How to Cover Cabinets With Stainless Steel
If your bathroom vanity is lacking flare and curb appeal, try covering it with a peel and stick stainless steel coating. The contact paper or PVC film comes in rolls that you simply apply to the cabinet parts. All you will need is a clean smooth surface, a sharp blade, vibrating sander, sand paper, blow dryer and a credit card.
If you have raised panel cabinet doors, you will need to make some flat Melamine or medium density fiber board (MDF) doors. If you are only working with sink cabinet doors that have raised panels, you could contact glue quarter inch (1/4″) thick plywood over the faces.
You are going to need to make sure that the surface is perfectly smooth. The shiny film will only look as good as the surface underneath that you glue it to. When I say perfectly smooth that is exactly how it MUST be! The radiant reflection will show every flaw, dip, hump or imperfection when the light hits it.
Release the backing paper as you lay down the film. As you adhere the stainless steel coating, you will stretch the metallic looking laminate in order to help it lay flat.
You can use a credit card to wipe the wrinkles out. Use a blow dryer on the low setting to get the edges of the PVC foil to tighten up. You must test doing this on a scrap piece to ensure that you do not overheat the real overlay boards.
The liner comes equipped with a grid which makes measuring and cutting a no brain-er. Place the material finished side down. Using a straight edge and razor knife, follow the grid lines to cut the stainless steel contact paper to size.
The biggest challenge is to create sharp clean corners. If you take your time, you will quickly get the hang of it. Use a hair dryer on its low setting to shrink the film to create a nice tight, smooth finish on the edges of the cabinet parts. This works especially well with the door edges.
Stainless steel film can give an old bathroom cabinet a slick new look. You can transform a sorely site into the focal point of the room by adding this stainless steel, peel and stick, PVC covering for cabinets. Remodeling a bathroom this way is fun and inexpensive.