About us · Lincoln, NE
About Lincoln Elite, a Cabinet Refinishing Company in Lincoln, NE
We started in 2011 doing what every small painting outfit does: walls, trim, exteriors, and cabinets when someone asked. Cabinets turned out to be the work we were best at and the work most commonly done badly by everyone else, so within a few years we stopped doing the rest entirely.
Fifteen years later that is still the whole business. Kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, refacing, refinishing and built-ins, from a shop at 300 N 44th St in Lincoln, across more than 1,200 completed projects. We do not paint your walls. We will not quote your exterior. It is one trade done repeatedly, which is the entire argument for hiring us over someone cheaper.
You are letting strangers dismantle your kitchen and take part of it away in a van. This page is about who those people are.
- Operating in Lincoln since 2011
- 1,200+ cabinet projects
- Insured to $2M liability
- Written warranty on every job
A Cabinet Painting Company, Not a General Contractor
The core argument, and the reason we are not the cheapest quote you will get.
A general painter sprays cabinets between exterior jobs. It is not that they are careless. It is that specialising changes what you own, what you know and how fast you work.
- Spray equipment. HVLP systems set up and maintained for cabinet coatings specifically, not a general-purpose rig that also does fences.
- Shop space. A dust-controlled booth with racking for a full kitchen's worth of doors. A generalist sprays in your garage because there is nowhere else.
- Coatings inventory. We stock cabinet-grade bonding primers and two-component topcoats by the drum. A generalist buys a gallon for your job and picks from what the store had.
- Repetition. Over 1,200 projects. The hundredth set of oak doors goes through faster, cleaner and with fewer surprises than the first, and that shows up in both the finish and the schedule.
- Knowing when to say no. Recognising thermofoil that has gone too far, or a box that has failed, is pattern recognition you only get from volume.
That is what justifies our price against a cheaper generalist quote. If a lower number matters more to you than any of the above, we would genuinely rather you took it than felt oversold here.
Who You Will Actually Meet
Homeowners are letting strangers into their house to take the kitchen apart. Faces resolve more hesitation than any badge, so here is who turns up.
What we can tell you now is the structure: the person who quotes your kitchen is on site when the doors come off and is there at the walk-through. We do not subcontract spraying and we do not rotate crews between jobs. You deal with the same people from estimate to handover.
Licensing, Insurance & Accountability
Named coverage, not decoration. "Fully licensed and insured" on a website means nothing without the numbers behind it.
| Cover | Detail |
|---|---|
| General liability | $2,000,000 |
| Certificate of insurance | Sent before any deposit is taken, not on request |
| Workers' compensation | [TO CONFIRM BEFORE LAUNCH: state carrier and status] |
| City of Lincoln contractor registration | [TO CONFIRM BEFORE LAUNCH: state registration number] |
| EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting rule | Pre-1978 homes identified at estimate and handled under lead-safe work practices |
The lead-safe point matters more in this trade than most people realise. A large share of the housing we work in, the Near South and Country Club in Lincoln, Dundee in Omaha, most of Beatrice and the older parts of Crete and Seward, predates 1978. Sanding cabinets in those homes is exactly the activity the rule governs.
Our Cabinet Refinishing Warranty
A specific written warranty outperforms a superiority claim. Here is ours, including what it does not cover.
| Covered | Not covered | |
|---|---|---|
| Adhesion failure | Peeling, flaking or delamination of our coating (3 years) | Damage from impact, or from abrasive or solvent cleaners |
| Finish integrity | Cracking or checking not caused by substrate movement (3 years) | Normal wear at the sink and trash pull-out over time |
| Workmanship | Runs, sags, misaligned hinges, missed surfaces (3 years) | Changes of mind about colour or sheen |
| Substrate | Repairs we carried out (1 year) | Pre-existing box failure we identified and quoted around |
Three years, written, in the contract rather than in a sentence on a website. We come back for warranty work anywhere in our service area, Omaha and Beatrice included. Distance does not change the obligation and we put that in writing rather than leaving it implied.
How We Got Here
The business started in 2011 as a general painting operation. Cabinets were maybe one job in ten and they were the ones we kept getting called back about, in a good way. People who had their kitchen done told their neighbours, in a way that nobody ever does about a hallway.
The turning point was buying shop space and a proper booth. Once doors could be sprayed flat, off-site, in dust-controlled air, the quality gap against site-sprayed work became obvious enough that going back was not an option. Within two years we had stopped taking wall and exterior work entirely.
Since then it has been one trade, refined. More than 1,200 projects across Lincoln, Omaha and southeast Nebraska, most of them golden-oak kitchens from the era when half this city was built.
What We Will Tell You Not to Do
A company that turns down work is credible in a way no badge is.
We decline jobs regularly. Not out of principle, but because taking money for work that will disappoint you is a bad trade for both of us. The usual cases:
- Cabinets past saving. Several water-damaged box bottoms, or carcasses that have separated at the joints. New doors on a failing box is money in the wrong place.
- Thermofoil too far gone. Once the vinyl film has lifted, paint will not stick it back down. Spraying it hides the problem for six months.
- A layout that genuinely needs replacing. If you need drawers where there is a fixed shelf, or the island is in the wrong place, no finish service fixes that and we will say so.
- Original period cabinetry someone wants painted white. In Beatrice, Seward and the Near South we will argue for restoring instead, and sometimes we lose the argument and the job. Worth it.
- A kitchen you actually like. If the colour still works for you, there is no case for doing this at all. We have talked people out of it at the estimate.
- Refacing when painting would do. Refacing is two to three times the price. If the shape of your doors is fine and only the colour bothers you, we will quote the cheaper thing.
Every one of those costs us a sale. The alternative is a customer who is unhappy at handover, which costs more.
See Our Lincoln Cabinet Work
A short selection of recent Lincoln work.
Mid-project: half dated oak, half sprayed white.
After: warm greige with refinished cabinets.
After: two-tone with a navy island and white perimeter.
Our Google Business Profile carries weekly job photos and is where our reviews live, attached to real accounts and real dates. Ready to talk? Get a free quote or see what it costs.
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Where to go from here
Our Cabinet Painting Process
Seven stages, day by day, including the prep steps that decide whether a finish lasts a decade.
Read moreWhat It Costs
Real published ranges for every service, plus a door-count estimator. Nobody else here publishes a price.
Read moreAll Six Services
Painting, refinishing, refacing, vanities, oak and built-ins, compared side by side.
Read moreWhere We Work
Lincoln, Omaha and southeast Nebraska, with travel range and minimum job sizes published.
Read moreGet a Free Quote
Send photos for a same-weekday ballpark, or book a free forty-minute in-home estimate.
Read moreCabinet Painting in Lincoln
Back to our main page for the full picture of what we do and how we do it.
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