DaileyJohn wrote:
I have beat up kitchen cabinets in a house that I am rehabbing
that I am told are made out of maple.
Someone told me that I should strip the
stain, and go from there. As best I can tell, the cabinets were
painted.
I don't know where to start, but if I can refinish or restain
the cabinets, I would prefer that to the expense of new cabinets.

I stripped a kitchen a couple of years ago. I took all of the doors off
and all of the hinges off of the doors. Then I used Citrus strip from
Lowe's. I stripped the cabinet face frames on-site. I stripped the
doors in my shop. I stained and poly'd the face frames after stripping
and sanding lightly. I used a brush on the frames and side panels
on-site. I stained the doors with a brush and a rag and poly'd the
doors with my HVLP gun.

The house was vacant while I was doing the work inside. That was a
good thing. The vapors would make a person sick. Overall, the job took
longer than I thought it would, but not by much. The results were
incredible. The cabinets weren't in too bad a shape, but someone had
done a botch-job faux finish to make the door panels look like leather.
They looked dirty, horrible. Gentlemen, a sponge job in Polyshades does
not look like leather. It does take a good amount of scraping to get
that crap off even with a good amount of stripper.

Extreme home make over fans and faux finish guru's,,SCREW YOU! I've
been going behind you cleaning up the crap long enough. You should have
to pay for the dumpster charges at the very least.

Tom in KY, don't do stupid things to your home. You're on the right
track John.