How do you refinish kitchen cabinets?

If you’re ready for a new look and feel in your kitchen but don’t want to replace the cabinet layout or your cabinet doors, refinishing your existing kitchen cabinets is a great option. To be a good candidate for cabinet refinishing, your cabinet boxes and doors need to be in good condition. Cabinet refinishing includes taking down your doors, sanding or stripping the surface, preparing the doors with primer as needed, refinishing them with as many coats of stain or paint are necessary, then re-hanging them in their original locations. If you’re not in love with your kitchen cabinet layout, talk to a designer or contractor about creating an alternative. Refinishing simply means adding new shine to the existing setup, so if you’re dying to have a pull-out pantry or maximize wall space by going flush to the ceiling, you may want a different approach. Functional and stylish ready-to-assemble (RTA) cabinets can be similar in cost to refacing your existing cabinets, so keep the budget-friendly RTA option in mind when making decisions.