15+ years experienceEPA Lead-Safe Certified
Cabinet Refinishing in St. Louis County
Sprayed, factory-smooth cabinet finishes, in-shop or on-site, for a fraction of replacement.
15+
Years experience
10
Cities served
EPA Lead-Safe Certified (RRP)
Required on pre-1978 homes — most of Ballwin and Kirkwood.
Free written estimates
- Monday – Friday
- 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Saturday
- 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM
- Sunday
- Closed
The cabinets in most St. Louis County kitchens aren't broken. The boxes are solid, the layout works, and the doors close the way they did on day one — they just look like the decade they were installed in. That's the whole case for refinishing: you're paying to change how a kitchen looks, not to rebuild one that still works. ValuePro Painting sprays cabinet finishes to a factory-smooth standard, in-shop or on-site depending on the project.
Refinish, reface, or replace — the honest comparison
These three words get used interchangeably and they are not the same job.
A professionally applied refinish typically holds eight to fifteen years with normal care. New cabinets can last twenty to thirty. The decision usually comes down to a simple question: is the problem how the kitchen looks, or how it works? Refinishing solves the first one and cannot solve the second.
Refinishing
keeps your boxes and your doors. Everything is cleaned, degreased, sanded, primed, and sprayed with a new color or stain. Cheapest of the three, fastest, and the right call when the cabinets are structurally sound and you like the layout.
Refacing
keeps the boxes but replaces the doors and drawer fronts, then veneers the visible box surfaces to match. Costs meaningfully more than refinishing — and often closer to replacement than homeowners expect.
Replacement
rips everything out. This is the only option that lets you change the layout, add pull-outs, or fix a kitchen that genuinely doesn't function.
Our cabinet process
7 steps — swipe or use the arrows
- 1
Assessment
We check box condition, door material, hinge and hardware condition, and how much grease has actually soaked into the finish near the range.
- 2
Label and remove
Doors, drawer fronts, and hardware come off and get labeled so everything returns to its original opening.
- 3
Degrease
This is the step that gets skipped and it's the one that causes failures. Kitchen cabinets carry years of cooking residue that no primer will bond through.
- 4
Sand and prep
Scuff-sanding to give the primer mechanical grip, and filling of any hardware holes that are moving.
- 5
Prime
Bonding primer appropriate to the substrate — solid wood, plywood, laminate, and thermofoil all behave differently.
- 6
Spray finish coats
Sprayed, not brushed. A brushed cabinet door reads as brushed forever. In-shop spraying gives the most controlled result; on-site spraying with proper containment works where removal isn't practical.
- 7
Cure and reinstall
Doors go back on labeled openings with hardware reinstalled or replaced.
What can and can't be refinished
Solid wood and plywood cabinets refinish well. Laminate and thermofoil can be done, but they require specific bonding primers and are less forgiving — anything already peeling or bubbling at the edges is a poor candidate. Open-grain woods like oak will still read as open-grain after painting unless the grain is filled first, which is an extra step and an extra cost. That's a conversation to have before the project starts, not after the first coat.
A refinished kitchen is the rare project where the visible change is enormous and the disruption is measured in days rather than months. You keep your sink, your countertops, your plumbing, and your layout. What changes is the single largest visual surface in the room — which is why kitchens are where refinishing returns the most for what it costs.
[CLIENT FACT REQUIRED — WARRANTY TERMS]
Cabinet Refinishing FAQs
Substantially, in most kitchens — because you're not paying for cabinet boxes, demolition, disposal, rough-in work, or installation. The gap narrows if you're comparing against low-end stock replacement, and it narrows further with refacing, which sometimes lands closer to replacement cost than people expect.
Related pages
Find out if your boxes are worth keeping.
We'll look at the cabinets you have and tell you straight whether refinishing gets you what you're picturing — or whether it doesn't.
15+ years of painting experience · Mon–Fri 8am–6pm · Sat 8am–3pm · Sun closed