Sealing porous plywood surfaces in cabinets

I am the new owner of a 2006 2720SD. As I refurbish the unit it is a bit like pealing an onion. New problems seem to be unmasked as I repair others. I have just finished tiling the floor after removing a disgusting stinky rug.

What I then became aware of was a horrible chemical smell coming from the cabinets beside the stove. It was right in the unsealed plywood surfaces in the cabinets. We tried cleaning, vinegar washes, borax washes... nothing would kill the beast. It was making our eyes sting, that's how strong it was. Odors trapped in these cabinets have an opening into the drawers under the wardrobe and everything in them.

Our theory is that someone sprayed a ton of glade or febreeze into the cabinets trying to mask other odors which soaked into the unsealed plywood surfaces. The way we eventually solved this was to seal the surface with an odor controlling, shellac based sealer/primer which we will then paint with latex paint.

Has anyone else painted the insides of the cabinets? Is there any advantage to the plywood being unsealed or is this cheap manufacturing? Don't most manufacturers seal these kinds of surfaces?

It certainly will be easier to clean once sealed and painted.

Peter

Kokilo - we have a 15 year old black lab who is totally incontinent and is now relegated to hard floor surfaces. We had to pull the carpet out of the master bath and finally asked a flooring company if there was anything we could do to get the smell out of the plywood underlayment short of ripping it up. They suggested we use heavy duty Kilz primer and two coats of the heavy duty formula eliminated the problem. You might give this a try - I can't imagine the odor you are dealing with can be worse than what we faced. - camp2canoe

[ShrimpBurrito]

Kilz is great stuff, and you'll find it in most hardware stores (including the big ones). I've used it before many times -- that's what I would recommend also.

Dave

Thanks for the recommendation. We used the Zinsser B-I-N Shellac based primer/sealer. It seems to have done the job. The Kilz stuff was at Home Depot as well but we were more familiar with the Zinsser stuff having used their 1-2-3 sealer/primer on the trailer floor before tiling. Next time we will try the Kilz..It sounds great.

Peter