We were making steady progress updating our The Best $6 Cabinets with primer and glossy white paint until a hurricane knocked out our power. Fortunately the electricity came back on eventually, but the outage stalled our momentum because John needed power tools—drills, saws and the like—to finish the build before we could paint and reassemble everything for the office.
Luckily, we completed the prepping and priming before the outage and documented the whole process with a bunch of photos. That prep work is worth a thorough explanation for anyone wanting to refinish solid wood cabinets—whether you’re building a wall-to-wall built-in desk or refreshing old kitchen cabinets. Note: this method is intended for solid wood cabinets and won’t work on laminate.
First we removed all the hardware, the doors and the hinges. To protect the sunroom floor and walls from primer drips, paint splatter and sanding dust, we rigged two plastic drop cloths into a protective enclosure.
We bagged the door handles and their screws together, and put each cabinet’s hinge parts into separate bags. Two bags per cabinet keeps screws and small parts organized so you don’t mix handle screws with hinge screws—small details that make reassembly much easier and save time later.
Next I sanded the doors to dull the existing finish so primer and paint would adhere properly. I started by hand with coarse 50-grit paper, then followed with 200-grit to smooth the surface. After the first round of coarse sanding I switched to a power sander to speed things up.
The electric sander made the job much easier. It still took time—sanding each door twice (coarse then finer grit) took about an hour per door—but the power tool spared my hands from too much strain and gave consistent results.
For the backs of the doors and the cabinet interiors, we chose to leave the inside surfaces in their natural wood tone and paint only the exterior faces. We liked how wood interiors held up in a previous project, and the combination of glossy white exteriors with natural wood interiors felt clean and durable for our built-ins.
To preserve the natural wood backs, we laid out three doors face up (sanded and ready for primer) and three face down, and applied Frog Tape carefully along the edges so we’d get a crisp line between painted and unpainted surfaces. Some people prefer painting both sides of the doors; we chose painted fronts and natural backs for durability and visual contrast when doors are opened.
Then I sanded the cabinet fronts and frames (the exterior surfaces) with the sander. Because these pieces were staying in the room, I used our drop cloth enclosure and the sander’s dust bag to minimize dust. The sanding roughed the edges where doors meet frames so the primer and paint would adhere and resist wear from repeated opening and closing.
For primer we chose Kilz Clean Start, a low-VOC option we’d used successfully before. I applied the primer with a small foam roller to achieve a thin, even coat without visible brush marks. Primer often looks uneven when it goes on—that’s normal. It’s meant to be a toothy layer that helps the topcoat bond, not a finished surface.
I used a brush only where the roller couldn’t reach, wiping excess paint on the can to avoid drips, then smoothed those areas with the foam roller so the finish stayed consistent. A good approach is to work one door at a time: roll the sides and front, brush the tight areas, then reroll the front while the paint is still wet so the roller blends brush marks.
John considered taping off the interior frames, but I was confident a careful, light rolling technique could produce a clean line between painted frames and the wood interiors without tape. The result looked smooth for a single coat of primer, and saved us time and tape.
After removing hardware and hinges, sanding doors and frames, and applying primer, the room looked like a proper work zone: white primer on the exterior surfaces and natural wood showing where we planned to keep the original finish. Some doors showed lighter areas where I had sanded out blemishes; that’s normal and will disappear once several thin, even topcoats of paint are applied.
Next steps: John will cut the cabinets up about three inches and assemble the bases into three double units in the office. We plan to paint the assembled cabinets in place, applying the last two to three thin, even coats once they’re installed to minimize the risk of scratches during handling. We’ll reattach doors and hardware after the final coats are dry.
After the cabinets are complete we’ll move on to the countertop. We haven’t decided between assembled planks, a single slab, an Ikea countertop, or another option—there’s still some legwork to do before we finalize that choice. We’ll share our progress as we go, and hope these refinishing tips help anyone tackling a similar project.
P.S. We also shared the baby name lists we considered when I was pregnant with Clara over on BabyCenter, and we’re always curious about other people’s naming stories—feel free to share favorites or tales of naming disagreements.