Expert: Jamie Yocono - 8/25/2008

Question
   Help,I need your help.I'm trying to do something to the cabinets of a 40 year old kitchen.I don't believe they were ever cleaned or washed.There is grease and grime thats terrible thick.I would like to know what i first can get the grease off with.Is there a product beside soap and water? I have tried that with no success. There's several products,but i need your expert opinion. Thanks Sheila

Answer
Hi Sheila,

I can recommend a few different things for degreasing the buildup on your kitchen cabinets. The one you choose will depend on the severity of the buildup.

The first suggestions is if the grease on your cabinets is light. The second suggestion is if you have both grease on the cabinets, and damaged wood underneath. The last suggestion is the strongest plan of attack for getting the grease off. So if your grease is SEVERE, use the last one, for TSP.

OK, here goes....

If the damage is light, you can try Murphy's Oil Spray or Orange Glo spray to clean wooden cabinets. These don't have a lot of "degreasing" action, in my opinion. But they do dissolve smudges and fingerprints, along with splatters, so you could try these first.

If the grease and finish are both fairly bad, there is a good product made by Formby's called Formby'sŪ Conditioning Furniture Refinisher.  It's sort of an all-in-one product, as it dissolves the old finish and grease, and reconditions the wood all at the same time. It's possible that they've quit making this and are now offering a product called "Furniture face Lift" but I suspect the two things are very similar.

Now normally, these won't give you the same result as what a deeper stripping and refinishing job would do. But if the buildup isn't too bad, this product will work just fine for your cabinets. The good news is- you can probably find this at your local Lowes or Home Depot.

But if the grease is severe, you probably are going to need to scrub the cabinets with TSP, which is TriSodium Phosphate. Wikipedia says this about TSP: Trisodium phosphate (TSP), available at most hardware stores in white powder form, is a cleaning agent and degreaser, commonly used to prepare household surfaces for painting.

Another site had this to say: TSP is a very strong cleaner at the dilution normally used, which vary from 1/2 cup TSP to 2 gallons of warm water for "heavy duty cleaning"  to 1 cup TSP to 3 quarts warm water for "ridiculously heavy duty cleaning"  (source The Savogran Company).  For mildew killing, household bleach is added to the TSP/water mixture.  The recommended ratio is 1 part household bleach to 4 parts water.

Wear gloves, and give your cabinets a good scrubbing with the TSP. When dry, you can decide what sort of finish you want to reapply. TSP won't really strip the finish, but it will do some damage to it, and it will look like it needs some rejuvenation. So you'll probably want to apply something else to protect the wood. Depending on what was on the cabinets originally, I would go with a similar product to that. Even one of those Citrus products will add a little moisture and conditioner to the wood. Or Murphy's Oil, as mentioned above.

It all depends on the level of buildup, but there are MANY cleaners out there that will help you. Use the TSP only if nothing else works!

OK, Good luck, I hope this helps. Please feel free to write back if you have any further questions after reading this.

Jamie Yocono
Wood It Is! Custom Cabinetry
Las Vegas, NV
www.wooditis.com