
You can do the work yourself for less than $250.
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"Most kitchens will cost $4,000 to $6,000 for a professional finish," Slavik says. But you'll save a bundle, compared with hiring the job out. OK, brace yourself: To do the job right, you need to budget at least 40 hours for the project. Step 2: Come up with a realistic schedule Fine-grained species, like cherry and maple, have a silky-smooth texture that's more conducive to refinishing. It's also important to note any heavy grain pattern, typical of species like oak and walnut, since the texture will likely show through, even after a couple of fresh coats of paint. "If there's a lot of water damage, or the doors are falling off their hinges, you're better off replacing the units," says Devyn Doyle, owner of VI Painting in Eagan, Minnesota, and a member of the Painting Contractors Association. "If you can't scratch it off, you'll have proper adhesion."Ĭonsider the condition of the cabinets too. “We'll apply a small area of primer, let it dry overnight and then attempt to scratch it off the next day,” says Nick Slavik, a professional painter based in New Prague, Minnesota, and the host of the Ask a Painter Live show on Facebook. If in doubt, run a test on an inconspicuous area, like the inside of a base corner cabinet. Cabinets with intricate details and applied moldings will be harder to paint, and pros don't recommend refinishing cabinets covered in plastic laminate or rigid thermofoil, since paint doesn't adhere well to those glossy surfaces. The best candidates are wood cabinets with plain, simple fronts, often referred to as Shaker style. It will take some time and effort on your part, but armed with our step-by-step guide, your cabinets will look new again for a fraction of the cost of replacement units. For this how-to article, we combined those findings with insights from pros who specialize in cabinet refinishing. The experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute have decades of experience testing all of the products used in this project, from the cabinet paint itself to paint sprayers, paintbrushes for home projects and other application tools. But if you don't go about it properly, you could waste hours upon hours and end up with a kitchen that looks worse, not better. We're not trying to talk you out of this DIY home-improvement project - painting kitchen cabinets really is one of the best ways to breathe new life into a tired kitchen. "This isn't a lazy Sunday project," says Sherry Petersik, who, along with her husband, chronicles a variety of decorating projects on her popular blog Young House Love. But contrary to what you might see on Instagram or Pinterest, the transformation won't happen overnight.
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A fresh coat of cabinet paint can update the look of your entire kitchen, since cabinets are such a strong focal point.
