A Mishawaka kitchen. The cabinet boxes stayed where they were; the doors and drawer fronts came off, were prepared and sprayed away from the room, and went back on their own hinges with dark knobs.
Arched panels are the reason this one had to be sprayed rather than brushed. Light runs along a raised profile instead of across a flat face, so a brush mark that would be invisible on a slab door announces itself on this shape from across the kitchen.
How cabinet refinishing works
This is our process on any kitchen, not a description of what happened on this particular day. Doors and drawer fronts come off and are labeled so they go back where they started. Hardware comes off with them. Everything is cleaned of the cooking grease that collects on a kitchen and that nothing will bond over, then scuffed, filled where it needs it, and primed.
The doors are sprayed flat in a controlled setting and left to cure properly before they are handled. Meanwhile the boxes and face frames are done in place, which is the part of the job that happens in your kitchen. Then the doors come back, get rehung, and are adjusted so the gaps are even.
What to expect if you want this
Cabinet work takes longer than painting a room of the same size, because curing time is not something that can be hurried and doors that are rehung too early carry the marks of it for years. You will have a kitchen you can use throughout, minus the doors for part of it.
What decides the price is the number of doors and drawers, the condition and material of what is there, and whether the boxes are being done as well. That is why the estimate is a visit: a kitchen that has been painted once already is a different job from one that has not, and you cannot tell which is which from a photograph.
