janesylvia, I agonized over this issue also - I feel your pain! lol. I'm a homeowner, kitchen cabinets were oak with a kind of pinkish finish popular in the 90's I've been told? They were looking bad. I replaced the uppers with new cabinets (to extend to ceiling) but lowers, I painted and they look great! Then I took the old uppers and put in the laundry room...painted same white as in kitchen and they also look great. I did try the rollers, various types, but all left exactly what you mentioned, a line. Some very slight bubbling too. Spraying was above my skill set. Instead I used a good brush (Purdy's, my fav!) Gosh, with oak, the grain is gorgeous coming through and *in my opinion* the brush application is a nice compliment to the entire look. I don't notice any brush strokes although I'm sure they're there, just not readily visible with the oak graining. I painted the cabinets white. I heard all kinds of nays on doing that, painting them myself,the color, yada yada yada, but I love the finished look. It is not a smooth finish, like glass or something, it has some character. It might not be a look for everyone but for me and everyone that sees it, it's a winner. I washed the cabinets real good, let dry real good, lightly sanded, did a tack cloth several times over to get any lint, sawdust off and then took the plunge. I used a newer product (newer at the time, which was within this past year) which was an all-in-one paint available at HD. "Behr Premium Plus Stain Blocking Paint and Primer in One." Had it tinted to the white color I selected. I went with semi-gloss finish but I think that's a personal choice, to each their own on the sheen level. I don't find these cabinets to be overly shiny. Honestly, just figured might as well try painting them myself. Luckily it worked well for me..I did of course try one small door panel first to be certain this was a go. Also one last piece of advice: allow them to dry FOREVER before using and definitely wait on adding hardware, like handles or pulls until the paint is dried/cured/whatever the professional term is for that! This was my experience and it turned out well. I hope the same for your project if you decide to tackle it. Best wishes!

CLC, I did mine about a year ago with instructions I found on DIY (I think). First I took off the doors and the hardware and washed everything down with TPC (I think that's the right name). You can find it in the paint dept. in a little carton like milk comes in. You mix it up in warm water. It's supposed to clean off all dirt, grease, etc. It did a great job! Next I sanded all surfaces with a fine sandpaper then cleaned with a tack cloth. Then I painted one coat, sanded and tack clothed (?) when it was dry, and painted a second coat. I used interior enamel in a gloss finish. So far they still look pretty good, but I suspect I should have used some kind of oil-based paint since I'm pretty sure the original finish was oil-based. And I should have used high gloss because I wanted much more shine than I got. We didn't take the cabinets out. I painted the doors and drawers out in the garage, but painted the bases where they were. It was a really big job! I took 5 days off work and it ended up taking all that time and several more weekends to get it all done. And most of the doors don't want to close all the way after having the hardware removed and reinstalled. But they sure look better than the old, tired, out of date pickled oak finish! Donna

If prep is a concern, I think you will have more prep to paint. And with paint you need to be concerned with brush marks unless you are getting them sprayed. I stripped and re-stained 3 door frames this summer to go with a darker oak and also had 2 small things to paint. The paint projects made me crazy. Light influences paint color. The things I painted were in different light. One looked white and one had a definite yellow tone. If the paint wasn't out of the same can, I wouldn't have believed it was the same color. I had to re-paint the one with a different white to get it to look more like the other item. Give me stain and polyurethane and a bag of rags to wipe the finishes on. The door frames and trim are the original 1966 wood. It looks beautiful!

The most expensive does not always equal the highest quality in cabinet painting because a lot of these cabinet painting specialists have popped up in the last several years because there is a market for it and this is an area where it's easier to gauge because it's not just painting. That said, there are still a lot of hackers out there too not doing the proper prep or using the best products and bidding low just to get the jobs. Find out what products they are using and what primers and ask them about prep. Also, since it is oak, will there be grain filling? That will add to the cost.