What matters most
- An average Bellingham kitchen refinishes for $2,750 to $6,600, or from $85 per door.
- Plan on 5 to 7 days with the doors off the boxes and the kitchen half out of service.
- Red oak has open pores that read through paint unless the grain is filled and sanded flat first.
- Sherwin-Williams Emerald Urethane recoats at 4 hours in ideal conditions, Benjamin Moore Advance at 16.
- January in Bellingham averages near 83 percent relative humidity, which stretches cure time on every coating in the kitchen.
What cabinet refinishing costs in Bellingham
An average Bellingham kitchen refinishes for $2,750 to $6,600. Door-only work starts at $85 per door.
A galley kitchen with 18 doors and 6 drawer fronts sits near the bottom of that band. A 1990s builder kitchen out in Barkley or Cordata with 34 doors, a pantry, an island and a run of crown sits near the top.
Count your own doors before you call anybody. Open every cabinet and count doors and drawer fronts separately, because a drawer front is a piece and it gets sprayed like a piece. People usually guess low, because the sink base, the toe kick panels and the little filler doors never register.
What raises the number: oak that needs grain filling, a change from dark stain to white, a heavy glazed factory finish that takes more sanding, boxes painted on the inside, and new hardware holes that have to be filled and redrilled.
What lowers it: cabinets already painted and in decent shape, boxes left in their existing color, and keeping the same pulls in the same holes.
Set that against replacement. A refinish keeps your existing boxes, layout and drawer glides. If the boxes are particleboard that swelled under the sink, or the layout is wrong for how you use the room, paint fixes neither. The current scope list is on the cabinet refinishing page.
Cabinet refinishing price ranges in Bellingham, WA
| Scope | What it covers | Bellingham range |
|---|---|---|
| Average kitchen, doors and boxes | Degrease, sand, prime, two sprayed finish coats, hardware off and back on | $2,750 to $6,600 |
| Priced per door | Small kitchens, laundry cabinets, vanities, or fronts only | $85 per door |
| Interior repaint at the same time | Walls, ceilings, trim and doors in a typical 3-bedroom | $4,950 to $9,900 |
| Exterior painted the same year | Wash, scrape, prime bare wood, two coats on siding and trim | $4,200 to $9,350 |
Door count, wood species and whether oak grain gets filled move a Bellingham cabinet price far more than the color you pick.
Refinish, reface or replace
Three different jobs get called the same thing at a showroom.
Refinishing means your existing doors and boxes get cleaned, sanded, primed and sprayed with a new finish. Everything you own stays in the room. That is the $2,750 to $6,600 job, done in 5 to 7 days.
Refacing means new doors and drawer fronts plus a veneer skin over the face frames. The boxes stay, the doors leave for good. It costs well above a refinish because you are buying doors.
Replacement is new boxes, new doors, counters off, plumbing disconnected, and a kitchen out of service for weeks.
Refinishing is the right call when the boxes are solid, the layout works, and you are tired of the color. It is the wrong call when the boxes are failing, when the doors are hollow thermofoil that has already peeled at a corner, or when you want a different door style entirely.
One honest limit worth naming: refinishing does not change what is underneath. A raised panel oak door painted white is a white raised panel oak door. Grain filling gets the surface close to smooth, but the profile stays exactly what it was.
The wood you probably have
Species changes the prep, and Pacific Northwest kitchens run to a short list.
Red oak
The default in Whatcom County kitchens built from the late 1970s into the 1990s, and an open-pore wood. Those pores are deep enough to read through two coats of paint as a rippled texture. For a smooth painted finish the grain gets filled with a grain filler or a high-build primer and sanded flat, and that is a real day of labor on an average kitchen. Some people like the grain showing through. Decide it on purpose rather than by accident.
Alder
Red alder grows up and down this coast from northern California to Alaska and gets used heavily in regional cabinet shops as a maple substitute. It is soft, about 590 on the Janka scale, so it dents easily and every dent has to be filled before spray. It takes finish very well, which is why it stayed popular here.
Maple
Closed grain, hard and it sprays beautifully. The catch is that maple can be so smooth a coating has nothing to grab, so the scuff sand and the primer choice matter more than they do on oak.
Hickory and knotty pine
Both bleed tannin through waterborne paint. Both need a shellac-based or dedicated stain-blocking primer under the color, or the knots ghost through amber within a month of a white finish going on.
