Every kitchen in this story is real, and it started the way a lot of Northern Colorado kitchens do: with solid, well-built oak cabinets wearing a finish that hadn’t been current since the nineties.
The starting point
The homeowners in Fort Collins had golden oak everywhere — perimeter, island, the works. The boxes were in great shape; the builder had done right by them decades ago. But the finish had gone dull and patchy around the handles, and the orange-toned oak made the whole room feel darker and smaller than it was.
They’d priced replacement first, like most people do. The numbers came back at “$30,000 and up” — before counters, before plumbing, before weeks of living out of a microwave. Then they asked us what refinishing would look like.
The plan
The scope we landed on together:
- Perimeter cabinets: painted in Sherwin-Williams Pure White, a soft white that brightened the whole room without going stark.
- Island: painted Sherwin-Williams Naval for the two-tone look they’d been saving on Pinterest.
- Doors and drawer fronts came back to our Loveland shop for sprayed finishing; frames and boxes were finished on site with full masking and containment.
How it went
Doors were in our shop for 1 week. The homeowners kept use of their kitchen for most of the project — the no-kitchen phase that makes remodels miserable just doesn’t happen with refinishing.
The reveal
Same boxes. Same layout. Same solid-oak doors. What changed is everything you actually see — and the sprayed finish means it will outlast anything a brush could have put on.
What it cost
The whole project came in at $6,700 — roughly a quarter of the replacement quotes they’d gathered. The difference paid for new countertops and backsplash, with money to spare.
Could your kitchen do this?
If your cabinets are solid but stuck in another decade, the odds are good. The fastest way to find out: our instant quote tool gives you a real price range from a few photos in about a minute. Or browse more transformations in the gallery, then request a free written estimate — no sales visit required.