Several years ago, my family got involved in buying homes and using these homes as rental properties. The first home we bought was in the suburbs of Dallas and to save money, I thought I would tackle the cabinets on my own.
 
The home was built in the 80′s and had painted cabinets. I had the grand idea of sanding these cabinets down to bare wood and staining them a dark cherry to really make the kitchen “pop.” I set up shop in the garage and carefully removed each cabinet door and drawer. (there was about 20 total that needed to be resurfaced) I bought some premium paint thinner and started off on my expedition. How bad could this really be? Paint thinner, paint scrapper, sander and bam.. beautiful kitchen. An important side note here, when working with paint thinner in a garage, be sure to leave the door cracked.. this did not occur to me until I spend 15 minutes “talking to the moose” sitting beside me.
 

After I cleared my head of the toxins and surveyed the work load in front of me, I discovered that this task was going to be much more difficult than originally planned. These particular cabinets had intricate wood grooves and I was finding it difficult to sand the corners and get the paint out of the crevasses. Even with a dremel tool, it was a daunting task. After a few hours of working on one cabinet door (I’m a bit of a perfectionist) I decided it would be cheaper and less time consuming to buy new raw cabinet doors and stain them. Staining cabinets has it perks, but it also shows any and all imperfections in the wood so buying new cabinets was my best option… aesthetically and financially.
 
Long story short, before you decide to taking on your cabinet refacing project, be sure to check the feasibility of using your existing hardware.. for me, starting from scratch was the ticket.
 
Cabinet Refacing