Thermofoil and melamine
A vinyl film or a printed paper over MDF, with no wood to sand into. These get a scuff and a bonding primer. If the film is already lifting at a corner, that door is not a candidate for refinishing at all.
How to tell what you have
Take one door off and look at the unfinished back edge. Open pores you can catch a fingernail in means oak. A tight, almost featureless edge with a slight pink or honey cast is usually alder or maple. If the edge shows a thin colored skin over a tan particle core, that is thermofoil or melamine over MDF, and the give-away is a seam at the door corners. Then look at the box interior. A raw wood or plywood interior means you have real cabinets worth refinishing. A printed woodgrain paper interior over particleboard is common in Whatcom County rentals and 1980s builds, and those boxes are worth checking for swelling under the sink before you spend anything on the doors.
How to read a cabinet bid
Cabinet bids compare easily once you know the four line items that carry the cost.
Degreasing. Kitchen cabinets carry cooking oil, and every coating on earth fails over grease. The bid should say the doors and boxes get washed with a degreaser or a TSP substitute before anything else happens. If it does not say it, ask why.
Where the doors get sprayed. Doors off, sprayed flat and racked to dry in a controlled space is the finish you are paying for. Doors sprayed hanging on the boxes is a different result at a different price.
Sanding versus liquid deglosser. A factory conversion varnish is hard and slick. It needs mechanical scuffing everywhere, including profiles and inside corners. A liquid sander on its own is not the same thing on a finish that hard.
Coats and product. Two finish coats over a primer chosen for your substrate, with the product line written on the page.
The Washington paperwork
A painting contractor here has to be registered with Labor and Industries. A specialty contractor carries a $15,000 bond plus at least $200,000 public liability and $50,000 property damage coverage, or $250,000 combined single limit. Bond amounts increased on July 1, 2024, so an older certificate deserves a look. Any of it can be checked free through the L&I Verify a Contractor lookup. Bellingham Painting Co. is operated by KINGTIDES LLC, UBI 605 901 722.
On a residential job of $1,000 or more, RCW 18.27.114 requires the contractor to give you a signed disclosure statement before work starts, and a contractor who skips it cannot bring a lien claim against your property.
Sales tax gets missed on cabinet quotes more than on any other line. Washington taxes the full contract price on residential construction including labor, and Bellingham's combined rate is 9.2 percent. On a $2,750 kitchen that is another $253, and state law assumes a quoted price excludes the tax unless the tax is written out.
The coatings and what each one is for
Two products cover most Bellingham kitchens, and they behave differently enough that the choice changes your week.
Sherwin-Williams Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel. Dry to touch in about an hour, recoat at 4 hours at 77 degrees and 50 percent humidity, applied around 4 mils wet for 1.3 mils dry, covering 350 to 400 square feet per gallon, with VOC under 50 grams per litre. That fast recoat is what lets a full set of doors take two coats inside a single day when conditions cooperate.
Benjamin Moore Advance. A waterborne alkyd. Dry to touch in 4 to 6 hours and recoat at 16 hours under the same conditions, 400 to 500 square feet per gallon, 43 grams per litre VOC. It flows out flatter and levels brush marks better, which matters if any part of the job is brushed. It wants a minimum of 50 degrees, and the data sheet says not to apply it above 85 percent relative humidity.
Under either one goes a primer picked for what is being coated. Bonding primer on thermofoil and slick factory finishes. Shellac-based or a strong stain blocker on knotty pine, hickory and anything with water staining. A high-build sandable primer where oak grain is being filled.
Both finish products want heat and moving air in a Bellingham winter, when the city averages near 83 percent relative humidity in January. Both stretch their numbers in a 60 degree kitchen with the back door opening all day, which is a normal January here.
How the 5 to 7 days run
Five to seven days, and the doors are gone for most of it.
- Day one. Hardware off, hinges bagged and labeled by door, doors and drawer fronts numbered and removed. Boxes masked, floors and counters covered, plastic hung to keep dust out of the rest of the house.
- Day one into two. Degrease everything. Then sand, fill dents and old hardware holes, and grain fill if the doors are oak.
- Day two into three. Prime doors and boxes, then sand the primer. This sanding pass decides how the finish feels under your hand for the next ten years.
- Day three into five. Two finish coats on the boxes in place, two coats on the doors sprayed flat, respecting the recoat interval the product asks for rather than the interval the calendar wants.
