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The 4 R’s: Resurfacing, Repainting, Refinishing, and Restoring Cabinets

Posted by Nolan Painting on December 21, 2015
haverford Kitchen interior

In the Main Line, furniture is part of family tradition. Pieces get passed down through the generations; why buy a new dresser at a chain retailer when you can use your grandma’s coffee table that works just as well as anything new? The problem is, those pieces may see some wear and tear over the years, and maybe that table doesn’t look quite as nice as it did a few generations back. When you have a piece of furniture for years, it’s sometimes hard to see it slowly fading. Then one day you look at it and realize: Whoa – this is in bad shape.

If that’s the case, don’t give up and send the piece to the dumpster. Believe it or not, professional refinishing can actually cost less than buying new furniture – and you get to hang onto that piece that you love. Sometimes a great piece of furniture or cabinetry just needs a little TLC to look as good as ever.

The Four “R’s” of Restoration

It may be tempting to try to tackle your furniture or cabinetry restoration as a DIY project one weekend and brush a coat of paint over the wood to freshen it up. Unfortunately, what you’re going to see with that approach is a surface that flakes, doesn’t bond, and doesn’t last. Then, you’re going to be faced with a bigger problem than you started out with as you try to remove the new surface to restore it the right way.

Professional refinishing is a delicate series of processes, tailored to each piece of furniture. When our painters and carpenters perform a refinish, we take off every piece that can be removed; these items go back to our offices where we sand and strip them to remove the old finish and clean them (that’d be resurfacing). Then, they are taken to our climate controlled spray booth where paint is spray-applied for a beautiful look with no brush strokes (repainting). We then apply a silky finish that looks factory-fresh, and even offer a special, durable finish for cabinets that holds up for years in a high-use environment (refinishing, for those keeping score at home, and that whole process is called restoration).

Before and after Kitchen interior

Carpenters can then polish old hardware and replace broken pieces with newer ones. This can also involve adding in final detailing; once, we had a dresser refinished and the painter added a small amount of gold leaf, delicately inlaid around the beveled edges of the woodworking. Whether it’s polishing the wood for a sleek veneer or adding statement hardware to give your furniture that little touch of architectural zing, this is the step where you really want to have someone with a keen eye for interior decorating and a familiarity with period hardware. Using professionals is really the best way to maintain the piece’s integrity while updating it to integrate into the aesthetic of your home. You can clearly see the impact this process can have on the look of your home in the before-and-after image of our work above.

Schedule an Estimate for Kitchen Cabinet Refinishing or an Interior Redesign Consultation

If you’re like us and you think that it’s worth spending time on old things of value, you should know that Nolan has an expert team of carpenters, painters, and handymen with a dozen and a half years working in the industry, and is proud to extend our services into the area of furniture restoration. We know it’s not something most people could do by themselves, and that’s one of the reasons we don’t charge much for it. We don’t want to see good solid furniture or cabinetry in the garbage can. Instead of casting aside an older piece of furniture because of stains and wear, contact ustoday for a consultation!