We spray your cabinet doors and drawer fronts off site in a dedicated finishing space, then rehang them once the finish has cured. What comes back is a hard, level, factory-smooth surface with no brush marks and no roller stipple — on the cabinet boxes you already own.
Image Painting refinishes kitchen, bath and built-in cabinetry across Northern Virginia, Washington, DC and the Maryland suburbs. Most kitchens run 3-5 working days from teardown to rehang, and every job carries our five-year written warranty on labor and material.
5-year written warranty · 200+ five-star reviews · Serving the DC area since 2008.
Sprayed Off Site, Not Brushed in Place
Two things separate a cabinet job that still looks good in five years from one that starts chipping by spring: how the finish is applied, and where.
We spray. We do not brush.
A brush or roller leaves texture in the film. On a flat cabinet door — the most looked-at surface in the room, usually sitting in direct window light — that texture reads as a repaint. Sprayed waterborne enamel lays down a level film with no stipple and no lap marks.
Doors leave the house.
Doors and drawer fronts come off, get labeled, and are finished lying flat in a controlled space, then racked while they cure. Finishing flat is what lets a coating level out; finishing vertically is what makes it sag and run at the edges. It also keeps atomized finish out of your kitchen entirely.
Boxes are finished in place.
Cabinet boxes and face frames are masked and contained where they stand, with the rest of the room sealed off behind plastic and the work area.
Our Cabinet Refinishing Process, Step by Step
- Walkthrough and finish selection. We look at what the cabinets are made of, what is already on them, and what you want them to look like. Sheen, color and grain are decided here, not on day one of the job.
- Teardown and labeling. Doors, drawer fronts and hardware come off. Every piece is numbered and hinge positions are mapped, so everything returns to the opening it came from.
- Degreasing. Cabinets near a cooktop carry a film of cooking oil you cannot see. Skip this step and nothing that follows will stick. Surfaces are washed with degreaser, rinsed and dried.
- Sanding and repair. Every surface is scuff-sanded to break the existing sheen and give the primer something to bite. Dings, gouges and loose joints are filled and sanded flush.
- Grain filling — oak and ash only. Open-pore woods get a grain filler and a second sanding if you have chosen a fully smooth finish. More on that below.
- Bonding primer. A high-adhesion primer that grips old varnish, factory conversion coat and bare wood alike: Primer Tinted toward the topcoat so the color builds in two coats rather than three.
- Sanding the primer. The primer is sanded back smooth before any color goes on. This is the step that separates a sprayed finish from a smooth one.
- Two coats of waterborne enamel. Topcoat, sprayed, with a full sanding between coats. Waterborne rather than oil: it will not yellow on a white kitchen the way an alkyd will.
- Cure and rehang. Doors stay racked until the film is hard enough to handle and take hardware without marking. Then they go back on the openings they came off.
- Hardware, bumpers, walkthrough. Pulls and hinges reinstalled and adjusted, soft bumpers set, doors aligned. We walk the kitchen with you before we leave.
What Happens to Oak Grain Under Paint
Northern Virginia and DC housing stock is full of 1980s and 1990s red oak kitchens, and oak has open pores deep enough to feel with a fingertip. Paint does not fill them. Sprayed straight over, an oak door comes back white with the grain still legible as a texture under the finish. Some homeowners love that. Most are surprised by it, and the time to find out is not after the doors are rehung.
If you want a flat, slab-like door face, the pores have to be filled and sanded before the primer goes on. That is real extra labor and it shows in the estimate. We will tell you at the walkthrough which of the two you are looking at, and leave a sprayed sample door so you are choosing rather than guessing.
Maple, poplar, birch, MDF and thermofoil doors are closed-grain or smooth already and need no filling.
Cure Time, and How Long You Lose Your Kitchen
Dry and cured are not the same thing. The enamel we use is dry to handle within hours and reaches full hardness in [14–30 days — confirm from the product data sheet]. We rehang as soon as the film is hard enough to take hardware without marking; it keeps hardening on your cabinets after that.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Days 1–2 | Doors and drawer fronts come off and leave. Your cabinets stay open and everything inside stays reachable. You keep cooking. |
| Days 3–6 | Boxes and face frames are primed and finished in place. Sink, range and refrigerator stay in service. Expect a masked-off room and some odor. |
| Days 6–8 | Doors and drawer fronts are rehung, hardware reinstalled, bumpers set, doors aligned. |
| First two weeks after | Go gently. Wipe with a damp cloth only, no cleaners and no scrubbing. Close doors rather than letting them swing shut, and keep heavy stoneware off the shelf edges. |
| After about a month | Normal use. Mild soap and water from then on. |
You do not need to empty your cabinets, and you do not lose your kitchen.
Before & After
Every kitchen below is one we finished, with the town it is in and what was on the cabinets when we arrived.
The oak conversion. 1980s red oak, before and after, identical angle. The most important image on the page.
The dated white. Yellowed builder-grade white to a current warm white or greige.
Two-tone island. Perimeter one color, island another. Highest-intent look in this market right now.
Bath vanity. Small job, low commitment — proves you take them.
Doors racked in the shop. Process proof. Backs up section 2 better than any sentence can.
Finish close-up. Raking light across a finished door face, showing no brush texture.
200+ Five-Star Reviews Across Northern Virginia and DC
Where We Refinish Cabinets
Our shop is in Falls Church and we work throughout the inner suburbs and the District.
Northern Virginia
Washington, DC
Suburban Maryland
Why Refinish Instead of Replace?
Replacing cabinets is expensive and slow. Refinishing keeps the layout you already like and changes everything you see:
- A fraction of the cost of new cabinetry
- No demolition, no plumbing changes, no weeks of dust
- Reuses solid boxes that are often better built than their replacements
- Most kitchens finished in under two weeks
Cabinet Staining and Wood Refinishing
If you want the wood to stay wood, staining gives a high-end finish that brings out the grain instead of covering it. It suits solid-wood cabinetry — oak, maple, cherry — and it is the right answer when the cabinets have to match woodwork or furniture you are keeping. Matte, satin, semi-gloss and gloss are all available.
Get a cabinet estimate
We will walk your kitchen, tell you what your cabinets are made of and what that means for the finish, and leave you a written number.