Dress Up Kitchen Cabinet Doors with Wood Moulding

If your flat-fronted kitchen cabinet doors are looking drab and out-of-date, adding wood moulding to their fronts will make your whole kitchen look like it has been renovated. Follow these steps to create interest on your cabinet doors with any of dozens of wood moulding styles.

Tools and Materials:

■Wood moulding pieces
■Miter saw
■Wood glue
■Narrow paint brush to apply glue
■Paint, stain or varnish to refinish doors before applying moulding
■Replacement hardware, including handles and hinges

Step 1: Decide on the Moulding Style You Prefer
Look through magazines, visit interior design and building supply centers and gather ideas for the kind of kitchen cabinet doors you would like. Work out which kind of moulding was used to create the particular effect you want, and then decide on a style that will be elegant, easy for you to do, and affordable within your budget. Choose replacement hardware and buy it when you get the moulding.

Step 2: Measure Your Door Fronts Carefully for Moulding Installation
Buy a sample of the moulding you are going to use. Measure the outside length and width of the door face if you are going to install moulding that is flush with the door edges. Measure precisely all the way around the door face for moulding that you will attach at a certain distance from the door edges. Make allowance for the width and height of the door moulding above the door face so that the new doors will not bump into appliances or range hoods.

Step 3: Buy the Moulding and Supplies
Try to purchase all your moulding and supplies in one trip. If you need to go back to buy additional moulding, it may be temporarily out of stock, or the style may be discontinued.

Step 4: Practice Cutting Angled Corners with the Miter Saw
Rent a miter saw for the weekend and use your sample moulding piece to practice cutting mitred corners if you have never done this before. Precisely matched corners add quality to your moulding accents.

Step 5: Cut and Lay Out the Moulding
Cut the moulding for each door and set it aside in a matched group. Mark the sides, tops and bottoms on the back with a permanent marker to ensure correct placement later. Apply paint or stain to the moulding to match the existing door surface after the doors are cleaned and refinished.

Step 6: Remove, Degrease and Wash Down the Door Fronts
Use a degreasing cleaner such as Pine-Sol to degrease and wash off the cabinet door fronts, to remove stains, grease marks, dirt and oil from your hands. Detach the doors from the cabinets, and remove all the hardware if you are replacing both handles and hinges. Leave the hinges attached if you are going to reuse them. Refinish the door faces with paint or wood stain as needed before attaching the moulding.

Step 7: Attach the Moulding
Lay the doors front side up on your work surface, and attach the moulding with the wood adhesive. Allow the glue to dry completely before rehanging the doors.