Cabinet Painting and Refinishing
Most people land on this page because they want the kitchen to look different and they’re not sure what to call the work. Painting, refinishing, refacing, resurfacing, restoration — those words get used for different things online, and the price and timeline aren’t the same. Here’s the short version so you know what you’re actually asking for before anyone gives you a number.
Painting is what most people mean. The existing boxes and doors stay. We clean them, sand them, prime them, and spray them a new color. Nothing structural changes. This makes sense when the boxes are solid and you just don’t like the color, or the finish has gotten dull and sticky.
Refinishing is basically the same process, but it usually means taking the old finish further down — stripping a stained-and-lacquered surface back closer to bare wood before building a new finish. If the cabinets are oak or maple with a heavy factory topcoat that’s yellowed, refinishing is the more accurate word. Resurfacing, refurbishing, and restoration all describe roughly the same work.
Refacing is different. The doors and drawer fronts get replaced and a veneer goes over the existing box frames. You keep the layout and the boxes; you get new doors. It costs more than refinishing and less than full replacement. It’s the practical option when the doors are beat up but the boxes are still fine.
Replacement means tearing the cabinets out and starting over. We’ll tell you if that’s the better call, and we’ll tell you before you’ve paid for any other work.
Oak Grain
A lot of kitchens built in the 90s and 2000s around here have oak cabinets with open grain. Paint doesn’t hide that grain — it sits in it and shows it. If you want the flat, smooth look you see in pictures, the grain has to be filled first. That takes extra time. If you’re fine with the grain still showing, we skip that step and the job costs less.
This is the thing that causes the most problems. Someone paints over oak, the homeowner expected it to look smooth like a new cabinet, and nobody talked about it before the work started. We bring it up every time we look at a kitchen.
Cabinet Painting and Refinishing Across Northern Colorado
We refinish cabinets throughout the Front Range, including cabinet painting in Longmont, Erie, cabinet refinishing in Berthoud, Boulder, Loveland, Broomfield, Fort Collins, Windsor, and Firestone.
If the kitchen is part of a larger project, we also handle interior painting, popcorn ceiling removal and drywall finishing. Our guide to choosing the right cabinet paint covers the finish types in more detail.