- Day five into seven. Cure time, hardware back on, doors rehung and aligned, then a walkthrough with a light held sideways across the door faces.
You keep your sink and your appliances the entire time. You lose the doors, so plan on stacking plates on the counter for a week and cooking simple.
If the rest of the house is being painted in the same visit, that work runs alongside. A typical 3-bedroom interior repaint is 2 to 3 days at $4,950 to $9,900.
Why cabinet finishes fail
Grease. The doors above the range and beside the cooktop are the ones that peel, and a film of cooking oil under the coating is almost always the reason. Degreasing is the cheapest insurance on the whole job.
Loaded before it cured. Waterborne enamels feel dry fast and reach full hardness slowly. Close a door hard against a coated face frame too early and the two soft surfaces bond, then tear when you open them. That is blocking, and in a wet climate it is the most common cabinet callback there is.
Scuff sanding skipped on a factory finish. Conversion varnish is engineered to shed things. A coating laid over it without mechanical abrasion peels off in sheets at the first fingernail.
Grain not filled when the customer expected smooth. This one is an expectations failure and it belongs on the bid, not on the crew. Get it in writing before anybody sands.
Hinges reinstalled into worn holes. Doors hung 25 years ago have screw holes that have given up. Rehanging into stripped holes leaves doors drifting out of alignment within weeks. The holes get plugged and redrilled.
Steam. A dishwasher that vents straight up into the face of the cabinet next to it will soften and lift a finish over time, and no coating choice fixes a venting problem.
When to do it yourself
Cabinets are the least forgiving painting project in a house, and they are the one people most often attempt anyway.
The reason is simple. Cabinet doors sit at eye level, they get touched every day, and they are lit from the side by every window and undercabinet light in the room. A wall hides a mistake. A door face broadcasts it.
Doing it yourself works if you have a heated garage or shop where doors can lie flat and stay clean for a week, a sprayer you have actually used before, and the patience to sand between coats when the kitchen has been out of service for five days. Materials on an average kitchen land in the low hundreds. The labor is the thing you are buying either way.
Brushing cabinets is a real option and it is what most people do. It will not match a sprayed finish, though with a leveling enamel and a good brush it looks like a careful hand-painted kitchen, which some people prefer to a factory look.
Skip the DIY if the kitchen is thermofoil, if the boxes are oak and you want smooth, or if you cannot take the kitchen out of service for the full stretch. Half a kitchen is worse than either finished version.
Living with a refinished kitchen
Give the finish time before you load it hard. Doors go back on when the coating is firm enough to handle, but full hardness takes longer than the calendar suggests, and the first two weeks are when damage happens.
For that stretch, close doors gently, keep heavy pans off interior faces, and leave felt bumpers off until the finish is hard. A bumper pressed into soft enamel leaves a permanent dimple.
Cleaning is warm water and a drop of dish soap on a soft cloth. No abrasive pads, no ammonia and no bleach cleaners on the enamel. Wipe splatter near the range the same day rather than letting it bake on.
Keep a labeled quart. Cabinet touch-ups are small and frequent, and matching a custom tint two years later without the original label turns into a hunt.
Run the range hood every time you cook, not only when something smokes. Grease you never let land is grease that never gets under the finish.
Workmanship is covered for 2 years. That is the application: adhesion, peeling and blistering of what we sprayed. It does not cover a dropped skillet or a hinge tightened until it dimples the door. If the outside of the house is due in the same year, see exterior painting for that window.
What to check before you hire a cabinet refinisher
- You counted doors and drawer fronts yourself and the bid matches that count.
- The bid names a degreasing step before any sanding happens.
- It says where the doors get sprayed, flat and off the boxes or hanging in place.
- The primer is named and matched to your substrate, bonding for thermofoil, shellac based for knots.
- Two finish coats are stated, with the product line written out.
- Grain filling is either included or excluded in writing if your cabinets are oak.
- Old hardware holes are listed as filled and redrilled if you are changing pulls.
- Hinges are being labeled by door rather than thrown into one bucket.
- The L&I registration number is on the paperwork and shows active with a current bond.
- You signed the RCW 18.27.114 disclosure statement before the crew started.
- Bellingham sales tax is itemized rather than folded into the total.
- The 2 year workmanship warranty is written into the contract.
Questions we get asked
Can you spray cabinets in the winter in Bellingham?
