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Re-laminating a Bathroom Cabinet Side

April 15th, 2010 Leave a comment Go to comments

I came across this video showing how to re-laminate a bathroom vanity cabinet side with a piece of real wood veneer. An amateur made it a “do it yourself” project. Although she did an OK job, there are several things I would like to point out that can help you achieve a more professional looking end result.


Fixing the Water Damaged Cabinet Side Area

The before and after pictures at the end of the video show a great improvement until she zooms in on the swollen area that she just “covered over.” Had she taken the time to work the bulge out by using a sharp edged putty knife, a hammer, fifty grit sand paper and possibly a little bondo, this area could have been made perfectly flat.

Another option is to cut out the small area completely and rebuild it with a new piece of wood. This requires some advanced carpentry skills, more tools and additional time.

Making Wrong Cuts

Sadly enough, she miss-cut her vanity cabinet side replacement veneer. This was probably due to her either miss measuring and not double checking prior to making the cuts or she made the toe-kick notch before she fit the piece to the back wall. Always fit the overall size first and then pay attention to the little details. If she had been working with a piece of Formica plastic laminate the material would not of been as forgiving as the real wood.

After Re-laminating Use Colored Cabinet Caulking

You can find caulking in a cabinet supply store that will match what you are doing. If they do not have an exact color match to the vanity cabinet side that you re-laminated you can always buy two different colors and mix the two.

An alternative to using the caulk in her case would have been to get a wood filler stick or putty stick that matches the color of the laminate.

What Glue Should be Used for Re-laminating Cabinets?

I did not see where she shared how she actually glued the wood veneer onto the bathroom cabinet. I’m hoping that she used contact adhesive, but it’s possible that she used a construction adhesive for the job.

Given the area she was working in and knowing how difficult it would have been for her to use contact glue, I’d guess she used something like liquid nails. I guess I only say this because I noticed that there was a tube of liquid nail laying on the toilet stool in the beginning of the video.

Whenever you take on any sort of project like this at home in the bathroom vanity area, kitchen or laundry room, always allot plenty of time to complete the task in a professional manner. Although, the homeowner in this “do it yourself” video did a nice job for her first attempt, I’m confident that if she had thought a little more on the project and done a little more research, the bathroom cabinet side re-lamination would have turned out better.

Re-laminating with Formica plastic laminate would be a much harder task. The material has a tendency to split much easier than the real wood veneer that she used on this vanity cabinet resurfacing project. One last comment, the cats are very attractive in this video clip.

Categories: Cabinet Resurfacing
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