The work
What cabinet refinishing actually involves
Degreasing, sanding, priming and a finish that can take a fingernail
Refinishing kitchen cabinets is a preparation job with a coat of paint at the end. Kitchen doors carry years of cooking grease, and anything applied over it will peel, so degreasing comes before sanding and both come before a bonding primer.
The finish itself should be a cabinet-grade coating applied by spray where possible. Wall paint on a cabinet door will mark the first time a fingernail catches it.
Doors and drawer fronts are usually taken away to be sprayed and the frames done in place. That means a kitchen without doors for several days, which is worth knowing when you plan the week.
Against replacing
It works when the boxes are sound and the layout is right
Refinishing costs a fraction of new cabinets and is the right answer more often than people assume, but only for a specific situation.
The test is the carcass. Solid boxes with doors you are tired of are ideal. Swollen particle board, failing hinges and a layout that does not work are not fixed by paint.
Replacing doors and drawer fronts while keeping the boxes sits between the two and is worth pricing alongside, particularly where the existing doors are damaged rather than dated.
Failure points
Two things that go wrong
Cure time treated as dry time
“How long before I can put everything back and use the doors normally?”
Cabinet coatings are touch dry in hours and fully hard in days or weeks. Loading shelves and closing doors against each other during that window is how a good finish gets marked permanently, and the instruction often gets lost at handover.
Brushed where it should be sprayed
“Is this being sprayed or brushed, and can I see an example?”
Brush marks on a flat cabinet door are visible from across the room in side light. Spraying costs more in masking and setup and is what produces the finish people have in mind when they ask for this.
Before you book cabinet refinishing
How we rank →Six checks, in the order they save you the most. None of them takes longer than a phone call, and the first one is the reason two quotes for the same job can be a thousand apart.
Common questions about cabinet refinishing
Who handles cabinet refinishing?
Cabinet refinishing is handled by painting companies. Not every company in the trade takes this work on, so each ranking lists the services a company genuinely performs rather than everything it advertises.
What should I ask before booking cabinet refinishing?
Ask what the quote includes and excludes, who is doing the work, whether a permit is needed and who is pulling it, and what the workmanship warranty covers. Get the answers in writing before anyone starts.
How do I compare quotes for this?
Put them on one sheet line by line. Differences in price almost always turn out to be differences in scope, material grade or warranty length rather than margin.
Is cabinet refinishing priced separately from the rest of the job?
Usually it is a line inside a larger quote rather than its own invoice, which is exactly why the exclusions matter. Ask for it itemised so you can compare that line between companies instead of comparing two totals.
For painting
Do you offer cabinet refinishing?
Claim your profile so the services you actually perform are the ones recorded here, alongside your licence, hours and coverage. Neither claiming nor advertising buys a ranked position.