I'm not certain about this, but I think it's the finish, not the stain that yellows. OTOH, I've been cleaning cabinets I picked up at the Community Forklift. They happen to be oak, which means nothing. I'm having to use industrial chemicals (a palate knife and my fingernails) to get the grease and soot off these cabinets. The nicotine soot is particularly disgusting -- and yellow. Just an idea. Christine

Ellie, your new home is lovely. I looked into painting my current kitchen and pretty much what Live_oak_writes is what I found to be true in terms of prep, cost and quality. The guy I found here in Michigan ONLY paints cabinets and that is the kind of painter I would suggest or a cabinet shop. I am not trying to criticize house painters, but I would only want someone who specializes in cabinets (not a painter of rooms, exteriors, etc). He told me he would remove all the doors and spray in his shop (after sanding, filling in holes, etc.). The boxes would have to be sprayed on-site of course and you need to verify their prep for that. He was willing to paint a sample door for me (find an old maple door at Habitat, etc. and have them use that as a test). I liked what I saw. His Facebook page was impressive. My kitchen is not as nice as yours and I determined it just was not worth it. I recall a thread here recently in which someone painted professionally and it was absolutely wonderful. I am not as good as others at finding pictures/threads, but I will look.

We bought a house recently and our kitchen cabinets are not old (~10 yrs) and great quality and we like the configuration so we decided the only thing we wanted to change is the color. They are currently stained with a glaze. We want a clean white or off\-white look (no glaze). We have a lot of cabinets and are not skilled in DIY so we agreed to hire a pro. The problem I am having is determining what kind of pro/process we really need. I have received at least five (5!) quotes which is a lot for me. We got two from painters and three from cabinet specialists. The cabinet guys' quotes were 10-12k. The painters quoted 3-5k. We got samples from one painter and two cabinet guys and I do think the cabinet guys' samples were superior - they basically look like factory cabinets but I am reluctant to spend that much money for changing the color and the painter sample seems good enough to me. I would go with the cabinet specialist, however if painting is going to be significantly less durable. The painter said he would use oil-based paint, no poly with a high volume, low pressure sprayer. One cabinet guy said he would use poly (I was less confident in him); one described a multi-step curing process (a franchise called n-hance https://www.nhance.com/blog/service/cabinet-color-change/)) that uses all water based products. Now I'm getting a bit daunted by the differing approaches and posts I've read and not really knowing the right path. Any advice? I've seen lots of posts about Cabinet Coat which I hadn't heard of. I'm including a couple of pics of our kitchen. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3425364/hire-a-painter-or-a-cabin These are pictures from before we bought the house so we have changed wall colors and furniture and such but hopefully you can see why we want to change the cabinet colors \- they are beautiful but they blend right in with the floors, giving a sort over-all "blah" effect. Any advice is very much appreciated!

Also, the Home Decorating forum here can provide a lot more of the decorating type help. The paint forum can be more technical or instructive. Good luck!