Everything in life needs care and maintenance, from your car to your carpets to your RTA kitchen cabinets. The truth is, despite operating in pretty much the harshest environment in your home, kitchen cabinet care is pretty easy. Here’s what to do to keep them in tip-top shape!
Periodic Cleaning
No matter how neat and clean a cook you are, the biggest enemy of cabinets is the oil and grease that is inevitably aerosolized and integrated in steam as you cook. There’s nothing you can do about that. Splatter shields do help, and a genuine outside-vented range hood helps a lot, but creates its own cleaning and maintenance issues, but at the end of the day, every so often, you’re going to need to clean your cabinets.
When you do, any time you’re using a new cleaning product or method, it’s always good to test it first on a small, inconspicuous area, but here are the safest bets.
Since you’re dealing with oil, you need some way to cut through it. The easiest and gentlest way of doing this is to use a mild solution of soapy water. Dish soap is a little bit harsher than hand soap, but also leaves less residue, so that’s our recommendation. You’ll want to use cloth or a sponge, never anything scratchy like steel wool.
If your cabinets have a stained natural-wood finish, then once you’re satisfied, go back over them with furniture polish or furniture oil to restore the wood’s natural oils and protect them from moisture and humidity.
Occasional Deep Cleaning
No matter how often you clean, oils and dirt are going to sneak into nooks and crannies, especially around hardware and hinges. So once in a while (we’re talking every few years here), it’s a good practice to partially disassemble your RTA cabinets. At least remove the visible hardware so you can clean it independently, and clean the wood around its outlines. Removing the doors isn’t a horrible idea, but usually isn’t strictly necessary.
While you have the hardware removed, it might not be a bad idea to consider replacing it. It’s not too expensive, and can give your kitchen a mild facelift and a refreshing new look, plus it’ll save you time and energy compared to cleaning the old hardware. Again, it isn’t necessary, just a thought.
Maintenance and Touch Up
Accidents happen, and things wear out. Thankfully, RTA Cabinet Store carries just about everything you’ll need to repair minor damage and wear. Have a drawer that’s sticking? Replace the drawer glides. Is a door smacking noisily when it’s closed? You can replace or install soft-close dampers.
For cosmetic damage like dings and scratches, we have wax pencils and repair kits in stock for every single finish color we carry. They’ll fill in the missing material to correct the damage, with exactly the same color as the finish. Just make sure to thoroughly clean around the area first!
Should you decide it’s time to simply get new cabinets, our friendly team of professionally trained kitchen design consultants is more than happy to help you pick out your next dream kitchen’s design. Sign up for your free, no obligation design now!
