Expert: Eileen Cronk - 7/26/2008

Question
Hi,
I have veneer cabinets in my kitchen.  The cabinets look good far away, but up close you can see grease spots on the cabinets.   We had purchased this home from  homeowners that apparently did not care where the grease went.  I did scrub the grease spots and noticed as I was scrubbing the veneer was coming off as well.  My question is,is there a product you can use to remove  grease spots on veneer cabinets that will not remove the veneer?

Answer
Hi Theresa
Nice to hear from you.
No household cleaner will remove veneer as you describe.
Veneer is thin wood firmly glued to the underwood. In most cases the underwood is a particle board of some type.
So are you certain this wood veneer is actually coming away from the cupboards?..coming unglued?
Grease spots should be easy enough to remove from kitchen cabinets with one of those degreaser type cleaners unless the finish is completely gone from the wood.
So Theresa would you please get back to me on this.
Kind regards
Eileen