"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
...

"Tony Sivori" wrote:

I've considered that, and I am a fairly skilled house and trim painter.
Unfortunately I don't like painted kitchen cabinets.


You are about to go down a slippery slope many before you, including me,
have faced.

You have a kitchen whose cabinets have collected 50+ years of crap and
whose finish doesn't owe you anything.

Consider your options.

1) You can try to apply a finish without cleaning the old finish first.

It will look like crap, but it will be cheap.


My dad took each of his cabinet doors down, glued on some ornamental trim
(so it looked sort of like it
had a "panel"--using door terminology) and used a 2-part antique finish
(brush on
one, and apply the other on with a wad of newspaper or something). The
first coat was a dark olive.
It looked pretty good during the 1970s. Probably out of style now, but it
didn't look like crap--it looked
more like he saved several thousand dollars. Maybe there is a variation
which would be acceptable today,
maybe not?

Bill



2) You can strip the old finish back to bare wood and refinish.

Only problem is it will be time consuming, and as others have pointed out,
dealing with chemical strippers will be a very nasty, and not inexpensive
process.

3) You can do a "refacing" job.

Remove all doors and use the wood to make shop jigs, replacing with MDF
core, laminated.doors.

Scrape the face frames down to bare wood and reface with laminate.

The hardware may or may not need replacement.

Fastest way to get the job done.

Lower cost than new cabinets, but you have to be happy with a laminate
kitchen.

4) You could replace cabinets with new.

It will be the most expensive, but maybe it is worth it.

I chose 3 more than 30 years ago and didn't regret it.

YMMV

Depends on how long you plan to remain.

Lew