· by Michael Blair, Nashville's Painters
Search for help with tired kitchen cabinets around Nashville and two words come up side by side: refacing and refinishing. They sound like versions of the same job, but they are different trades. We paint cabinets. We do not reface them, so this is not a pitch against refacing; it is a plain account of what each one does, so you can tell which kitchen you have before anyone gives you a price. What painting involves on our end is set out on our cabinet painting page.
What is the difference between cabinet refacing and painting?
Painting keeps every door, drawer front and box you have and changes only the finish on them; refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts and covers the visible faces of the boxes with new material. In the way the trade uses the word, the cabinet boxes stay on the wall and the parts you see and touch are new. It is cabinet and millwork work, done by refacing companies and cabinet shops rather than painters.
Painting, or refinishing as many people search for it, is coating work. Sherwin-Williams’ five-step guide to updating kitchen cabinets lays out the order: doors and every piece of hardware come off, the surfaces get a cleaner-degreaser to remove the grease and oil that builds up on kitchen cabinetry, a primer goes on after a small adhesion test in a spot nobody sees, and then the coats. The guide warns that prep falling short of clean, dry and dull, or poor adhesion, can shorten how long the finish lasts. That is why the prep takes up so much of the job.
So the honest comparison is not better and worse. One trade gives you new door fronts, the other gives your existing ones a new surface.
Which kitchens suit painting, and which suit refacing?
The door style you want usually decides it. Paint changes color and sheen but not shape, so an arched cathedral panel stays an arched cathedral panel in any color. If the doors are sound and you like their profile, or can live with it, painting is the smaller job. If what bothers you is the shape itself, and you want a flat slab or a plain square panel where an ornate one is now, no amount of paint gets you there. That kitchen is a refacing candidate, or a replacement one.
Two things are the same either way. Both keep the boxes, so neither moves a cabinet, adds a drawer stack or changes how the kitchen is laid out. And neither repairs a box. A sink base swollen from a leak is the same swollen box under new veneer as it is under new paint, so it needs rebuilding or replacing first, whichever route you take. Our post on painting cabinets instead of replacing them covers how we judge a box and a door before agreeing to paint them.
New doors bring one thing paint cannot: a finish that may have been tested at the factory. The Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association’s A161.1 quality certification puts a design’s structure, drawers, doors and finish through tests meant to simulate a lifetime of use before it earns the seal. Its page on why certified cabinetry matters says the doors and hinges are tested with 65 pounds of weight over 25,000 swing cycles, and the finish is exposed to vinegar, grape juice, coffee, alcohol and mustard. A finish sprayed on your existing doors, ours included, is not part of that program. If refacing doors come from a certified maker, that is a fair point in their favor, and worth asking any refacer about.
How long does cabinet painting take?
Plan on at least three days, and usually more. Sherwin-Williams rates the project at 3+ days and intermediate difficulty, and its guide gives the waits that set that pace: at least 24 hours for the primer to dry before a fine sanding, then about 24 to 48 hours after the first finish coat, and another 24 to 48 hours after the second before the hardware goes back on. On a full kitchen under our cabinet painting service, the doors come off to be sprayed while the boxes are coated in place, so you lose the use of the cabinets for a stretch, not the whole kitchen. Our step-by-step post on a Murfreesboro cabinet job walks through that schedule in order.
We do not quote a timeline for refacing, because it is not our trade and the shop doing it is the one to ask. Ask the refacer for theirs in writing, including when the old doors come off and how long the kitchen is without fronts.
In a house built before 1978, both jobs can disturb old paint. The EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting program requires anyone paid to disturb painted surfaces in those homes to be certified in lead-safe work practices, and it says that covers every firm, sole proprietors included. Sanding or stripping cabinet finish is disturbing it, and so is cutting or sanding painted face frames to apply new material. Tennessee does not run its own program, so the EPA rule applies here directly. What that means for a kitchen in an older Nashville neighborhood is in our post on lead paint in a pre-1978 house.
Licensing in Davidson and Rutherford counties
Tennessee treats both jobs as home improvement. The state’s Home Improvement license page says the license is required for residential remodeling projects from $3,000 to $24,999, but only in the counties that adopted the law, and it lists Bradley, Davidson, Hamilton, Haywood, Knox, Marion, Robertson, Rutherford and Shelby. The definition it quotes from state law covers repair, replacement, remodeling and alterations to a residential building, and painting is named among the examples. So a cabinet job in that price range in Nashville or Murfreesboro calls for that license whether the doors get paint or get replaced. Williamson and Wilson counties are not on the list.
Larger jobs move to a different license. The state’s contractor license page requires a contractor’s license before anyone bids or negotiates as the prime contractor on a project of $25,000 or more. Whoever you hire, the license is easy to check before you sign, and our Nashville page names the Metro permit office if the job grows past the cabinets.
If you want to know whether your doors are worth painting, send us a few photos and the door count. We will tell you plainly if what you want is a different door, and if it is, we will say so before we write an estimate.
Sources
- Sherwin-Williams: Update Kitchen Cabinets in 5 Steps — Painting order (doors off, degrease, adhesion test, prime, two coats), the 3+ day project time and the 24-hour and 24-to-48-hour waits.
- Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association: KCMA A161.1 Quality Cabinet Certification — Structure, drawers, doors and finish tested to simulate a lifetime of use before certification.
- Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association: Why Choose Certified Cabinetry — Door and hinge test of 65 pounds over 25,000 swing cycles; finish exposed to household stains.
- U.S. EPA: Renovation, Repair and Painting Program — Certification for anyone paid to disturb painted surfaces in pre-1978 homes, all firms including sole proprietors; Tennessee is not an authorized state program.
- Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Board for Licensing Contractors: Home Improvement License — License required for $3,000 to $24,999 residential remodeling in adopting counties, including Davidson and Rutherford; painting named in the definition.
- Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Board for Licensing Contractors: Contractor License — Contractor license required before bidding as prime contractor on projects of $25,000 or more.
FAQ
Cabinet Refacing or Painting: Which Fits Your Kitchen — questions
What is the difference between cabinet refacing and cabinet refinishing?
Refinishing, which is what painters do, keeps your existing doors, drawer fronts and boxes and puts a new finish on them. Refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts and covers the visible faces of the boxes with new material. Both leave the cabinet boxes on the wall, so the layout stays the same either way.
Is cabinet refacing worth it?
It depends on what bothers you about the kitchen. If you want a different door shape, refacing gets you there and paint cannot. If you like the door profile and the doors are sound, painting changes the look with less replacement. Either way the boxes have to be in good shape first, because neither job repairs them.
Can cabinets with sagging or water-damaged boxes be refaced?
Not as they are. Refacing covers the outside of the boxes, so a sink base swollen from a leak or a sagging shelf is still there underneath the new material. The same is true of paint. A damaged box needs rebuilding or replacing first, and then either refacing or painting can go over sound cabinets.
Does cabinet refacing change the layout or add storage?
No. Refacing keeps the boxes where they are and replaces what you see on the front, so the number of cabinets, their sizes and the way the kitchen is laid out stay the same. Painting works the same way. Moving cabinets, adding a drawer stack or changing the layout means new cabinetry, which is a remodel.
Do you need a license to paint or reface cabinets in Davidson County?
For a residential job from $3,000 to $24,999, yes. Davidson is one of the Tennessee counties that adopted the Home Improvement license law, and the state’s definition of home improvement names painting as well as remodeling and replacement. At $25,000 or more, the prime contractor needs a state contractor’s license.