On Nov 1, 1:36*am, "Lew Hodgett" wrote:
"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.

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

# 4 is the most disruptive as you also start messing with countertops
and plumbing. A much more ambitious, and as you pointed out, expensive
route to take.

# 3 is probably the most rewarding. Not too disruptive to daily life.
You have all the dimensions of all the doors, so ordering from a
variety of sources would be no problem. Cutting up a couple of 4x8
sheets of quality ply and taping the edges of the doors with veneer/
thermal tape is almost fun. Taping won't be needed if you use Baltic
Birch multi-ply as those edges are quite decorative as they are.
The cabinet frames... Lew suggested laminate.. that's a lot of work
and you got to know what you're doing. Not a simple job.
I would sand and paint the frames, after I plugged the hinge holes.
(unless you're sure you can get fresh hinges with the same hole-
spacing.) If the frames sand nicely and clean, maybe just a couple of
coats of Polyshades.

Now let's see...what are the potential tool-buying plusses??? A Fein
Multimaster? One of those super cool mini Porter Cable belt sanders?
You really should spray the doors...... but a deft hand...(get
it..DEFT) at brushing might work for you. Lightly sand between coats
with a sponge....Outdoors...the stuff is stinky.

One job I saw done, the face of the door was natural maple veneer. The
door edges painted in a medium brown polyshade and the frames of the
cabinets a shade darker than the door edges. A nice 3-dimensional look
to the job.