Laminating with veneer is somewhat of an advanced skill, as you have only one shot at it. Essentially, you apply one or two coats of contact cement to each surface - wait about 15 minutes, then bring them together. Once these two surfaces come into contact with each other - there is no way you can reposition them. Where they end up is permanent.

I like to use the original contact cement, such as that made by Weldwood. However, if you breath in the fumes, it is not good... and you can explode your house should you have a source of flame, such as a pilot light near by. So it is a somewhat dangerous product to work with. There are water soluable non-toxic versions of contact cement, but I have not found those products to be acceptable. The original is the best in my view.

If you don't have a lot of experience with laminating veneers, then simply painting the pieces is not a bad solution.

Sanding should not take a long time, especially if you laminated veneer. You only have a thin piece of wood, so you don't want to oversand. I start out with around 180 grit and just give it a good smooth over. And when it comes to varnishing, I dislike using any stain on good wood, such as cherry, walnut, mahogany, and so on. Leave the staining to cheap pine. Good wood should just be varnished or oiled in my view.

For this project, I am using semi-gloss Polyuerathane varnish. Minwax and Epifanes are my favorite varnishes - but for semi-gloss, I am using Minwax (I save the more expensive Epifanes for my high-gloss projects. I went with semi-gloss to match the cabinet.

The number one secret trick to getting a good finish is that you need a minimum of 4 or 5 coats, and ideally up to 10. Simply slapping on one coat of varnish is not going to yield the smooth finish you would expect, nor protect the wood under camping conditions. Take the time and apply as many coats as needed to fill in the grain for that nice finish.

And you must sand between coats. Especially with open-grain wood, you have to fill in the grain to get a smooth finish, and the first few coats do just that. When you sand between coats, you are knocking off the high spots. The first few sandings will be a bit discouraging though as it seems you are sanding off all of the varnish you just applied. But trust me here, after 4 or 5 coats you will see more and more of an even finish. This is the method you should use whether you varnish or even paint your project.

Finally, polyureathane finishes need to be sanded between coats so that each successive coat has something to "bite" into. Applying a second coat over the first without sanding between coats will result in an unacceptable result.

These are common knowledge for accomplished woodworkers, but if you are a beginner, just have a bit of patience here - wait for each coat to dry before applying the next coat, and you will have a nice result.

I positioned all of the parts in the cabinet, including attaching the shelves to make sure everything was aligned before permanently screwing anything to the cabinet. I found the shelves at my local Menard's, which is a mid-west only version of Home Depot. The shelves were "Extreme Garage" model 136-5140, which were 15" wide x 24" deep which I was able to cut down to 15" x 12". The various components were secured to the shelves by making webbing straps, which hold everything down nicely.