Posted on: June 9, 2010

Survival of the Fittest

When 'making do' has to be 'good enough,' here's how to make lemonade out of kitchen and bathroom lemons

By Jeff Schnaufer
CTW Features

Not all home improvements have to be - or even can be - significant home improvements. Sometimes making the best of a cabinet door's declining health with a little elbow grease and creative thinking is the only realistic and financially sound solution, short of just simply removing all of the doors.

Quick fixes in the bathroom and kitchen are cheaper and a lot less time consuming than the average homeowner realizes - take note and start next weekend's to-do list now.

PROBLEM: Wobbly table leg

"Usually a table leg becomes wobbly because the screws or bolts holding it in place have loosened," says Andy Engel, a Roxbury, Conn.-based carpenter, remodeling contractor and architectural woodworker. "Flip the table on its side and examine how the leg attaches. If it's a bolt, tightening it will usually do the trick. Wood screws, on the other hand, often loosen because the wood itself has stripped away. If you try to tighten a wood screw, but it won't stop turning, this is probably the case. The fix is to remove the screw and fill the hole with slivers of wood [toothpicks will do] and glue. Yellow carpenter's glue or plain old white glue works great."

PROBLEM: Cracks in cabinets, walls, etc.

Removable wall stickers offer an immediate "fashionable fix" for small cracks or nicks in walls, cabinets or any smooth surface, says Pierre-Jean Delaye, chief operating officer of RoomMates Peel and Stick, a division of York Wallcoverings in York, Pa.

He says some of the best ideas for using wall stickers come from customers: "One used the tree branches decals and cleverly placed all the main branches along the cracks in the wall, creating a very stylish free-form tree silhouette. Another clever idea was to use the Wall Frame decals to actually 'frame' a crack in the wall, and then used a glue-gun to add small dried earth-tone flowers to the crack, which made it look like budding branches."

"To cover up nicks on cabinets," Delaye says, "it's simple and affordable to use traditional florals, graphic ovals, classic damask designs or even inspirational sayings - the possibilities are endless."

Haley Hougen, a bathroom remodeling specialist with HD Remodeling in Plano, Texas, suggests a more traditional route to cover wall cracks.

"The best option is to go to your local home improvement store and pick up spackling compound and a 5-in-1 tool. Take the 5-in-1 tool and fill the cracks with the spackling compound," Hougen says.

PROBLEM: Broken cabinet door

"Cabinet doors usually break when the glue fails at the joints in the frame," Engel says. "The fix is to re-glue the joint using polyurethane glue."

"Because polyurethane glue foams up as it cures, run masking tape over the face of the door frame right up to the edge of the joint to ease clean up," he says. "Clean out any dirt or debris, then lightly moisten the faces of the joint. A quick wipe with a damp paper towel or a spritz from a pump sprayer will do [polyurethane glue reacts with moisture to harden]. Apply a light bead of glue to the inside face of the joint." Make sure to do this on the front and back of the door, he adds.

"Push the joint closed, and hold it with a bar clamp or long lengths of masking tape. Let the glue set overnight, then un-clamp or un-tape the assembly. Carefully trim off any stray glue with a razor blade.," Engel says. "One final caution: Polyurethane glue stains skin, so it's a good idea to wear latex or nitrile gloves when working with it."

PROBLEM: Broken piece of tile

The only way to truly fix a broken tile is to chip up the tile and replace with a similar tile, Hougen says.

"When chipping up a tile, first use a razor knife to remove the grout around the tile, then with a hammer break the tile and chisel up the remaining thinset (mortar) under the tile," he says.

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