caning cabinet doors diy with no power tools

 Check out the step-by-step tutorial below and don’t forget to pin this post for later.

diy caning cabinet doors and other furniture

Adding caning to furniture is a huge trend right now and it’s a great way to add texture and interest to your existing pieces — whether it’s refreshing a piece you’ve had forever or hacking an ikea piece to make it feel custom.

To do caning the correct way when adding it into your cabinet doors, you’ll actually need to use a router to create a groove in the back of the door, soak the caning to get it bendable & loose, then use a tool like a carpet stretcher to stretch and secure the caning into the grooves.

This process is not necessarily beginner or budget friendly, since caning can get expensive when you need a lot of it AND you might even have additional intermediate DIY steps depending on your piece like cutting out the inside area of your framed cabinets.

caning fabric hack!

While I LOVE the look of real caning, I wanted to offer you guys a beginner + renter friendly caning diy so you can rock the caning furniture trend without the time intensive diy or big price tag.

I found some caning fabric (linked below) that you can use instead of real caning. You can easily install into any existing piece of furniture using spray adhesive and a box knife to cut it to size.

It’s a textured vinyl, so it does feel raised like real caning vs being just a texture that is printed on flat vinyl. I like this option way more than a printed wallpaper or something similar that is flat and trying to mimic the real caning texture. I think this looks so much more real and unless you’re right up close analyzing it, you can hardly tell.

It’s so simple to cut to size and also so cheap! Its regularly around $17 per yard, but I got it on sale for $11 per yard — which is WAYY cheaper than real caning.

The only limitation is the color — personally I love this darker moody hue as a fresh and unique way to rock the trend, but if you want to get on board with the viral trend as-is this might not be the lighter caning color you were hoping for.

make it temporary / renter-friendly

For a renter friendly option to make this caning temporary — if you’re putting it on something like built-ins or cabinet doors — you can make a simple swap and use liquid starch instead of spray adhesive. This holds the fabric in place once try, but its easily remove-able and any residue can be cleaned up with just warm water.