I know, I know, and I don't necessarily disagree with your viewpoint. I've been contemplating it for 8 years, but the problem is it's in really bad condition (previous owners) - an old 1920's house, but the second floor is so dark, not enough natural sunlight, small rooms, regardless of paint color on the walls it's so dreary, I have proper lighting, but I think the painted woodwork will really brighten things up. I just want to do it right. Also, the previous owners have two rooms up there with already painted woodwork (gawdy blue, AND they painted one of the hardwood floors ???????????!!!!!! which we had refinished back to its original condition). Right now it's a mix mox of painted vs. unpainted.

I tried removing the paint in one room with a heat gun, burned some of the woodwork, so now it's just sitting and waiting for my next move. I really dislike working with toxic paint removers/fumes, so I opted for the gun.

Casey, this is a little off topic but I'm hijacking my own thread....what do you know about cherry wood specifically? Here's my dilemma:

I have custom cherry cabinets in my kitchen which we had installed, and without getting into the long drawn out nightmare story about contractors and their subcontractors when we remodeled many years ago, I'll just say that someone didn't know what they were doing (whomever finished them).

First, they brought them to me stained with such a high gloss (laquerish?) finish (which I never asked for) and I almost fell over. I said no way. So I sent them back to have them dull the finish and they did, but the finish never looked professional to me. Done and over with, so no use getting into that story.

In terms of the cherry wood itself, I was told to never use oil products on them (like murphy's oil soap for example) when cleaning them, to just use a mild soap and water. So I never have.

In their current condition, and since not long after they were installed, they appear to have "white" areas - I was told this is possibly moisture or humidity? So somewhere along the line I'm guessing someone put something on these cabinets (like perhaps oil? - possibly the drunk subcontractor who was supposed to finish them but didn't know what he was doing).

In some areas, they look awful, and they didn't look like that when they were installed. I had a cleaning lady come in and she thought they were filthy - she was ready to scrub them (how embarrassing), and I had to explain to her that it's moisture.

Any idea what caused this? Or better, how can we fix it? I know that when we try to sell, people are going to come in and think they are dirty and I couldn't imagine painting cherry cabinets, but they really look pretty bad.

I'll try to post some pics here.

Ok, what you see here is what I was told is moisture in the wood???? Stain isn't missing, this is under the finish coat, and this is how it looks all year round. My house isn't humid - we run central air in the summer, so it stays pretty dry.

The square one is the milk chute. The other side (exterior) is glass block.

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Hi,
The cherry cabinets look crazed or mildewy.
A few days ago a friend recommended this product, he claimed to have really liked what it did for a very dull rosewood piece he recently bought.
I was told it removed a lot of gunk; the rags came away black.
It might be that the polishing compound makes your cabinet too shiny, but that could be dialed down with synthetic steel wool pad rubbing.
Casey

Here is a link that might be useful: howard's restore-shine

Maybe I didn't explain this correctly.

This is not on the surface. This is UNDER the glaze. This is nothing that can be surface cleaned. I don't see how mildew can be underneath a glaze that seals the wood. I was told it's moisture. I'll check with woodworking specialists and see what they say.

re: shellac on woodwork - can be removed with denatured or rubbing alcohol + steel wool or soften with the alch and scrape off. Not so toxic to breathe but keep ventilated.

Your rooms look dreary not because of the wood, but because the shellac finish on it is almost 100 yrs old and has darkened and alligatored and probably has a lot of scrapes and dings as well. Once you get the old gunk off, the wood will be so much brighter and more beautiful - you really want to cover it up?

I've never understood why people think paint is such a quick fix. I guess it is if you just slap it on, but to get a nice smooth finish it's almost as much work as to refinish it, and then it shows wear, peeling, and discoloration much more quickly than refinished wood.

Well that's my opinion FWIW!

It took me a lifetime to remove the old paint in our 1923 woodwork. The only way I got through that was to offer it up as a penance for my many sins! I will never paint it again.

Dom...don't know if you are still checking this thread or if you got a good answer for your "white" areas. Also, your pictures have been deleted. But sometimes white areas show up in cherry after awhile because the wood is the sap wood of the cherry tree ...so I guess that could be considered a moisture problem. Also, since cherry darkens over time naturally, you won't notice it at first. I have bought furniture that was perfect in color only to have white streaks show up later and these were good furniture manufacturers. I don't know if refinishing will even work; I just live with it. Apparently it can be prevented because none of the furniture my brother made me has this problem.