Refinishing, when you want to keep the wood

What is cabinet refinishing?

Refinishing takes an existing wood cabinet back to bare or near-bare timber and applies a new stain and clear topcoat, so the grain remains visible. It only works on real wood - solid stock or a wood veneer thick enough to survive sanding. Because you are colouring timber rather than covering it, the species you already own sets the range of colours available to you, and going meaningfully lighter than the original wood is the one thing refinishing does badly.

Signs you need cabinet refinishing

• Solid wood doors with a finish that has gone cloudy, sticky or worn through at the handles
• A clear coat that has yellowed or ambered with age while the wood beneath is sound
• Water marks, heat rings or a blotchy patch around the sink and dishwasher
• You like the door style and the wood, and want a deeper or different tone rather than a painted look
• A period or architecturally significant kitchen where painting over the timber would be a loss
• Doors that have been previously stripped badly and now look uneven

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How cabinet refinishing actually works

1. 1

   Identify the substrate before promising anything

   The first job is establishing what the doors actually are. Solid timber refinishes freely. A thick veneer over plywood usually will. A thin modern veneer, MDF with a printed finish, thermofoil and melamine cannot be refinished at all, because there is nothing underneath to stain.

   Watch forA quote given without an edge or a hidden face being examined. Sanding through a thin veneer is unrecoverable - the panel has to be replaced, and it happens most often on the doors nobody test-checked.

2. 2

   Remove doors and drawer fronts, and mask the room

   Doors, drawer fronts and hardware come off and are labelled by position. Fronts are usually taken to a shop; the face frames and box exteriors have to be done in place, which is the part that makes this disruptive.

   Watch forFronts stripped in the kitchen. Chemical strippers and the dust from sanding do not belong in a room where food is prepared, and containment on site is much harder than it looks.

3. 3

   Strip and sand back to bare wood

   The old finish is removed chemically, mechanically, or both. Stripper does the heavy lifting on profiles and mouldings where a sander cannot reach; sanding levels and opens the grain afterwards. Every trace of the old coating has to go, or the new stain will not take evenly.

   Watch forA light scuff-sand described as stripping. Stain applied over residual old finish is patchy and blotchy, and the only fix is to start again.

4. 4

   Handle the species, and test the colour on a real door

   Different timbers take stain very differently. Open-grained species such as oak show a strong grain pattern through any colour. Close-grained species such as maple and birch are prone to blotching and often need a conditioner or a controlled sealer coat first.

   Watch forA colour chosen from a chip rather than from a sample on your own doors. The same stain on oak and on maple produces two visibly different kitchens, and the chip was made on neither.

5. 5

   Stain, seal and topcoat

   Stain goes on and is wiped back to the required depth, then sealed, lightly sanded between coats and finished with a clear topcoat in the chosen sheen. Multiple thin coats outperform fewer heavy ones, particularly on horizontal surfaces.

   Watch forA single topcoat on doors that get daily handling. The clear coat is the entire wear surface - it is what fails first, at the handle edge and around the sink, and it is the cheapest thing to specify properly.

6. 6

   Cure before reassembly and use

   Coatings are handleable long before they are hard. Fronts rehung and immediately closed against bumpers can print or stick, and the finish continues hardening for a good while after the crew has gone.

   Watch forDoors rehung the same day to finish on schedule. Ask for the cure time in writing and treat the first couple of weeks gently, particularly on the doors nearest the range.

What does cabinet refinishing cost?

Refinishing is priced by door and drawer count with the face frames and box exteriors added, and the stripping stage is the labour-heavy part. It generally sits above painting, because removing an old finish is harder than covering it, and well below new cabinetry. See the cabinets cost guide.

See the full cabinet refinishing cost guide - by material, size and region →

If the number is the problem, here are the ways people pay for it →