Cabinet refinishing & painting - local service business idea

[Archipelago]

Here's the story.

When I began buying underperforming rental properties a few years ago, the first thing I looked at was adding value by updating the kitchens. I went to local cabinet showrooms in the scratch & dent/leftover section and purchased random ugly wood cabinets in excellent condition. I would purchase individual cabinets for $25-$100 each depending on size and style. Not every cabinet matched perfectly, but close enough where people could not tell unless it was pointed out.

Then I would clean, scrub and sand the cabinets, prime them, and paint with 2-3 coats of high-quality paint via brush.

The end result was a "brand new" kitchen using reclaimed cabinetry, for less than $1000 in materials + my time. The tenants absolutely love them, and I've noticed over the years they've held up extremely well even with renters beating up on them.

A family member of mine does cabinet refinishing as a profession in an upscale area where kitchens are massive and custom built. He uses a professional sprayer and it's really high-end stuff he's working with. His cabinets are done looking like they came right from the showroom. He charges $8,000-$20,000 for this depending on the size of the job. But these are $50k+$100k cabinets to begin with.

But that got me thinking...what about regular, not as wealthy folks who might want to redo their kitchens without spending $30k+ on brand new cabinetry? They have cabinets that function fine but are otherwise stuck in the 80s or 90s when it comes to style and color. I feel confident I could breathe new life into cabinets by refinishing and painting them. I've done it for 4 of my apartments and have a process down for doing it efficiently.

I would estimate the time to get each job done, and charge $50-$100/hr for this service. It's something I could do without hiring help to start out. I would get insurance and create a Google business/Facebook profile to start driving web traffic. The business would benefit from a basic website and pictures, customer testimonials, and referrals.

I've pondered local service business ideas for a while now - this is the best thing that came to mind considering my experience, ability, and detail-oriented nature. I'll upload a few pictures of my work.

Any thoughts?

[Archipelago]

This is generally what the 'before' cabinets look like. These ones are particularly bad, but I have restored worse.

[Archipelago]

These are some 'after' shots. They're not great pictures with good lighting. Just some 'proof of concept' pictures. All of these cabinets came with the home when I purchased it, or I found them on discount at local cabinet shops. They have all been repainted - black lowers and white uppers. Then I added new hardware.

[travel2020]

Lot of people do update their kitchen cabinets, so I suppose a couple of questions I’d try to answer as a starting point:
- Are there any other providers in your area that offer this service already for the same demograhic? Even providers in other areas might be interesting as that would be helpful in figuring out offer details and other parameters
- How would your service be better than what someone could do on their own?

[affordablehousing]

I think this is a good idea that has legs. Painting cabinets takes some practice (I've never been patient enough for it) and I would gladly hire it out to you if I were in your area. This sounds somewhat akin to the niches of bathtub refinishers, acid etch and scratch repairers in windows, headliner and mobile windshield replacers. $100 an hour seems like a reasonable number to me. Perhaps try it for two friends at half price, have them write reviews, then try to put out the word on Nextdoor and see where that takes you? There's a lot to recommend, letting people keep stuff in their cabinets if you are just doing the panels, and it is a quick refresh.

[lutorm]

So we've been refinishing our cabinets for a decade (I kid you not. But a few things have come up in between.) I find that it takes a ton of time. First we have to strip the existing lead paint, then clean up the damage and repaint. Just getting the lead paint out of the trim and cleaning it up takes a ton of time. And since I've now spent so much time, I'm not going to stumble on the goal line and not make it look as good as I can. If I had to pay someone for my time to do this, it would cost an absolute fortune.

I don't know what fraction of existing cabinetry has lead paint, but how would you deal with that. Just reject the job? As a homeowner I can take many shortcuts to the regulations for lead abatement (while still not contaminating the entire house) that you would not be able to as a business.

[Plina]

My parents got part of their cabinetdoors spraypainted and I will probably also get some cabinet doors painted. They got a fixed price for the job.

[Dicey]

DH is a Painting Contractor . He's meticulous and works crazy efficiently. Everything is prepped properly and sprayed. We have noticed that when using dark paint on lowers, especially sink cabinets, the paint tends not to wear well. FWIW, he can always tell when people DIY their cabinets, because they typically don't sand enough.

Question: why do some of your cabinets appear to be backwards?

[hankscorpio84]

Sounds like a good business idea for several reasons:

You already have equipment/experience, relatively low barriers to entry.

With inflation, increased shipping costs, and supply chain delays, renovating existing cabinets makes financial sense.

You seem to enjoy the work.

Other considerations:

You can save a lot on hardware (pull handles, hinges, etc) by buying bulk online vs. box store/hardware store prices.  I would set up a display board with demos to nudge clients into picking something you know is user friendly for you.

Get familiar with apps that can help pick out colors.  I couldn't find one I liked for paint, but the free tool Home Depot uses to visualize flooring is fantastic, I'm sure something similar exists for paint.

A word of caution:

From your original post I assume you have done these renovations in unoccupied units.  This might not be possible with clients who need a functioning kitchen during renovations.  Of course this can be discussed, scheduled around work trips, vacations, etc.  Just be realistic about timelines, for me this would add a lot of stress to the job.

[getsorted]

A local floor refinishing shop started offering cabinet refinishing, and it has taken off so much that it's now their main line of business. I think especially for people who buy quality older homes, they may know they have good solid wood cabinetry in place, understand that newer stuff may be poorer quality, but still want to update the look. 

Just from an environmental and waste-not standpoint, I really wish more people refinished their old cabinets. I see so many kitchen makeovers that tear out high quality wood and replace with Ikea. It hurts every time.