One thing. I cannot afford to remove and install all new cabinets. I have determined I can put on new doors in the budget I’m putting together.

I just finished replacing one of the doors with a new door in Golden (brownish tint) oak with a sprayed-on satin finish. Sort of a DIY test. The door is gorgeous.

So that brings me to the point of this post – What to do about the cabinet bodies? Let me make a couple of unsubstantiated comments. (1), I don’t believe you can reface cabinets without them looking like they have been refaced. (2) I wonder if you can strip, re-stain and refinish cabinet bodies in place and have them come outing looking professional?

I have been playing around with the idea of painting the cabinet bodies. This would allow me to change the door wood if I decided to do that. SOOOO – has anyone done this, or seen this, and how did it come out? Pics would be great.

It was a LOT of work. Took a couple months.

Started with non toxic safety strip and quickly graduated to using the hard stuff. First a chemical strip - nasty nasty stuff. Then got all that bubbly goo off, then more stripping for the last of it because you have to get it all off for the stain to take. Need tools to scrape in the crevices, even toothpicks. Then endless sanding with decreasing grits because the chemicals can raise the grain, and then finally steel wool until smooth as silk. Once down to bare clean wood, then staining for color, then finishing coats with sanding between each coat.

It was gorgeous.

So CAN you do your cabinet boxes in place? Sure. But you will need time and patience. Also good ventilation, heavy gloves, etc. It will make a serious mess and the stripper goop will dissolve/destroy anything it contacts, so you will have to remove or protect all your stuff. Your kitchen will be pretty much out of commission for the duration.

The other big problem besides the work of it all is color matching. If you buy stained doors matching the color will be hard. If you buy bare doors, the color could still end up different because of new vs. old wood.

So SHOULD you do your cabinet boxes in place? Your call, but I wouldn't. In fact the next time I didn't, and instead made the ones in this kitchen here darker. Darkening to espresso or painting is way easier because you are layering on color and don't need to get down to bare wood first. Huge difference.

Understand any method is work, and good prep is still critical if you choose to paint or darken with gel stain. There is just less of that prep because you don't have to get down to the bare wood. Painting over oak raises the issue of whether to fill in the heavy graining - there have been some threads here on that. And for products, I was very happy with General Finishes for both my projects.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

I have a thread running concerning the same situation as splais has, and there were great suggestions given to me, along with pictures. I also read other threads on this subject.

I had gone into this with the thought of going with a darker colour stain, such as espresso, if I had to following a reasonable attempt at stripping. However, I would like to see how the stripping goes, and would prefer a lighter shade, such as some that the pictures in the replies to my thread showed.

We'll see. I don't have the time presently to start on this project. In the meantime, I'll watch for threads such as this for info.

Ted

I have already tried stripping and restaining one of the doors I replaced. You, or at least me, can't match the old door to the new door, no way at all. So it looks like something contrasting has to be the way to go.

before picture

after picture

Went from honey gold color to medium brown tone-stain DH used was provincial.

Here is the thread.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg1123080229738.html?5

Good luck,

Ted

In case the link does not work, the thread has moved along to Page 3 or 4, and is entitled "re-staining oak cabinets".

Ted