Stripping or sanding back to bare wood, correcting the colour with fresh stain and building a clear coat over it keeps the grain showing. It is the alternative to cabinet painting on genuinely good hardwood.
Wood has taken the lead again in kitchen colour choice, ahead of white for the first time in years. That has changed what people ask for in the older streets of Doon, Westmount and Victoria Park, where solid doors are common and cabinet painting is no longer the automatic choice.
Refinishing Beats Cabinet Painting When The Wood Is Worth Showing
Walnut, cherry and white oak carry figure and colour that no paint can replace, and a door made of solid stock in any of those species is usually worth restoring. The usual complaint is not the wood at all. It is a varnish or lacquer that has yellowed, gone cloudy and worn through beside the handles and over the sink.
The test is the material of the door itself. Solid five-piece construction can be sanded and stripped as many times as it needs. A thin veneer over particleboard cannot, because sanding goes through the veneer in one careless pass, and on those doors cabinet painting is the safer answer. Which one a kitchen has gets settled by looking at the edge of a door, not by guessing.
Stripping, Sanding, Staining And Clear Coating Run Like Cabinet Painting
Old finish comes off with a chemical stripper, a careful sanding sequence, or both, and every trace of the old coating has to go or the new stain goes blotchy. Stripping happens at the shop, since it is not a kitchen activity.
New stain is matched on an offcut or on the back of a door first, then applied evenly and wiped back. Clear coat follows as thin sprayed passes, sanded lightly after each, exactly as in cabinet painting, and a two-component clear gives the best wear around the sink. Boxes and face frames are handled at the house so the frames match the doors.
Refinished Wood And Cabinet Painting In The Same Kitchen
Plenty of kitchens end up split. The island is refinished in walnut and the perimeter gets painted a warm white, or the tall pantry wall keeps its oak while everything else changes colour. That combination is covered under islands and two-tone work and runs as one project.
It takes more planning than a straight job. The stain tone and the paint colour are chosen against each other under the actual kitchen light, and the schedule has to allow for two separate product systems in the shop. The cabinet painting side and the refinishing side still finish in the same week.
What Refinishing Costs Against Cabinet Painting And Replacing
Refinishing usually lands in the same broad territory as cabinet painting, between roughly $2,500 and $6,000 for a full kitchen, with stripping labour being the main variable. Heavily built-up old lacquer on a large kitchen pushes the top of that. Refacing sits at $3,000 to $10,000 and full replacement at $15,000 to $40,000 and beyond.
Those are market ranges rather than a quote for one house. The visit produces a written number that names the stripping method, the stain, the clear coat and the coats.
Find Out If The Doors Are Worth Refinishing
The answer usually takes one glance at a door edge and another at the back face of a drawer front. Call +1 (226) 271-7725 or describe the kitchen through the form, and the quote will price refinishing and cabinet painting side by side where both are genuine options. The service overview has the rest of the work in one place.
Cabinet Refinishing Questions
When is refinishing better than painting?
When the wood is solid, attractive and worth showing, such as maple, cherry or good oak. Veneer too thin to sand cannot be refinished, and the quote will say so.
What does the process involve?
Doors are stripped or sanded to bare wood, the colour is corrected with stain, and a clear coat is built in thin layers with a light sand between each one.
Can refinished and painted cabinets share a kitchen?
Yes. Perimeter cabinets can be painted while an island or a run of uppers is refinished in wood, and both are priced as separate lines on one quote.