Learning how to make oak kitchen cabinets look modern comes down to five steps — degrease, fill the grain, prime, topcoat, and swap in bar pulls and soft-close hinges — with the existing boxes left in place. Painted upper cabinets sit above wood-tone lower fronts, with the same long bar pulls repeated on every door and drawer. AI-generated illustration Contents Quick Steps Why Oak Cabinets Read as Dated — and What You Can Change Without Replacing Them Step 1 — Choose Your Route: Keep the Grain, Paint, or Reface Step 2 — Remove and Label the Doors, Then Degrease Every Surface Step 3 — Fill the Oak Grain and Sand…