A cabinet painting project from a Georgetown, Washington DC kitchen. The homeowner first looked at replacing the cabinets — then painted the existing ones instead, keeping the marble counters, subway-tile backsplash, and brass hardware exactly where they were.
A U-shaped kitchen whose cabinet boxes were still in good shape. Only the finish changed — the room's whole character followed.
A kitchen in a Georgetown home in Washington, DC — see painting services in Georgetown.
The existing doors, drawer fronts, and face frames were painted rather than replaced.
Honey oak gave way to a deep green across every visible cabinet surface.
The original brass pulls and knobs stayed, and now read as a deliberate accent.
The same room, the same cabinet boxes, the same brass hardware — the finish is what changed.
How a dated honey-oak kitchen became a deep-green one without a gut renovation.
The kitchen worked, but it did not look the part. Honey oak covered every door, drawer front, and face frame, reading heavy and dated against the marble counters and subway-tile backsplash it sat beside. The homeowner wanted a kitchen that felt current — without losing the layout or the finishes already in place. It is the brief we see most often for cabinet painting and refinishing in Washington DC: sound boxes, a finish that has aged out.
Replacing the cabinets was the first idea. A full replacement, though, came in substantially more expensive than refinishing the cabinets already there — and would have meant tearing out and rebuilding around counters and tile that were in good condition. Because the cabinet boxes were still suitable, painting became the sensible route — the same trade-off our guide to painting cabinets versus replacing them works through in detail.
Rather than a demolition project, this became a finish project: the existing doors, drawer fronts, and frames were professionally painted a deep green, a shade from the same sage-and-forest family that runs through our roundup of the best cabinet paint colors for DC kitchens. The U-shaped layout stayed. The marble counters stayed. The subway-tile backsplash stayed. So did the brass pulls and knobs already on the doors.
The after photo shows a kitchen that reads as custom cabinetry rather than a repainted compromise. The brass, nearly invisible against oak, now stands out crisply against the darker finish — and the homeowner got the updated look without the cost and disruption a full replacement would have carried, on the kind of cabinet painting timeline counted in working days rather than weeks.
This is the case cabinet painting makes, and this kitchen is a clear example of it. As general guidance — not a claim about any single job — refinishing existing cabinetry is worth weighing whenever the structure underneath is still good.
Our guide to cabinet painting cost in Washington, DC breaks down how kitchen size, cabinet condition, and finish choices drive pricing — and how painting compares with replacing.
Book a free consultation →Often, yes. When cabinet boxes, doors, and drawers are structurally sound — as in this Georgetown kitchen — painting replaces the dated finish while keeping the existing layout, counters, and backsplash. Replacement is usually reserved for cabinets that are physically failing.
Pricing depends on kitchen size, cabinet condition, and finish. Our cabinet painting cost guide for Washington, DC walks through the factors that matter and how to compare quotes.
Our project gallery collects before-and-after cabinet and interior painting work from homes across Washington, DC, with each entry linked to its neighborhood and service page.
