Kitchen Cabinets: Finish Doesnt Match

When wood cabinets are sealed and finished, staining is not an option. Explore options including repaiting or refacing to achieve uniform color and look to cabinets with mismatched finish.

LESLIE: Randy in Illinois is on the line with a kitchen cabinets question. How can we help you today?

RANDY: Yeah, I recently purchased a home and it had some all-wood kitchen cabinets. And they’re half bisque-colored and they’re half of a whiter color, depending on which part of the cabinet you look at. And I’m trying to figure out how – a way to get them back to either all one color or the lighter version.

TOM: What’s the material that your cabinets are made out of?

RANDY: I believe it’s oak but it could be pine.

TOM: Well, assuming that the oak is finished, one of the issues that you’re going to have is that you can’t really stain it and change the color. So you’d have to either paint it or you’d have to sand it down. Since most of those cabinets are covered with veneer, it makes it also difficult for you to be able to sand enough of that finish off to have it accept stain.

So, your resulting options would be to reface the cabinets, which is adding new veneer to it, or to paint the kitchen cabinets to get that consistent look.

RANDY: OK. OK. That sounds good. I’ll do that. Thank you very much.