Cabinet Refinishing in Potomac, MD

A great deal of the cabinetry here came out of the late 1990s and 2000s, when the subdivisions off Travilah Road, Glen Road and Norton Road were filling in, and that era had a signature: raised panel doors in cherry or maple, a dark stain, and a glaze rubbed into the profiles and corners to give them depth. Often with applied moldings, rope detail, corbels and a heavy valance over the sink.

Those finishes are the reason a lot of cabinet work goes wrong. The glaze sits in the recesses under a clear topcoat, and if you sand only the flat faces and spray, the profile lines telegraph through the new color as shadow within a few months. The corners have to be cut back too, which is hand work with an abrasive pad, not a machine.

The topcoat matters as much. A lot of it is catalyzed lacquer or conversion varnish from a cabinet shop, which is harder and slicker than anything applied on site, and waterborne paint will not grip it on scuff sanding alone. That is a deglossing and bonding primer conversation, and skipping it is why cabinet doors chip at the fingernail a year later.

Cherry brings one more thing: it darkens with age and does it unevenly, so a half kitchen rarely matches the other half if any of the original finish is staying.

Not everything that looks like wood is wood, and the answer changes the job:

• Solid wood rails and stiles with a veneered center panel. The normal case. Refinishes well, and the panel needs care because veneer is thin and over-sanding cuts through at the edges.
• Open-grain oak. The pores read straight through a white finish unless they are filled. If you want the flat modern look, that is a grain filling step and it is not optional.
• Thermofoil. A vinyl skin heat-wrapped over substrate, common on secondary cabinetry and laundry rooms. Where it has lifted at a corner near heat it cannot simply be painted over, and we say so.
• Laminate and melamine boxes. Fine to finish with the right bonding primer, but a different primer than the wood gets.

Inset doors and full overlay doors also behave differently once a film of paint is added. Inset doors have almost no tolerance at the reveal, so paint build on the edge is what makes a door bind. We account for that rather than discovering it at rehang.

Hinges are the quiet decision. Old wrap-around hinges on a face frame cabinet are sized to the existing bore and the existing frame, and swapping to concealed hinges mid-project is a carpentry change, not a paint change. If you want soft close, that is worth settling at the estimate.

Knobs and pulls are easier, but a new hole pattern means the old holes get filled and the fill has to be done before finishing rather than after, or it shows.

Interiors of the boxes are a choice. Many people leave them, because a stained interior behind a painted door looks fine and costs nothing. If the kitchen is open shelving or glass fronted uppers, the interiors are part of the visible finish and get done, which adds real hours.

Finally, the toe kick, the light valance, the panel on the back of the island and the end that faces the breakfast room. Those are the pieces people notice after the fact when they were left in the old color.

Sheen is worth a minute as well. A satin or semi-gloss on a door front cleans easily and takes a wipe without burnishing, which in a kitchen that actually gets cooked in matters more than the difference you can see across the room. On a large island we usually go one step flatter than the perimeter, because a broad flat face in high sheen shows every ripple in raking light from the windows.

Once the kitchen is done, the rest of the house usually has more cabinetry than anyone realizes. The paneled study stained dark in the 1990s. Library shelving flanking a fireplace. A wet bar in the lower level. Wine room racking. The mudroom lockers a family of five has been kicking for fifteen years. Linen towers, vanities and the built-in desk in the back hall.

All of it can be refinished, and it changes a room more than wall color does. The lower level bar is often the best value of the lot, because it is a small piece count in a room nobody wants to gut.

We also do the kitchenette in the pool house or the guest wing on the same visit, which saves a second mobilization out to the property. There is no minimum job size, so a single vanity run or one set of lockers is work we will take.

Fredy Vargas looks at the existing finish himself before quoting, because whether the old topcoat is catalyzed is not something anyone can judge from a photograph. Call 703-869-0593.