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hgluckman_gw

Cabinet Refinishing Project

hgluckman
14 years ago

We're planning to do a kitchen remodel, with only a minor reconfiguration of our cabinets, but we want to have the current cabinet fronts refinished. They were custom made (for us) 19 years ago, and are red oak with a walnut strip on some of the drawers (top 2) and all of the door fronts. They were finished with an oil-based stain that was mostly clear, with a little bit of color added.

Here's a picture of the current cabinets. The wood countertop edge will be gone in the remodel.

I've done some woodworking (I've even made matching cabinet doors), but I'm not up to refinihsing these myself. We've gotten some wildly varying bids on the job, and wanted to see if anyone here had thoughts on it.

All-in-all there's about 100 sq ft of fronts to refinish. Depending on how the refinishing goes, there's a few that are damaged and might need to be replaced entirely. In addition, we need to have a new 30-inch double oven cabinet made, a new full depth upper cabinet, and one 14-inch full depth cabinet. Some of the existing fronts can be used (some cut down) for the new cabinets. Also, we need to have matching panels made for a SubZero all-refrigerator (BI36R).

We got one bid on the job from an independent cabinet maker. He thought that he could do the whole job by replacing - not refinishing - the fronts for $3,000. Another cabinet maker, working with a general contractor came back with a bid for $12,000. It seems like a realistic estimate would be something in between.

Any thoughts? By the way, we're in the Boulder, CO area. If there's anyone out there interested in this, let me know!