you will see the putty - it's sort of off white when it dries. (at least the ones I've used.) I suppose if you were really artistic you could try to hide the holes with stain and/or paint but it wouldn't be perfect.

I've painted cabinets before, it's not hard. I've actually painted a lot of furniture. You could do it inside if you could clear a space to set up sawhorses with a piece of plywood, and open the windows. I painted an antique dresser with 5 drawers and a mirror in a weekend, most of it waiting for drying.

Home Depot has the minwax putty that matches different colors of wood, and there is one for oak. We installed our own wood floors and used it to cover nail holes whenever my husband had to sink a nail by hand. The wood we used has variations in color so I actually picked up several colors and would mix them to match the wood perfectly. I think a lot will depend on the lighting, I'd recommend you pick up a few colors & play with it on 1 door, if it doesn't work just use a toothpick to remove the putty before it dries so you can put the handle back.

hmmm...I can be artistic sometimes, but not necessarily for all 56 little holes. :)

On the painting, it's that "clear the space" step that is the biggest obstacle! Our downstairs is just a country kitchen, a living room, and a bathroom. It's really hard to keep the kids out of any one of these rooms for the length of time it takes to, say, mop the floor. I can't imagine having our living spaces filled with partially painted doors and paint supplies for the week it would take me to finish. Unless I took the week off from work and sent the kids away...

Can you tell I am beyond tempted on this one??? ;)

I tried it on my old old cabinets and I could see the hole. It didn't look good.

Mohawk makes a line of putties that are epoxy based. Way better to work with than the Minwax or other hardware store stuff that gets dry and dough-y and shrinks.

Getting the texture right is very possible, even cutting in graining. Matching the color is harder.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mohawk

It can be done if you are willing to take a very high resolution photograph of the woodgrain, have it printed on very thin paper, cut out a dot the same size as the filled and sanded hole, put it in place and apply a clear coat of urethane or similar finish to hold it in place...

I don't think it's possible to get a satisfactory result by just filling and trying to stain the filler to match.

Expensive and time-consuming but possible. Me - I'd paint them.

Good Luck ! :)

Just paint them! Last night I was watching Designed To Sell on HGTV and they luuuuuuuuurrrve to paint kitchen cabinets on that show. they were painting an 80s house with oak cabinets that were dated - I have no idea if that's what you're dealing with but srrsly when they were done it looked amazing! Painted white, got black Ubatuba remnants.

It's so easy. It might not be "right" but they never paint the insides - they leave everything in the cabs, take off hte doors/hardware. Do uppers in one sitting, lowers in the other. Or do only a few at a time. They use foam rollers but I've always had better luck with a brush and a light, easy hand - but either way it took like TWO minutes to put on one coat - the hard part is catching drips (not hard, just have to be paying attention) waiting for it to dry!

Your kids will adapt to the disruption - it's not like they can't BE in in the area while it's being done - just don't leave paint cans they can get into lying around when you're not there. Think of all the people here that are complete kitchen renos with kids in the house.

Oh no! Kpaquette, I was just logging in to post that I was going order replacement pulls and call it a day. But now you've renewed my temptation!!

I do wonder about the longevity of Designed to Sell renovations...sometimes I get the feeling the results are only meant to last long enough to get the contracts signed. But it *is* really impressive most of the time.

I saw a segment on painting cabinets on This Old House and it took forever...something like 2 coats of primer, 3 coats of paint, and one or two coats of some kind of coating. That scared me!
OK, I already have one door off for unrelated reasons...I think it's time to play with it a little and see how easily the doors will even take the sanding and priming. I can paint the inside of the door, and if I chicken out I can replace it and nobody will know - this door is pretty well-hidden.

Wish me luck!!

I wanted to change some of knobs to handles and fill the old holes, but was told by my refinisher not to do it as the filled holes would never look right. Based on the fill job my builder did, I believe him. I made them replace the cabinet doors since the holes were so obvious.