"Tim" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have a rental apartment in my home which has cabinets that are about
40 years old. I don't have the time or funds to replace them. Does
anyone have any suggestions about repainting them so that they would
look presentable? They currently have a wood finish with a polyurethane
or shellac over it.

Thanks.

I recently was faced with just this issue. I repainted the cabinets and
installed new hinges and handles.

The cabinets were finished wood. I sanded using a vibratory sander to rough
up the shininess, then primed with Zinser Bulls Eye 123 primer sealer stain
killer (you gotta prime and I have found this primer to be effective in many
applications in the house...). Then 2 coats of off yellow paint as I went
for light color over the original dark. I painted the doors on a table top,
one side at a time, removed from the cabinets, and they took the longest as
they were 2-sided. The drawers were also done on the table top as well. I
used a 1.5 or 2 inch brush all around.

It really did brighten up the room greatly and looks very nice now. It also
took a while to get through it all - about 30 doors and 10 drawers.

My only problem that I did not foresee was in the one case where I have 2
doors that meet without a post in between them. Since the doors grew in
width due to the newly added paint, they knocked into each other and I had
to put the hinges into new holes. over just a bit. If you have this I would
suggest filling the hinge holes really well and then drilling new holes
after all the painting.