How to Care for Your Cabinets
Simple maintenance habits that keep doors aligned, finishes intact, and hardware working — most of it takes about ten minutes a year.
Cleaning
Warm water and a little dish soap on a soft cloth handles almost everything. Dry the surface afterwards, especially along the bottom edge of doors near the dishwasher — standing water is what eventually lifts a finish.
Avoid anything abrasive, anything containing ammonia or bleach, and the all-purpose sprays sold for bathrooms. They dull a matte finish and can craze a gloss one.
The two spots that fail first
Above the dishwasher. Open the dishwasher slightly at the end of a cycle so steam vents upward rather than into the cabinet edge above it.
Beside the range. Grease left on a matte finish oxidises and gets harder to remove. Wipe it the same day rather than the same month.
Adjust the hinges once a year
Doors drift. A six-way hinge lets you correct height, depth, and side alignment with a screwdriver in a couple of minutes. Do the whole kitchen at once, sighting along the run so the reveals match.
If a door won't hold its adjustment, the hinge is worn — replace it before it pulls its screws out of the box.
Humidity
Solid wood doors move seasonally, which is normal. What isn't normal is a persistent gap. If one appears and doesn't close by the next season, the room's humidity is swinging too far — a range hood that actually vents outside fixes more cabinet problems than any product will.
Every few years
Check that the base cabinets are still level, that the wall cabinets are still tight to their rails, and that no drawer slide has lost a screw. Ten minutes, and it's the difference between a kitchen that ages and one that fails.
