Refinishing suits cabinets built from wood too good to hide. Stripping or sanding removes the tired old finish, a new stain goes on if a different colour is wanted, and a hard clear coat locks the grain in.
Cherry kitchens in Masonville and Sunningdale, walnut in the century homes of Old North, and white oak in newer builds off Colonel Talbot Road are the London kitchens most often refinished rather than painted. Where the doors have a builder-grade veneer that is lifting, refacing is the better route.
Cabinet Refinishing Beats Cabinet Painting When The Wood Is Good
A solid cherry or walnut door that has gone dull, scratched around the handles and darker near the stove does not need paint. It needs its old lacquer taken back, the wood cleaned up and a fresh clear coat that is harder than the one it was born with. The colour can stay, go lighter or go darker, and the grain that cost the first owner a premium stays visible.
Cabinet painting wins when the wood is oak with a dated orange stain, when the doors are a mix of species, or when the kitchen has been painted before. Cabinet refinishing wins when the species is worth showing. The visit settles it, and we will say which one the kitchen wants even when it is the cheaper answer.
Stripping Versus Sanding Back The Old Finish
Two routes reach bare wood, and neither is cabinet painting prep, because stain forgives nothing. Sanding works when the old finish is thin and the doors are flat or simply profiled, and it is the faster, cleaner route. Stripping with a chemical remover is used on raised-panel doors with deep grooves, on thick old varnish and on any door where sanding would cut through a veneer. Either way, doors head to the shop while boxes get finished in place inside containment, exactly as they would for cabinet painting.
Once bare, the wood gets sanded up through the grits until the surface is uniform, because stain shows every scratch that paint would hide. Maple and cherry are blotch-prone under stain, so a conditioner goes on before the colour.
New Stain, Then A Clear Coat As Hard As A Cabinet Painting Topcoat
The stain is picked on one of the kitchen's own doors, never from a chip. A cherry kitchen can go a shade deeper, a honey maple kitchen can move to a warm mid-brown, and a white oak kitchen can take a pale natural finish that reads current. Over the stain goes a two-part waterborne polyurethane clear coat, applied thin by spray gun with a scuff between passes, the same clear finish used on wood islands in a two-tone kitchen.
That clear coat is the same family of product used for cabinet painting, harder than the factory lacquer on most 1990s and 2000s kitchens, and it does not yellow the way a solvent varnish does over a south-facing window.
What Cabinet Refinishing Costs Beside Cabinet Painting
Refinishing lands in the same market ranges as cabinet painting, which in Ontario for 2026 means most kitchens between $2,500 and $5,500, with stripping raised-panel doors adding to the low end. Refacing runs $3,000 to $10,000 and replacement $15,000 to $40,000 or more. Those figures describe the market, and the price for your kitchen arrives in writing after the visit.
Full Refacing Puts New Shaker Doors On Old Boxes Before Cabinet Painting
When every door is the problem, the whole set of doors and drawer fronts is swapped for new ones, most often a shaker style in MDF or paint-grade wood, while the boxes never move. On-site spraying brings the frames and end panels to the same colour, the booth primes and sprays the new doors, and the kitchen ends up as one cabinet painting job in a single colour.
New doors change the look more than paint alone. A 1980s raised-panel oak kitchen in Oakridge becomes a shaker kitchen, and the boxes, which nobody looks at, stay. Hinges are usually swapped to soft-close at the same time, which the hardware and hinge page covers.
Arrange A Cabinet Refinishing Visit In London
When the wood is sound but the finish is worn, refinishing may be the better answer than cabinet painting, so request a visit or call +1 (226) 271-3465 and bring a drawer front to the door. The London Cabinet Painting home page explains how refinishing sits beside cabinet painting and every other service we run.
Cabinet Refinishing Questions
When is refinishing better than painting?
Refinishing wins when the species is worth showing, such as cherry, walnut or good white oak. Painting wins when the oak has a dated orange stain, the doors are a mix of species, or the kitchen has been painted before. The visit settles it.
Is the old finish sanded or stripped?
Sanding works when the old finish is thin and the doors are flat or simply profiled. Stripping with a chemical remover suits raised-panel doors with deep grooves, thick old varnish, or veneer that sanding would cut through. Either way the wood is sanded up through the grits.
Will the clear coat turn yellow?
A two-part waterborne polyurethane clear coat does not yellow the way a solvent varnish does over a south-facing window. It is applied thin by spray gun with a scuff between passes, and it is harder than the factory lacquer on most 1990s and 2000s kitchens.