Refinishing cabinets in an old Madison kitchen, layers and all

Reading the layers on an old cabinet door

Open a door and look at its edge beside the hinge. On an old kitchen you can often count the history there: the first varnish or shellac, a coat of paint over it, a different color after that, then whatever went on last. Sags along the bottom rail and ridges in the panel corners show where someone brushed in a hurry.

The National Park Service explains what decades of buildup do. Paint that's several coats thick turns hard and brittle, stops flexing as the wood swells and shrinks, and breaks into fine cracks it calls crazing. Left alone, those cracks deepen into alligatoring, a pattern like reptile skin. The Park Service was writing about exterior woodwork, but a door next to a steaming dishwasher swells and shrinks as well.

Its advice sorts the cases. Cracking confined to the top layers can be sanded back to a sound coat and repainted. Cracking that runs down to bare wood and has started to flake means the old paint must come off entirely before anything new goes on. George checks which case your doors fall into on the estimate visit and explains what it does to the prep before you decide.

Lead in old cabinet paint and the EPA's rule

Getting a cabinet ready for a new finish means sanding, and sanding is where lead matters. The EPA says homes built before 1978 are more likely to have lead-based paint, that paint in good shape usually isn't the problem, and that surfaces under constant friction, doors among them, can wear it into chips and dust. A cabinet door opened all day long is exactly that kind of surface.

The agency's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule applies to anyone paid to do work that disturbs painted surfaces in homes built before 1978. Wisconsin is one of the states the EPA has authorized to run its own version of the program. The EPA adds that landlords and property managers must follow the rule too, which matters in a city where 46% of homes are owner occupied and the rest are rented.

• Tell anyone who will sand your cabinets the year the house was built.
• Ask how sanding dust will be kept out of the rest of the house, and how the kitchen gets cleaned at the end.
• If you rent, talk with your landlord before any cabinet work is planned.

Our post on painting older Madison homes covers the same lead basics for walls and trim.

China cabinets, pantries and glass-front uppers

A house from the first half of the last century often has cabinetry beyond the kitchen: a built-in china cabinet in the dining room, a butler's pantry between the two rooms, or uppers with glass doors meant for display. They're usually the same age as the kitchen and carry the same layers, so they're worth looking at on the same visit.

There are two ways to go. Refinishing them along with the kitchen puts everything into one plan and one quote, and every door ends up with the same finish. Or the built-in becomes the contrast: a painted kitchen beside a china cabinet left in its original stain, or a pantry in a deeper shade than the room it serves.

Glass-front doors take more care than solid ones, with a narrow frame around every pane, so count them separately when you call.

When an old kitchen's wood should stay wood

Paint is the right move for a lot of old cabinets, but not all of them. If the doors still wear their first clear finish, the wood matches the trim in the next room, and the finish is worn rather than failing, think hard before covering it. Getting paint back out of old grain is slow, messy work, and an original finish is the one part of the kitchen that can't be bought new.

Paint makes more sense when someone has already painted over the wood, when doors from different decades don't match, or when the stain has gone dark and blotchy around the range and sink. A split decision works too: paint the kitchen and keep the dining room's built-in stained.

Our comparison of painted and stained cabinets has a checklist for deciding. If the woodwork elsewhere is staying natural, our page on painting older Madison interiors covers wall colors that sit well beside it.

What a new finish won't fix

Refinishing changes the surface, not the structure. It won't flatten a door that has cupped, rebuild a sink base soaked by years of slow drips, or square up a face frame sitting on a floor that has settled. Old houses produce all three, so they're worth finding before anyone writes a quote.

On the visit George opens the doors, looks under the sink and watches how each door swings. A door that sags because its hinge has worked loose usually comes right when the hinges are adjusted at reinstall. A twisted door or a soft cabinet box is a job for a carpenter, and he'll say so plainly.

If enough of the boxes are failing, new cabinets may be the better use of the money. Our guide to painting or replacing kitchen cabinets walks through where that line usually falls.

What the estimate visit covers in an older house

George looks at the layers on the doors, the condition of the boxes, any built-ins you'd like included and the hardware. Original pulls are worth deciding on before work starts, because they come off for the prep either way. If you're replacing them, our post on cabinet hardware ideas covers sizing and finishes.

Cabinet refinishing is priced per cabinet with paint included, and most kitchens take one to two weeks from the first drop cloth to the final walkthrough. The written quote is the price, no extra charge if the job takes longer than expected.

Have the year the house was built, a rough count of doors and drawers, and a list of any built-ins ready when you ask for a free estimate. Our Madison page covers the rest of what we do in the city.

More in Madison

• Painting in Madison
• Interior painting in Madison
• Decks and exterior in Madison
• Cabinet refinishing, the full service page

Cabinet refinishing nearby

• Cabinet refinishing in Monona
• Cabinet refinishing in Middleton
• Cabinet refinishing in Fitchburg

Helpful guides

• Painted vs stained cabinets: how to choose, and how to switch
• Should you paint or replace your kitchen cabinets?
• Choosing cabinet pulls and knobs when you're painting your cabinets