In this slowing economy, there are people out there looking for ways to supplement their income.

Yesterday's counter installer, house painter, or faux finisher may be today's new cabinet refinishing "expert"!

 Here’s an actual excerpt from a product help website. As you can see, this poor homeowner is about to have a clueless “professional” guess at how to refinish her cabinets! Several responses to her inquiry included “take a class first”! Without experience, even that wouldn’t have adequately prepared her to tackle this high end job. Note: we’ve added our comments to this sad posting in red.

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“I'm having trouble figuring out how to begin this project. (I've attached pictures of the kitchen cabinet job I'm referring to.) Basically, the cabinets are currently real wood, with a dark, cherry stain and a very smooth, gloss-like topcoat. My client wants to go much lighter, probably an off-white, with an antique glaze look. I've done cabinets before but I've never started with any this nice so I obviously don't want to mess them up, especially since the home is very high-end.

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how to get to a point where I can apply the base coat and finish and in what order should I do the steps.

My guess is: (Wonder if she’s charging them the “my guess” rate?)

1. TSP - then wipe (She says she’s then going to use Zinsser which very clearly states on the can to NOT use TSP – think she’ll even bother to read the label? The cabinets need to be cleaned, but not with this stuff.)
2. Denatured alcohol to remove the topcoat?? Not really sure what product to use to remove the gloss topcoat. Any suggestions?  (Yet another example of how clueless she is.)
3. Sand like crazy (Stop when the cabinets look like sawdust?)
4. I've used Zinsser BIN primer/sealer before and was happy with the results so maybe use that as the primer?? (Good to have a plan!!)
5. AquaBond or base coat in off-white color (There are far better products out there than this. Also, if she doesn’t use aquabond what is she planning to “basecoat” with? Depending on brands, wall paint and cabinet paint are not the same thing.)
6. Glaze (We can only guess at what this means to her…)
7. Seal with Varnish Plus (An OK product, but our top coats are twice as expensive for a reason.)
Am I missing anything and are there any extra precautions to take with cabinets this nice?” (Yeah, she’s missing a lot. The wrong combination of products, missing steps, irrelevant steps, and no clue in general about how to proceed. We feel sooooo sorry for the owners.)