Spring is finally here and this is a great time of the year to take a really good look at your kitchen cabinets. After a few years wooden kitchen cabinets tend to become dry and to build up a film from cooking. New wood cabinets can cost a fortune, but your old cabinets can be made to look like new with very little work, depending on their condition. If your cabinets are still in good shape and the hardware is still good a little sanding and light refinishing will wake them up.

You’ll need fine sandpaper, satin finish polyurethane, and an old pair of cotton underwear. Lightly sand your cabinets (not just the doors but all the wood that is showing) until you have removed the film from cooking and the wood is smooth. Wearing plastic gloves wrap the underwear around your fingers and dip the tips of your fingers into the polyurethane. Wipe the excess polyurethane off on the rim of the can and beginning in an upper corner of the cabinet, wipe a thin coat of polyurethane over the cabinet. Repeat until you have covered all you cabinets with a thin coat of polyurethane. Leave the cabinet doors open until the polyurethane is completely dry.

If your cabinets need a bit more rescuing, you can buy new hardware and that can make a huge difference. Be sure that the new handles match the old holes drilled in your cabinet doors and drawers. Otherwise you’ll have to drill new holes for the hardware and fill the old holes so that they do not show. For deep cracks or gouges you can buy filler crayons in the same shade as the wood in your cabinets. These will fill in the gouges and make the cabinets more uniform.