Yes, with the space conditioned. January here averages about 83 percent relative humidity, and the Benjamin Moore Advance data sheet says not to apply above 85 percent and that high humidity prolongs dry, recoat and cure times. We heat the space, move air and run a dehumidifier over the door drying area. The practical effect is a schedule closer to 7 days than 5, rather than a worse finish.
Do the doors leave my house?
That depends on the job and it belongs in the bid. Doors sprayed flat and racked in a controlled space give the smoothest finish, and that space can be a garage, a shop or a tented area on site. Doors sprayed hanging on the boxes go faster and never look the same. Ask where yours will be sprayed and what the drying area looks like before you sign.
How long until I can put everything back and close the doors?
Doors go back on when the coating is firm enough to handle, usually toward the end of the 5 to 7 day window, and you can load dishes then. What to avoid for the first couple of weeks is closing a door hard against a coated face frame, because waterborne enamel keeps hardening after it feels dry and two soft coated surfaces pressed together will bond and tear.
Will you fill the oak grain, and what does that change?
Only if it is in the bid, and it should be one way or the other. Red oak has open pores deep enough to read through paint as a rippled texture. Filling means a grain filler or high-build primer applied and sanded flat, which adds close to a day of labor on an average kitchen. Some people want the grain visible. Decide before signing rather than after the first finish coat.
Can you change the hardware to different pulls?
Yes. Old holes get plugged with dowel and filler, sanded flush and primed before the finish goes on, and new holes get drilled from a jig so they line up across the run. Filled holes done properly disappear. Done fast they show as a dimple under a side light, so this is a line item worth confirming in the bid rather than assuming it is covered.
My 1990s oak cabinets have a thick factory finish. Does that sand off?
It does not have to come off, it has to be scuffed. Factory conversion varnish is built to shed liquids, so a coating laid over it without mechanical abrasion peels at the first fingernail. The work is a thorough sand to break the gloss everywhere, including profiles and inside corners, then a bonding primer. Liquid deglosser alone is not a substitute on a finish that hard.
What sheen holds up best on cabinets?
Satin is the usual pick here. Higher gloss is harder and cleans easier, but it shows every ripple in oak grain and every repair. Flat and matte look current and mark badly around the handles. Satin is the middle most Bellingham kitchens land on. The bigger durability factor is the product itself, since a urethane or waterborne alkyd enamel outlasts a wall paint in any sheen.
Do you paint the inside of the boxes?
Not by default, and this is the most common scope surprise on a cabinet job. Interiors take real extra labor and every shelf has to come out. Most kitchens get doors, drawer fronts, face frames and exposed end panels while interiors stay as they are, which looks right because you only see an interior when the door is open. If you want them painted, say so before the bid.
What happens to warped or delaminating doors?
They get flagged at the walkthrough, before the bid, because paint fixes neither. A mildly warped solid door can sometimes be pulled flat with hinge adjustment. Thermofoil that has lifted at a corner cannot be repaired and that door needs replacing. Refinishing works when the doors are sound, so the honest answer on a failing door is a new door rather than more coats over a bad one.
Do you refinish bathroom vanities and laundry cabinets too?
Yes, and doing them in the same visit costs less than a separate trip because the setup and spray equipment are already on site. Vanities benefit most, since a bathroom in a Bellingham winter is the wettest room in the house and a proper enamel handles that better than the original finish on a builder vanity. Those are priced per door from $85.
Is there lead paint in a pre-1978 kitchen?
There can be, especially on painted cabinets, casings and the walls behind them in a house from before 1960. The national survey behind the EPA rule found lead-based paint hazards in 67 percent of pre-1940 homes and 51 percent of homes built from 1940 to 1959. The rule triggers at more than 6 square feet of disturbed paint in a room, which a kitchen crosses easily. We are an EPA Lead-Safe certified firm.
What does the 2 year workmanship warranty cover on cabinets?
Adhesion and application. If the finish peels, blisters or lifts because of how it was prepped or sprayed, we come back and fix it. It does not cover a dropped pan, a hinge overtightened until it dimples the door, a dishwasher venting steam into a cabinet face, or a cleaner that attacked the film. Manufacturer product warranties are separate documents with their own terms.
Cabinet refinishing in Bellingham, a kitchen owner cost and prep guide
Real price ranges, the 5 to 7 day sequence, coatings by name, and the prep steps that decide how long it lasts