How to Wrap a Kitchen Door with Fablon

Here I show you how to wrap a kitchen door with Fablon. In my case, our door had lost its high gloss wrap, revealing a matt finish underneath. To replace the door, it would cost £70, so I fix the problem with an £8 roll of Fablon.

During my time fitting my other utility kitchen recently, I discovered it's the cabinet doors that are the most expensive. That is compared to the much cheaper carcasses.

And when my parents came to fit our main kitchen above, they knew a great place to buy them cheap. They were actually show home kitchen order cancellations, but sadly the place has now burnt down.

Anyway, in that kitchen, one particular wrapped door got damaged in transit 3 times. That's 3 different doors. So we left the one integrated kitchen door exposed until we found a cheap one. Well, that never happened either.

It didn't feel a major issue as it wasn't going to stop me from nipping in to my fridge. Albeit, there was no handle. But after months two years of my husband moaning about it, I decided to whip out the old matt door from the garage and cover it with white high gloss Fablon instead.

I wouldn't bother with an entire set of kitchen doors, unless I was on a very tight budget. But to me, this was just a cheeky means to an end. And I'm pretty happy with it.

Yes, the door is ever so slightly brighter than the rest, but you wouldn't be able to tell unless someone pointed it out. But if you just have a small selection of doors to cover, then why not go that extra mile?

THINGS YOU'LL NEED TO WRAP A KITCHEN DOOR

• Flat kitchen door
• Fablon big enough to have a 5cm overlap around all sides
• Degreaser
• Cleaning cloth
• Squeegee
• Scalpel
• Screwdriver

HOW TO WRAP A KITCHEN DOOR WITH FABLON

First, remove the door from the cabinet and the handle with a screwdriver.

PREPARING YOUR DOOR WITH WRAPPING WITH FABLON

Remove all dirt and grease by spraying with a degreaser and wiping with cloth.

Note if there's any stubborn dirt, it could show as a bubble through the Fablon.

CUT YOUR FABLON TO SIZE

Place the Fablon on a flat surface with the paper backing facing up to the ceiling.

Put your kitchen cabinet door on top and cut your Fablon to size with at least a 5cm allowance all the way around.

If it's too long, it will be hard to control and easy to slip off the table.

START PULLING OFF THE BACKING

Now briefly remove the kitchen cabinet door and pull the backing of the Fablon off by about 6 inches. Then fold over the paper backing.

Then place the front of the door down on top of the exposed Fablon (aka sticky back plastic).

Now press the door firmly on the Fablon.

Now carefully flip the partially covered door the other way round.

APPLYING THE FABLON

Now smooth over the already stuck section with a mini squeegee, removing any bubbles. This bit is much easier than you think.

Pull the Fablon up when and if needed to remove any bubbles. And keep working downwards until you get to the bottom.

You're unlikely to have over stretching issues, but I'll cover this later.

CUTTING YOUR CORNERS

To get tidy neat corners when wrapping your door with Fablon, you'll need a scalpel.

Do this by slicing from the corner of the door to the corner of the Fablon, creating a slit as above.

Repeat for all 4 corners and leave for now.

FOLDING OVER THE EDGES

Here is where you need to avoid over stretching which can cause ripples. But at least it'll be on the wrong side of the door.

Simply tease over the sides with your hands while pressing down. You may want to use your squeegee.

Then firmly press the remaining lip with your squeegee. But keep the pulling back to smooth over bubbles down to the minimum. (Watch the video at the bottom of the page to see why).

TIDYING UP THE CORNERS

Once one side has been pressed down, remove the excess of the corner with a scalpel. Then repeat with all the other sides, including the corner excesses.

FIXING THE HANDLE

Once you've attached the door back to the kitchen carcass, now it's to add the door handle.

Here, I pierced the existing door handle holes with a pin from the good side of the door. Then pushed the screw through and gently pulled it out.

And hold the door handle over it and fixed with screws on the correct side using a screwdriver again.

And this is what it looks like! I'm very impressed with the finish. I didn't have any bubble issues on the front, but marginal ones on the side.

Yes, I'd totally do this again if I was in the same situation. But I wouldn't want to do a huge kitchen, unless I was on a very tight budget.

But how long it will last, I don't know for sure yet, but can't think it'll get damaged as we're only going to touch the handles.

More Fitting a Kitchen Projects

You can find my complete list of fitting a kitchen projects here.

PIN HOW TO WRAP A KITCHEN DOOR FOR LATER