Ideas For Dressing Up My IKEA Veddinge Cabinet Doors & Drawer Fronts

I love the simple trim on the cabinet doors, and how it’s echoed in the frame around the upper open shelves. And those gold accents are perfect! I do love gold with cool colors, like that blue built-in, or my original green cabinets in this house.

Gold just seems to work perfectly with cool colors. I’m not sure how I feel with gold accents on warm colors, like the pink that I plan to use on my studio cabinets. Right now, I’m almost 100% sure that I’ll be using the darker pink below, which is called Tuberose by HGTV Home Sherwin Williams from Lowe’s.

Warm colors seem to work better with silver accents in my mind, but I don’t do silver accents. (I had enough of those in the 80’s, 90’s, and early 00’s.) So I do plan to bring back the gold leaf (that will take me back to the days of the original kitchen remodel) and give it a try on the Tuberose cabinets. It may or may not work. We’ll see.

But as far as adding trim, I had planned on just buying small wood trim from Home Depot, gluing/nailing it onto the cabinet doors and drawer fronts, then doing my typical wood filling, sanding, and caulking before painting everything. And I still might do that. It would definitely be the cheapest way to achieve the look I want, and I’ve had plenty of experience with it. After all, I made slab doors for the cabinet in the hallway, and then added trim to the front in the exact way I’m describing.

And I also did that in my mom’s kitchen when she and I worked together to makeover her kitchen. I made new slab doors and drawer fronts to replace the originals, and added trim to the front.

So that’s what I’ve been planning to do with the IKEA cabinet as well, and I very well may still do that. Like I said, it would be the most economical options.

I will admit that when I opened up the boxes of the IKEA doors and drawer fronts, I immediately got a little nervous about nailing trim to the fronts. The finish on these is so perfect and smooth! I don’t know if you can tell from a picture, but there’s not a flaw to be seen in the paint finish on these.

That finish is so perfect that I started to wonder if it was actually a plastic laminate, and putting nails (even tiny finish nails) into plastic laminate can be tricky business. It can crumble the laminate, especially if it’s cheap plastic laminate. But I double checked, and in the “materials” section of the product description on the IKEA website, it doesn’t mention anything about plastic laminate. It says they’re made out of fiberboard, polyurethane paint, and acrylic paint. So I should be fine putting tiny finish nails into it.

But there’s another option that I’ve been considering, and that’s Overlays. I remember seeing these for the first time several years ago, and then I completely forgot about them until they randomly appeared in my Instagram feed just recently. They’re basically laser-cut PVC designs that are cut to the exact size you need, and that adhere right to the door and drawer fronts. Here’s an example from their website:

I don’t want anything that intricate. I still want a simple frame design. But if I bought those, it would allow me to avoid having to put any finish nails into the doors and drawer fronts. And it sure would be a lot faster! AND they would be perfect. Lasers can cut things with absolute accuracy that my DIY attempts can’t compete with.

Plus, I love trying new things, and this is a product that I’ve wanted to try for many years, but have never had (or made) the opportunity. So this might be a fun change of pace. I haven’t priced it yet. I’ll be curious to see how the price compares to purchasing unfinished trim and doing it myself. I’m sure Overlays would cost many times more than buying unfinished trim, but it might be worth it if I can save a ton of time! We’ll see, but it’s a fun idea to consider.