We refinish kitchen and bathroom cabinets, built-ins, islands, and vanities. Doors and drawer fronts come off and get labelled, hardware comes off, and every surface gets degreased before anything else happens. Kitchen cabinets carry years of cooking film that you cannot see and paint will not stick to, so cleaning is not a formality here, it is the whole job.
After degreasing, the surfaces get scuffed, primed with a bonding primer built for cabinetry, and finished with a cabinet-grade product that cures hard. Doors are laid flat to dry rather than hung wet, which is why you will see them out on drop cloths in our photos. The boxes get done in place with the kitchen masked off. Then everything goes back on the labelled hinges it came off of.
The finish matters more on cabinets than anywhere else in the house, because cabinets get touched a hundred times a day. A wall-paint finish on a cabinet door will show fingerprints in a month and start chipping at the handles by the end of the year. Cabinet-grade products cost more and take longer to cure, and they are the only thing we will put on a kitchen.
Colour-wise, most Fort Wayne kitchens we do are honey oak going to white, off-white, or a warm greige, often with the island taken a shade or two darker. But we have also done the reverse: modern cabinets stained back down to wood tones. If your kitchen has good bones and dated colour, this is almost always the better spend compared with replacing the boxes.
One of our customers had multiple rooms and the kitchen cabinets done in the same visit and called it "top notch work and fantastic communication." That is the usual shape of these projects, and combining cabinets with the surrounding walls in one booking is usually the most efficient way to do it.
What That Covers
- Kitchen and bathroom cabinets
- Islands, built-ins, and vanities
- Full degrease, scuff, and bonding primer
- Cabinet-grade finish that cures hard
- Doors labelled, removed, and laid flat to dry
- Hardware removed and reinstalled
This Work, On Real Jobs
Cabinet Painting and Refinishing Questions
Can you really paint over oak cabinets? +
Yes, and it is one of the most common jobs we do. Oak has an open grain, so if you want a perfectly smooth finish rather than a grain-through look, tell us at the estimate and we will plan the extra step in.
Will the paint chip around the handles? +
Not if the right products are used. We degrease, scuff, use a bonding primer made for cabinetry, and finish with a cabinet-grade coating that cures hard. Wall paint on cabinets is what chips.
Can I use my kitchen while you work? +
Mostly yes. Doors and drawer fronts leave the house or go flat on drop cloths, and the boxes get done in place with everything masked off. We will walk you through the sequence so you know which days are disrupted.