opacity
The grain stays visible
Stripping back and restaining keeps the wood on show, which is the point if you have real hardwood doors.
Working with what you have
Cabinet refinishing in Louisville strips the old finish off your existing doors and puts a new one on, so the wood underneath shows again.
Cabinet refinishing means taking the doors and drawer fronts off, stripping the old finish, sanding back to clean wood, and applying a new stain and topcoat. The boxes are done in place, masked off from the rest of the room.
The door style cannot change, because they are your doors. What changes is the tone and the condition of the finish on them.
Stripping back and restaining keeps the wood on show, which is the point if you have real hardwood doors.
Old finish comes off properly before anything goes on, because a new coat over a failing one fails with it.
Doors are finished off the hinges and sprayed, so there are no brush marks and the film is even.
Each stage is signed off before the next one starts.
We measure the room itself rather than working from the plan, because walls are rarely square and the plan is rarely what got built. Every opening gets checked.
You get a layout and a written estimate broken down by stage, so you can see what the doors cost against the boxes against the install. Free, nothing to sign.
Cabinetry is built to the measurements we took, in the wood, door style and finish you picked. Lead time depends on the scope and we tell you before you commit.
Scribed to the walls, levelled, and fixed properly. Hardware adjusted so every door and drawer sits straight before we leave.
The wood has not changed color. The finish over it has.
Anyone with solid wood cabinets that have aged rather than failed. If the doors are hardwood and the joints are tight, the material is worth keeping and refinishing is the cheapest route to a kitchen that looks looked-after.
It is the wrong answer for thermofoil or laminate fronts, which cannot be stripped and restained. Those need cabinet refacing in Louisville instead.
It also assumes you are happy with the doors themselves. Refinishing changes the color and the condition of the finish and nothing else, so a door profile you dislike will still be there afterwards in a nicer tone.
Doors come off and go flat, because finishing a door on its hinges is how you get runs. The old coat is stripped, the wood is sanded to an even surface, and color goes on before a protective topcoat.
Boxes and face frames are done in place with the room masked. Everything goes back on adjusted, so the doors sit level and the reveals are even.
Nationally, refinishing runs about $2,000 to $4,500 and averages near $3,100, or roughly $4 to $10 per square foot. That puts it below refacing, which runs $4,000 to $9,500, and well below replacement.
Door count drives the number more than kitchen size does, because each one is handled, stripped, finished and rehung individually. A galley with fourteen doors costs less than an open-plan kitchen with twenty-six, even where the two rooms feel similar in size.
Wood species matters too. Oak has open grain that drinks stain and shows every pass, so it takes longer to get even than maple or cherry does.
If you want a color the wood will not give you, cabinet painting in Louisville covers the grain with a sprayed finish. If you want a different door shape entirely, that is refacing, not refinishing.
Where new work has to sit next to old, cabinet staining in Louisville matches the two. We work across the metro including cabinets in St. Matthews.
Get a free written estimate and we will look at your Louisville cabinet doors before quoting.
Light surface damage sands out during the strip. Deep gouges, split panels and water damage do not, and on those the honest answer is a replacement door rather than a refinish.
Usually yes, and often the wood was never orange. Old clear coats amber as they age, so stripping the finish back frequently gets most of the way there before any new stain goes on.
The doors and drawer fronts do, because they get finished flat in the shop where they can be sprayed properly. The boxes and face frames are done in place with the room masked.
The kitchen is usable straight away, but a new finish takes a few weeks to reach full hardness. Go gently on the doors during that period and avoid harsh cleaners.
We stay inside about 20 miles of Louisville, close enough to measure, template and install without the schedule slipping. These are the areas we cover most often.
Tell us the room and what you want out of it. You get a written estimate broken down by stage, free, with nothing to sign.