Cabinet Refinishing in Arlington, VA

Anything built before roughly 1955 has plaster over lath, and a plaster wall is neither plumb nor flat. Cabinets installed against one were scribed to it, shimmed, or caulked into the gap and forgotten.

When we mask and finish face frames in place, that joint is where the work sits. A caulk line that has cracked open gets cut out and replaced rather than coated over, because a bead laid on a split gives you a painted split. Where the gap widened as the house moved, it wants a backer and a proper joint instead of a thick bead that cracks again in one heating season.

It also limits what anyone can promise about a cut line. A straight frame against a wavy wall gives a line only as straight as the wall. We cut it by hand and point out where the wall will show rather than letting you find it later.

A lot of Arlington bungalows still have a glass-fronted cupboard, a pantry with shallow drawers, or a broom closet built into the wall. Those come with the job and are slower per door than the main run.

The glass is why. It sits in a rabbet held by putty or a thin wood stop, and in a door that age the putty is dried and loose in places. We reset what is loose, prime the bed, and carry the finish a hair onto the glass so the edge is sealed. Masking the glass and stopping the line short of it is why those doors start rattling.

Drawer boxes run wood on wood, so the running surfaces stay bare and get waxed. A coated runner sticks and then tears.

A large share of Arlington households are in condominiums: the garden blocks around Westover, the towers through Ballston, Clarendon, Rosslyn and Pentagon City. That cabinetry is almost all eighties and nineties. Golden oak raised panel doors, melamine boxes, the odd thermofoil front in a later fit-out.

Oak is the decision to make. Red oak has deep open pores and sanding does not remove them, so a painted oak door is smooth to the touch with the grain still reading under the color. Under downlights in a small unit kitchen that texture is noticeable. Filling the grain is a real extra step, priced separately rather than implied.

These kitchens also tend to have fixed glazing and a hood that recirculates. A coat in a room with no air exchange takes longer to release, so we add time between coats rather than stacking them, and pick the lowest odor line that still cures hard.

Finishing fronts flat needs a clean space with moving air and nothing overhead shedding dust. On a tight Arlington lot that does not exist. The detached garage behind a 1925 bungalow is a single bay with a cracked slab and damp air. A condominium offers a corridor, an elevator and a parking deck, none of them ours.

So on nearly every Arlington kitchen the fronts come off, get numbered and wrapped, and go to our shop to be finished flat on racks. They come back when the film is hard enough to handle, then get hung and adjusted.

Boxes and face frames are done in your kitchen behind masking, worked by hand and fine roller so the texture matches the sprayed fronts as closely as it can. Getting those two surfaces to look like one kitchen is the part that takes judgment rather than equipment. Where doors travel through a building, the corridor and elevator cab get protected, the load in and out is booked with management, and the insurance certificate goes over first.

In a lot of these houses the back door is off the kitchen and there is no other way to the yard. With the room masked and the base cabinets open, that route closes.

We sequence around it. The run containing the door goes first or last, the protection leaves a taped walkable path rather than a sealed floor, and we pull what needs pulling at the end of the day if a dog or a couple of kids have to get through. If you want the rear steps done too, those go in a different week.

Pricing follows the count of fronts, and in Arlington that count runs high for the size of the room. Fredy Vargas comes out, opens everything, checks whether the doors are inset or overlay, what the boxes are and how the hinges work. Where the truck sits is settled before the first morning rather than improvised in front of your neighbors. Working since 2002, Virginia contractor license 2705098145, licensed, bonded and insured. No minimum job. Ten percent off for veterans and anyone 65 or over. Call 703-869-0593.