Rebuild or Refinish, That is the Question

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 6:07 pm

Well, that used to be the question; it is no more. I have learned a valuable lesson (at least for me).

What you need to know, however, is I come into this quandary with a thorough distaste for finishing and especially refinishing.

My dear wife, SWMBO, approached me a while back with a proposal for doing something about the cabinets in our house. Now you must know, this is an old home. One that we built in the mid sixties. She says, let's scrub them down with TSP and put a good coat of furniture oil on them and they'll be good for another few years.

Could I just leave it at that and do what she said. No..... I had a better idea. Let me take all the doors off, run them through the edge sander (where needed) and just refinish them - same color (dark oak).

Well, she took me up on it. I now have doors and drawer fronts and false drawer fronts in the process of being refinished. About thirty years worth of wear and tear and "built up cleaner and polish residue".

If I had chosen to rebuild cabinet doors, I would have them ALL at least in the final stages of finishing. All of the pieces would have been sanded and prepared for finish before assembly - oh how much easier it would have been.

I have learned. There is a reason why on DIY when they redo kitchen and bathroom cabinets, they refinish the face frames and install new doors.

New cabinets would be nice too but I could not see laying out the price of new solid wood cabinets (at today's prices). Our old cabinets are better, structurally, than many that we could buy today. I also can not afford the price of wood to make that many oak cabinets - just to avoid a refinish job.

a1gutterman · Post by **a1gutterman** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 8:53 pm

Dusty, there is seldom any reason to replace the cabinet box. Only if they are badly damaged or you want to refigure your kitchen arrangement. I wood knot replace the face frames unless, again, they are badly damaged. Almost always, you can clean them up and refinish them. The doors are what make or break the kitchen remodel success. I wish you luck with your project, and I am a lot like you when it comes to applying finishes. Shall we say that it is the least pleasurable chore of any woodworking project? Thanks for sharing.

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 12:19 am

Thanks for sharing, Dusty! Sorry, I can't come up with something to help you out.

I have to agree with you that making new doors and drawer fronts would have probably been easier. I can only guess on what your process would be like, as I have no idea of the shape of your door frames and drawer front make up.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 6:01 am

I live in a very modest home. The cabinet design is a fundamental stile/rail panel door. Straight lines, simple to cut and painstaking to refinish. The drawer fronts are removable and could very easily been replaced; however, they are equally simple to clean and prep for refinish. Doors are a pain. They'll be nice when done - I'd just rather be making sawdust than spreading stain.

bw1 · Post by **bw1** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 8:58 am

I have the same type of cabinets and I just made new door and stain them the same tone. I used maple and that made a good look and the buyer of our home thought it look like cherry wood. They only took me 4 weeks to do.

fjimp · Post by **fjimp** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 5:58 pm

I remember my wife deciding to refinish the stain and sealer on kitchen cabinets in a house we sold several years ago. The woman who bought the house brought several family members by the day we were moving out. She walked into the kitchen and announced to all; :Look at my beautiful new cabinets!" I responded that day just as I had the day she looked at the house for the first time that they were not new simply refinished. She smiled and said yes but I have never seen cabinets in such good condition and that are so clean and shiny. I would do it again. fjimp

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Fri Oct 03, 2008 10:51 pm

dusty wrote:... Doors are a pain. They'll be nice when done - I'd just rather be making sawdust than spreading stain.

Dusty - - I feel your pain! Best wishes!

john · Post by **john** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:58 am

Dusty:

Your post reminds me of why I have not started a similar project on our oak kitchen cupboards yet.

Been in the works for at least five years but never seems to make it to the top of the "to-do" list.

John

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:02 pm

Please allow me to give some advise. Stain some samples FIRST. I applied dark oak stain to some prefinished cabinet doors. These cabinets are about twenty five years old. Dark oak was NOT the right stain color. The doors came out almost black. It didn't appear that way when first applied but that is the way it dried.

Now I am a stripping and refinishing mode.

I'm sure glad I only did two small lower bathroom cabinet doors.

Ed in Tampa · Post by **Ed in Tampa** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:12 am

Dusty
Good luck refinishing the doors. Many factors are going to effect the results. Previous finish, age of the wood, type and cut of the wood, type of stain etc. I would suggest you might try brushing on a coat of shellac (sealer) and then trying to obtain a uniform color.

I played and played with staining on my last project the master bath, cabinets made from maple my wife wanted stained to match the cherry mocha color that HD displays on many of their kitchen cabinets. It took me nearly 6 months of messing around to finally achieve the results we were happy with.

Using shellac as a sealer was instrumental in accomplishing that. It took most of the variables out of the equation and then all I had to do was find/mix/ conjure the right tone/color combination.

From that experience I have made myself a vow. If I'm not doing a simple oil finish (which I very much prefer) I will always use a shellac sealer and go from there.

Your biggest problem with be to get a suitable sample, since the wood is so old, was finished before by probably unknown methods. If I can help in anyway e-mail me, but let me say up front, "no I will not finish them for you.":D