Pickled oak kitchen cabinets facelift?

[Dave MacArthur]

I have a rental house kitchen I'm about to redo. The cabinets are all pickled oak, solid faceframe with frame/panel doors. The panels are just 1/4 ply it appears, not raised. The boxes maple look melamine? perhaps. Decent condition. I was thinking of doing a "facelift" on them, and just replacing the pickled oak doors with new oak (or hickory), and sanding the faceframes down with my new festool rotex/CT33 combo, then staining with something light to match whatever doors I put on. I thought full overlay doors.

Some help from those of you out there who have done cabinets would be great.
1. Is this a viable way to get rid of that heinous pickled oak, and end up with a decent looking cabinet?
2. Is this cost effective? I would purchase the pre-made doors. Or would just buying all new cabinets from HD be cheaper?
3. Can you ever sand down enough to get rid of that pickled whitish stain on the face frames?

Any other comments would be helpful. I have about 9 days available to refurb this house, new paint, tile/carpet. Just want to upgrade the cabinets, but it's a rental... Probably top with 12-18" granite tile counter.
Thanks for any input!

[Jim Becker]

Sounds like a reasonable plan, but it's not going to be easy to sand the FFs with a round, rotating sander without rounding and buggering the corners. Something straight-line would be more suitable, IMHO. Nature of the beast!

[Richard M. Wolfe]

There is a thread going now about the 50's look. I don't know just when or how long the pickled look has been around, but when I was doing the craft mall "thing" for a while in the 90's everyone wanted pickled stuff. I shut my eyes (as much as I could when making the stuff :D ) and kept mumbling, "The customer is always right." :rolleyes:

Redoing the face frame would be the best way to go. And I'll have to admit I don't get out much :o, but I was in a Home Depot the other day and saw their hickory cabinets for the first time. Gaaaaak! Hickory would look OK if someone would take a little time to match things, but the difference between sapwood and heartwood is night and day and these look like whoever made them chunked the rails and stiles in a huge blender and flipped the switch for a few minutes and then reached in for a random choice. I think I'd actually take the pickled oak look over them.

If I were redoing a rent house and had time I'd try to make face frames and doors. The 3/8" inset go together pretty fast and easy and using 1/4" plywood for panels would be pretty cheap. It's just if you have the time and inclination to spare to make and finish them.

[Scott Loven]

What about using a chemical stripper on the doors and frames? You could also route out the inside of the door and replace the center panel. What about paint? It is only a rental after all. I used an enamel on some dark cabinets in my last house and it really made a difference.
Scott

[Dave MacArthur]

Would a chemical stripper get that white out of the pores? If so, great--my goal is to update these cabinets a bit, and get rid of that pinkish-white pickled finish look, and back to a more natural look. What about just applying some stain OVER the pickled finish--would it be possible to stain it? Anyone ever do this? Thx!

Erm...I kind of LIKE that mottled hickory sapwood/heartwood look ;)

[Joe Jensen]

I think Scott may be right. Paint should be fine unless it's a very high end rental...joe

[Bob Rufener]

Dave, My first ever for pay job was in a picture frame factory. Our job was pickling oak strips which were then finish coated and cut for picture frames-the frame finish was called limed oak. I believe we used a mixture of titanium dioxide and turpentine-applied with no gloves. It took days to get it off of my hands (and I probably still have some of it lurking in various body cells). I really don't think you are going to have success removing it with chemical strippers and sanding would be really difficult because of the porosity of the wood. If the cabinets are in decent shape, I'd recommend painting them or replacing.

[Chris Padilla]

Interesting...we have pickled oak kitchen cabinets as well: solid FF and the raised panel in the doors...all pickled oak. The kitchen will be redone one of these years but not sure what to do with the cabinets. They are all sound...just tired of pickled oak. :)