I have clear finished fir cabinets (Waterlox finish) and some painted cabinets...island in cream, stove area in light gray, and one wall in burgundy (BM oil based Satin Impervo paint). I just did a major cleaning of the faces of all the cabinets on Thursday. I found that the wood cabinets were hiding a few nicks and dents I never knew were there, and they hid some of what needed cleaning off, too. So you can say it is an advantage that they hid dirt well, but also made it harder to be sure they were clean. The lighter colored paints, especially, gave me fits in the creases and corners, because any little bit of remaining dirt looked black and I had to carefully clean it out with a knife. (This is where I grew a great appreciation for slab drawer fronts, of which I have too few!!) It was very easy to tell when things were clean, or needed a bit more attention. A good paint will take some dents and dings without chipping or scratching through, but they do show more readily. The Waterlox and the Satin Impervo paint both stood up well to scrubbing.

I had Wood-Mode cabinets for over 18 years through my kids growing up years with lots of boys hanging out at our house. They saw LOTS of use and when we moved, there was not one ding or rub on the factory baked on finish. We are now in the process of installing Crown Point painted with the same finish. They have been in storage for a while (that is another story) and have been hit on a regular basis by the subs working on the house and so far no problems. I love the way they look and feel. Time will tell.

Due to a variety of construction issues I had to have my cabs painted on site. I do not recommend it, due to a variety of reasons: 1. You will not get the same quality of paint job painted on site vs. in a clean room intended for painting. 2. It is very disruptive. They need a lot of space. In my case they took over my entire garage (which meant I had to park on the street for a week), bonus room and the kitchen. I had to move a lot of personal belongings to make the space necessary for them to paint. And because the paint was then wet, there were entire areas of my house that I could not pass through as it was drying. I, along with my 2 cats, were living on the premisis so this meant a lot of workers coming and going (think primer plus multiple finish coats). Odors, tons of tarps, plastic and crap everywhere. Pictures below so you get an idea. I would strongly encourage you to tell them this is not an option, you want it painted in a clean room and you are willing to take a schedule hit if need be. Kitchen cabs while being painted: Kitchen cabinet doors being painted in my garage turned painting studio: My bonus room was turned into the "spray room" aka the lunar landing. See all the stuff behind the plastic - what I could not move was covered and I could not get to it for a week - things like laundry!: Having trouble posting today, hopefully this is not a duplicate post.

Most times on this forum I see people ask questions without providing the necessary details to elicit a proper response. This leads to all kinds of comments from people who may only have limited experience on the subject. In general someone building cabinets on site and finishing on-site means it's not a top tier operation espically building them. On-site oil paint finishing, there are exceptions, Christopher Peacock cabinets which we all know are probably the most expensive cabinets out there are calked, filled and hand brushed oil painted on site. They do use one of the most expensive paints FPE (fine paints of Europe) and very experienced skilled painters. This is probably not the case here but without knowing anything more about what they are actually doing and why or what you are expecting for what you are paying I would get some answers before going any further.