Cabinet Painting across Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The age of a building says little about the age of its kitchen. Census figures show 47.0% of Cambridge housing units in buildings from 1939 or earlier, but a kitchen in one of those houses may have been redone in the 1950s, the 1980s or last year. The newer stock spans just as wide a range: 20.9% of units were built between 1940 and 1979, 19.8% between 1980 and 2009, and 12.3% in 2010 or later.

So the first step in a cabinet job is identifying what the cabinets actually are. Solid wood, veneered plywood, MDF, thermofoil and laminate each take paint differently, and two kitchens that look alike in a photo can need entirely different prep.

Reading the material

Open-grain oak shows its texture through paint unless the grain is filled first; whether that texture is wanted is a matter of taste, and it has to be settled before the primer goes on. Maple and cherry are closed-grain and paint smoothly once the factory finish is scuffed and degreased. MDF doors take paint well on the faces but swell if water gets into an unsealed edge.

Thermofoil, the vinyl wrap on many smooth-door kitchens, is a poor candidate for paint: if the film is already lifting at the edges, painting only hides the problem for a while. Laminate can be painted with a bonding primer, though it will never wear quite like painted wood.

• Degreasing, deglossing and sanding of boxes, doors and drawer fronts
• Grain filling on oak where a smooth look is wanted
• Bonding primer and a hard cabinet-grade enamel
• Hardware removal, labeling and reinstallation

Built-ins and painted cupboards in older houses

Pantry cupboards, china cabinets and bathroom built-ins in a pre-1940 house may carry many coats of paint, and on anything painted before 1978 some of those coats may contain lead. Because cabinet prep means sanding, the federal lead-safe rule applies once paid work disturbs more than six square feet of paint in a room, which a wall of cupboard doors passes quickly.

Sometimes the right answer is to strip a built-in to bare wood; often it is enough to stabilize what is there, sand lead-safe and repaint. Doors that bind because of paint buildup at the edges can have that buildup scraped back, using the same lead-safe methods. The lead-safe painting page describes how that kind of work is contained.

Working inside a condo or apartment building

More than half of Cambridge's housing units (54.5%) are in buildings of five or more units, and 27.1% are in buildings of fifty or more. In those buildings, the kitchen is yours but the hallway, elevator and loading area are not. Management may have rules about contractor insurance, elevator reservations, work hours and solvent odors, all of which affect whether doors are finished on site or taken out to be sprayed.

The city's noise limits also apply: construction noise heard 50 feet from the lot line is allowed from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, starting at 9 a.m. on Saturdays. Building rules can be stricter, so check them before the schedule is set. The Cambridge condo painting page covers association approvals in more detail.

Refinish or replace?

Painting makes sense when the boxes are solid, the layout works and the doors are a style you can live with in a new color. Replacement makes more sense when boxes are water-damaged, drawers are failing, or the kitchen is being reconfigured anyway. In between, new doors on existing boxes followed by paint is an option worth pricing.

Our article on cabinet painting versus replacement walks through the tradeoffs, and how a cabinet painting job runs explains the steps and the time the kitchen is out of use.