Every year, right around the first of November, our phone starts ringing with some version of the same question: “Can you have my cabinets done before Thanksgiving?”
Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes — depending on the week and how full the shop is — the honest answer is “not this year, but let’s get you on the calendar for after.” The difference almost always comes down to one thing: when you start. So rather than have that hard conversation in November, let’s work backward from the turkey now, while there’s still room to make it happen.
Thanksgiving 2026 lands on Thursday, November 26. Here’s everything that has to happen before then.
Step 1 — Reinstall, a few days before you host
You don’t want your crew rehanging doors the morning your in-laws arrive. Plan to have everything back on and buttoned up by roughly November 23–24 — a couple of buffer days before the holiday for the final touches, cleaning, and styling the space the way you want guests to see it. Rehanging refinished doors and drawer fronts is quick, but it’s the last domino, and every step before it has to clear first.
Step 2 — Time in our shop
That photo is the middle of a real refinish — doors away at our shop, ladder where the buffet should be. While that’s happening, the kitchen is out of commission. Timing it right means that phase is long over before anyone rings the doorbell.
This is the part people underestimate. When we refinish a kitchen, your doors and drawer fronts come to our Loveland shop and move through a real process: prep and sanding, primer, sprayed color or stain, proper cure time, and a final quality check before anything goes back on your boxes. The frames and boxes are finished at your house with full masking and containment. That sequence can’t be rushed — cure time especially is non-negotiable, because that’s what makes the finish last for years instead of months.
Doors are typically in our shop for about a week — bigger kitchens, multiple colors, and stained work run longer, and the holiday stretch is our busiest of the fall. To leave breathing room before the reinstall, you want your project starting the week of November 9. Earlier is always safer than later.
Step 3 — Get on the calendar (this is the bottleneck)
Here’s the catch: October is our busiest booking month of the fall. Everyone who wants a refreshed kitchen for the holidays is trying to land the same handful of late-October and early-November start dates. We schedule based on actual shop capacity, not wishful thinking, so once those weeks fill, they’re full.
To hold a start in that early-November window, you want your job approved and on the calendar by mid-October at the latest. The earlier you commit, the more choice you have over your exact dates.
Step 4 — Choose and approve your colors
Before we spray a single door, you approve the finish. For pigmented (painted) cabinets that means signing off on the exact color; for stained work, we’ll step samples on your actual wood species, because the same stain reads differently on oak, maple, and alder. Getting a sample door or drawdown into your own kitchen light — and living with it for a few days — is worth doing, not rushing.
Budget about one to two weeks for this back-and-forth, which puts your color decision in early October.
Step 5 — Start with a quote, the first week of October
All of the above traces back to one starting line: getting a quote in your hands. That’s the easiest step to do today and the easiest to put off — so it’s the one that quietly sinks the whole timeline when people wait.
If a finished kitchen for Thanksgiving is the goal, aim to schedule your quote in the first week of October. It’s a quick 30-minute in-home meeting: we look at your actual kitchen, talk colors and scope, and you walk away with your quote on the spot — no waiting a week for a number. Request your visit, or if you’d rather see a rough range first, our instant photo quote gives you a refinishing ballpark from a few pictures.
The honest version
Here’s the timeline at a glance, counting back from November 26:
- Early October — get your refinishing quote, start choosing colors
- Mid-October — approve the finish, lock your project dates
- Week of November 9 — we start; your doors head to our shop
- About a week — prep, prime, spray, cure, QC
- November 20–24 — doors rehung, kitchen cleaned up and styled
- November 26 — host
And the part we’d be doing you a disservice not to say plainly: if you’re starting this in November, getting everything done and cured before Thanksgiving usually isn’t realistic — and we won’t promise a date we can’t hit just to win the job. If that’s where you are, the better play is to aim for a calm finish in early December and host your Friendsmas in a brand-new kitchen instead. Either way, the next move is the same.
Want your kitchen ready to host? Schedule your in-home quote — 30 minutes, quote on the spot — and we’ll map the timeline to your exact dates. The calendar fills up faster than the cranberry sauce.