This wall cabinet was serviceable and durable, but needed a facelift to bring it into the 21st century.
The built-in wall cabinet was perfectly serviceable; well-made, nicely proportioned with subtle touches in its construction that really appealed to the woodworker in me. It had served the families that had lived in my house well, standing as a mute witness to the flow of personal history that is played out in every home — everything from inspired comedy to extreme tragedy. But sadly, the times had passed it by. What had been a very groovy look at the heart of the 1970s was just not making the grade 10 years into this new century. The red oak lumber and plywood, stained dark and varnished and outfitted with stained glass upper door panels, needed to be changed and upgraded, but the question was “how.”
The author’s idea was to replace the doors, drawers, windows and finish to provide an updated look.
As a person who made cabinets for many years, my first inclination was to yank the cabinet out of the wall and build a brand-new one. I could draw up a new design and knock it out in my shop — it would be no problem. Well, there might be just one problem … where would I find the time to take this task on? My list of “urgent” home maintenance projects was long and not getting any shorter. And, as editor in chief of a woodworking magazine, my schedule is pretty demanding — no help there.
The author started by removing the doors and hardware from the cabinet all this material will be replaced.
So I decided to try something that I had never done before. I would take advantage of all the various pre-made products on the market: reface the cabinet with veneer, purchase pre-made cabinet doors and hang them with new face frame style European hinges and slap on some new modern-looking pulls. In essence, I would get a brand-new cabinet built around the core of the existing unit.
Starting with the Veneer
The first basic decision I approached was what species of wood did I want to cover the cabinet with … how did I want it to look? I have been transitioning the cabinetry and woodwork in my living room and dining room area to maple and birch, all finished with a natural clear top coat, so that was my first inclination, but the great thing about considering veneer products is the wide variety of options that are available.
In terms of light-colored wood species that would complement my room, there were of course the birch and maple options — but even within those two species there were selections to be made: water white birch, yellow birch, red birch, plainsawn maple, curly maple, fiddleback maple, spalted maple … well, you get the idea. Add to those species the likes of aspen, cypress, ash — white or black — and the list goes on. And, of course, I am not even considering exotic species that would fall into that same color category.
In the end, despite the variety of selections on the market, by considering all the other components I would need in the makeover, I decided that procuring pre-made maple doors would be easier than finding anigre doors. (Although I did not actually test this theory extensively.) So I settled on run-of-the-mill, plainsawn maple veneer.
The next decision confronting me was what sort of maple veneer product to use. Maple is a highly desired hardwood and, for that reason, you can find maple veneer in several different permutations: the traditional flitch-cut raw veneer, paper-backed veneer sheets and pressure-sensitive peeland-stick veneer sheets, just to name three options. I went with the paper-backed veneer sheets, which I purchased in a 48″ x 96″ size. It allowed me to cut the various strips I needed to size on my table saw, and the paper backing made the strips a bit less fragile to work with. Pressure-sensitive sheets might have been OK, but it is my hope that this makeover will last for the next 40 years or so, and I was concerned that the pressure-sensitive adhesive would just not hold up.
Additional Project Details
I used contact adhesive to apply the veneer to the face frame and other areas. You can choose from water-based contact cement (less odor) or a more traditional solvent-based product. I went with the stinky stuff because I have used it for years in plastic laminate work and have always been pleased with the results. I just kept the work area well ventilated. I applied the veneer to the cabinet’s face frame (edges and front face) and to the bottom panel (the floor) of the upper cabinet. When it came to the interior walls and top of the cabinet, I chose to switch to a 1/8″ maple plywood to cover the oak. Fitting the rigid 1/8″ plywood panels to those interior spaces was much easier than working with the more flexible veneer pieces. In addition, a those of you who have worked with contact cement are aware, if you misalign your glued and prepared veneer by just a little bit and accidentally touch it to the surface, there is nothing you can do about it — it is stuck tight. I was able to handle the 1/8″ plywood panels easier and with more accuracy during the glueup phase, as well as during the dry-fitting phase.
Remove the hinges and pulls from the wall cabinet and the parts, you might want to hold on these as well for the use in future projects.
Another important detail in this retrofit was the cabinet “counter” or open display surface. The original cabinet had an odd feature for a dining room cabinet — it had a slide-out breadboard shelf. I got rid of that shelf, but I wanted a horizontal shadow line to break up the look of the piece. In addition, the doors and drawer fronts were changing from standing 3/8″ proud of the cabinet face, to a full 3/4″ proud. For that reason, I made a solid wood maple “countertop” that fit into the central opening of the cabinet. On that piece, I added a lip that extended by 1″ past the face of the cabinet. That solid maple surface will hold up better than veneer over the years, and it looks great.
Set the parts you remove aside for use in future projects or to be recycled, even the windows might come in handy in the future.
Two final design and construction details. While I could have swapped the stained glass section of the original upper doors into my new maple doors, I thought it would look too dated. Instead, I chose a non-colored textured glass panel for the upper doors. The reeded glass interacts with ambient room lighting and really adds to the modern feel of the new look.
The last construction detail to determine was what type of hinges to use to hang the doors. For me, self-closing European hinges were the best option. These days, there are versions that mount easily to face frames, so it is just a snap to use them.
The author wanted to use his drawer boxes in the refinished cabinet, so he cut off 3/8″ of the drawer’s front.
Initially, I had thought I would remake the drawers entirely for this project. It would take little time and they would be brand spanking new. But after a bit, I decided to keep the old drawer boxes — for sentimental reasons. They would be a small piece of the old unit that moved into the future.
To make the drawer face cuts properly, the author made up a quick and simple sliding jig and used it to push the drawer across the saw.
The trick was that the drawer faces were nailed to the drawer boxes. So I used a small sliding jig on my table saw to cut off just the forward 3/8″ thick section of the existing fronts. Then I glued and nailed new drawer faces to the remaining section. It worked very well.
