything and prevents bleed-through.