Here's the plan...

New cabinets were out of the question. The cabinets alone cost nearly $8,000.00. That does NOT include installation. So my only option was to paint them.

Now these cabinets are old and they've been painted already, probably several times. Who does that? I mean, these were fine oak cabinets stained, probably, with a dark walnut. Who paints over that with Dutch Boy white?

Because they have been painted (sloppily) several times, there were globs and runs and drip marks. So I needed to strip them. I am doing this more or less by hand, with a 3" belt sander using a coarse-grit (50) belt, then hand-sanding with medium grit, and finally finishing with a very fine grit (220) paper. I am leaving painted the routed edges of the styles and slats, because I am going to use a glaze to highlight the panels. You'll see when I'm done.

For about $100.00, I bought a spray head for my compressor (which I already had), an exhaust fan, 20 ft of duct, and 200 feet of 3 mil plastic sheeting, and built myself a spray booth for the inevitable painting that is now just a few days away.

In front of the spray booth, you can see some of the cabinet doors I've begun stripping.

Here's one of the cabinet doors from which I removed the raised center panel. that's for the double cabinet that hangs over the oven, where we have some nice wine and beer glasses. Howie (yes, that Howie) gave me some great advice about how to get that panel out without destroying the door.