How To Clean Kitchen Cabinets by The Hacienda Collection, Inc.

Fingerprints, food smudges, and greasy buildup can leave your kitchen cabinets looking dingy and dull. The longer you wait to clean them, the harder it becomes. Find out how to restore your cabinet's luster in just a few simple steps.

Here's How:

1. Regular Cleaning: Exterior

   Most cabinet types, including metal, plastic laminate, painted wood, and vinyl cabinets, can be cleaned with a solution of dish soap liquid and warm water. This simple and mild solution is enough to get food smudges, dust, and mild grease build-up off of your cabinets. Rinse thoroughly with another clean cloth, before drying with a final cloth.

2. Heavy Duty Cleaning: Exterior

   For heavy build-ups of grease and dust, your best bet is a commercial cleaner designed to be used on wood kitchen cabinets. My favorites are cleaners with orange oil. They have a way of breaking down the thick grime that can accumulate on cabinet surfaces. Be sure to read the instructions before using, and test first in a hidden spot.

3. Interior Cleaning

   Empty each cabinet, beginning with the top most one. Remove shelf lining if necessary. Wash the interior of the cabinets with warm water and a mild detergent. If the interior cabinets have a lot of crumbs and residue, it may be a good idea to vacuum the cabinets out after they've been emptied, before wiping them down. Rinse with another clean damp cloth. Wipe dry with an additional cloth.

4. Cleaning Cabinet Contents

   Wipe down dusty cans and containers with warm water and dish soap on a dampened cloth. Throw out any items that have expired. Leave the cabinets open for a 1-2 hours to fully dry, before replacing the contents of the cabinet.

Tips:

1. An all-purpose cleaner can be used to clean cabinets too, but it's important to test cleaners in a hidden spot to make sure that they won't damage your cabinet's finish.

What You Need:

• Cleaning cloths
• Dish soap
• Commercial cabinet cleaner
• All-purpose cleaner (optional)
• Vacuum cleaner (optional)

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How do you correctly apply wood stain

Applying stains to most kinds of wood can be done with a fairly simple technique. I would start with a fine haired brush, one that will "suck up" alot of stain, which tends to be much thinner than paints and polyurethanes. Then lightly brush the stain onto the surface. Keep in mind that the harder you push your brush against the surface, the more stain will flow out of the brush. Make sure to apply your stain consistently to avoid variations in color. Then with an absorbent rag, wipe off the extra stain. The longer you leave the stain on the surface, the darker and deeper it will be.
If you are looking to stain and polyurethane your wood, here is a tip for that. If you like the true color of the stain combined with the color of the wood when applied and not wiped off, you can add some stain to your poly if they are the same base. Meaning, if they are both latex or oil based. You can now get the staining and polyeurothaning done in one step. Brush it on evenly and carefully to avoid little bubbles in the poly. Lastly, remember when doing this, what you see when you're applying it, is what you get when it's dry. Good luck! Eric Oberg, Owner, Finishing Touch Painters http:/www.finishingtouchpainters.com
Minwax makes a wonderful product called Polyshades which is a mix of stain and polyurethane in one. Great if you don't want extra steps but bad if you want a variety of color options. If you are looking to apply stain to something vertical like trim or a door, consider using a gel stain which is much thicker then regular stain.

Sapele ( /s??pi?li?/), also known as Sapelli or Aboudikro, is a large tree, Entandrophragma cylindricum, up to 45 m high (rarely 60 m) and native to tropical Africa. The leaves are deciduous in the dry season, alternately arranged, pinnate, with 5-9 pairs of leaflets, each leaflet about 10 cm long. The flowers are produced in loose inflorescences when the tree is leafless, each flower about 5 mm diameter, with five yellowish petals. The fruit is a pendulous capsule about 10 cm long and 4 cm broad; when mature it splits into five sections to release the 15-20 seeds.
[edit] Uses
The commercially important wood is reminiscent of mahogany, with a distinctive figure, typically applied where figure is important. It is sought after as flooring for its durability and beautiful graining. Among its more exotic uses is that in guitar manufacturing, in the top, back and sides of acoustic guitar bodies as well as the tops of electric guitar bodies, for example by well known guitar manufacturers such as Ibanez (Japan/USA), Taylor (USA), Martin (USA), Larrivée (Canada) and Esteve (Spain). Leading folk harp manufacturer Dusty Strings (in Seattle, WA, USA) also makes very high-quality 26- and 36-string harps of sapele. Sapele is also used for the neck piece of ukuleles due to its pleasant aesthetic quality, by such manufacturers as the Hawaiian companies Kamaka and Koaloha. Late in the 90s, it started to be used as a board for Basque percussion instruments txalaparta on the strength of the livelier quality of the sound. It is also used by American car maker Cadillac for interior wood trim on its vehicles, with advertising for the Cadillac CTS highlighting the phrase "Sapele wood accents." The wood has a density of 640 kg per cubic metre.

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