Cabinet Painting for Medford, MA homeowners.

With a median build year of 1942 for local housing, a Medford kitchen can be much newer than the house around it. A kitchen in a 1920s house may have been redone in the 1960s, again in the 1990s, and patched in between. That leaves a range of cabinet boxes and doors: solid wood, wood veneer over plywood or particleboard, thermofoil, and painted built-ins that came with the house.

Which of those you have decides whether painting is a good investment. Sound boxes with solid or veneered doors paint well. Peeling thermofoil, swollen particleboard near the sink, or a layout that no longer works are reasons to look at replacement instead.

Refinish or replace?

Census data puts the median value of an owner-occupied home here at $755,500. A full replacement means demolition, new counters and a stretch without a working sink. Painting keeps the counters, plumbing and layout and changes the color and hardware.

Our refinish vs. replace comparison sets the two side by side, and the cabinet painting vs. replacement post goes into which cabinet materials take paint well.

• Good candidates: solid wood or wood veneer doors, boxes that are square and dry, a layout you like
• Poor candidates: peeling thermofoil, water-swollen particleboard, doors that no longer close straight
• Mixed kitchens: original built-ins plus newer runs can be painted to match if both are sound

How the work is done

In a standard cabinet repaint, doors and drawer fronts come off, get labeled and are finished on racks, while the boxes are painted in place with the kitchen masked off. Every surface is degreased first, since paint bonds poorly over cooking residue. Then comes scuff sanding, a bonding primer, filling of grain or old dings where wanted, and finish coats of a hard-curing cabinet enamel.

Paint feels dry in hours but takes much longer to cure fully, so doors are rehung with care and you'll want to go easy on them for the first couple of weeks. The kitchen cabinet painting process post lays out each step.

Built-ins and old paint

Older houses may have painted pantry cupboards, china cabinets or bathroom linen built-ins. With 75.9% of local housing built before 1980, those built-ins may carry lead paint under the newer layers. Sanding them is regulated work under the EPA's rules for pre-1978 homes: containment around the kitchen, HEPA vacuums on the sanders, and a verified cleanup. See the lead-safe painting page for the process.

Two-family kitchens and rental units

Two-unit buildings make up 27.1% of local housing, and 45.9% of occupied homes are rented. If you own a two-family, you may be updating a tenant's kitchen as well as your own. Cabinet painting can fit between leases, and because the doors are finished in a separate room, the unit can be shown with the boxes done and doors going back on.

The rest of the kitchen walls and ceiling can be done at the same visit; the interior painting page covers that side. Homeowners in Lawrence Estates, Fulton Heights and Medford Hillside can request an estimate the same way.