The answers cover price, spray versus brush, products, oak grain, peeling thermofoil, cure times, smell, winter seam lines, hardware, islands and insurance.
Put it to us at +1 (226) 271-3465. If the doors themselves hold the answer, we book a free visit to look at them.
Door and drawer count first, then substrate, colour and extras. Oak adds grain fill and a shellac primer, thermofoil and melamine add a bonding primer, a deep navy or green adds a third coat, and an island in a second colour, crown moulding, interiors and hardware drilling are each their own line. Across Ontario this year most kitchens fall somewhere from $2,500 to $5,500, but the figure that counts is the one written down after the free visit.
Yes, by a wide margin. Across the Ontario market, cabinet painting on a typical kitchen costs $2,500 to $5,500, refacing $3,000 to $10,000, and a brand-new kitchen $15,000 to $40,000 or more. Cabinet painting keeps both boxes and doors, refacing keeps the boxes but buys new doors, and replacement throws everything out.
They do, and the reason is film thickness and evenness. A brush leaves ridges that are thin at the edges and thick in the middle, and the thin spots chip first. Spraying lays down thin, even coats that level flat and cure into one hard shell. Sprayed cabinet painting also has no brush marks to collect grease.
Two families. A waterborne alkyd enamel, which is a hard-curing, low-VOC cabinet paint that is ready for everyday use after roughly seven days, and a two-part waterborne polyurethane, the paint-and-hardener system used on factory kitchens, which hardens in a day and resists wear and cleaners better. The quote names which one goes on and why.
Yes, with grain fill. A water-based grain filler gets worked into the pores in a few passes, dried and sanded flat before the primer, and the door reads as smooth painted wood. Without the filler, the oak grain shows through as a fine texture, which some owners prefer and which costs less. Both start with a shellac primer to stop the tannins bleeding through.
The peeling ones cannot. Paint will not glue lifted vinyl back onto the MDF underneath, and the heat that lifted it will keep lifting it. Those doors are stripped back to the MDF and sealed, or swapped for a fresh door of matching profile, and then painted with the rest. The intact doors take cabinet painting over a bonding primer without any trouble.
The kitchen keeps working the whole time, because the sink, stove and fridge are never disconnected and the doorless boxes double as shelving. After the doors return, a waterborne enamel asks for two gentle weeks and takes about thirty days to harden completely. Two-part polyurethane can be used as normal within a day or two.
The doors are sprayed off site in a ventilated booth, so most of the spraying never happens in the house. Box spraying happens on site inside sealed plastic, with an exhaust fan ducted out a window, using low-VOC waterborne products. There is a paint smell for the day of the on-site work and little after, and the house stays occupied throughout.
A fine line can open where the centre panel meets the frame on a solid-wood door in February and close again in July. London houses run dry in furnace season and humid in summer, and the wood moves with it. That is the wood, not the paint, and a flexible waterborne enamel or two-part polyurethane handles it far better than a brittle lacquer. It is explained before the job starts.
Both. Pulls that are staying get bagged and labelled by door and go back on. Pulls that are changing leave holes that get filled and sanded ahead of the primer so no patch shows, and a template guides the new holes once the finish is cured. Soft-close hinges can go in during the same visit.
Yes. Painting only the island takes a day or two, with its doors sent to the booth and its box sprayed where it sits, and no other single piece gets requested more often. Navy, forest green and charcoal are what most owners pick to sit beside white or greige perimeter cabinets.
It is. Insurance is in place for every kitchen, condo, rental and vanity we take on, and the paperwork can be provided to a condo corporation or property manager before the job starts.
Most of the answers above connect to a service listed here.
Kitchen cabinet painting keeps the kitchen you have: doors, drawer fronts and boxes are each prepped to suit their material, then sprayed with a hard enamel in a fresh colour, for far less than replacing anything.
See Kitchen Cabinets
A spray gun lays hard enamel onto cabinet doors in thin, even passes that a brush cannot match, leaving a factory-smooth surface with no ridges, stroke marks or drips where grease can gather or chips can start.
See Spray Painting
Refinishing suits cabinets built from wood too good to hide. Stripping or sanding removes the tired old finish, a new stain goes on if a different colour is wanted, and a hard clear coat locks the grain in.
See Refinishing
Golden oak from the 1980s becomes a current painted kitchen through oak cabinet painting: tannins get sealed under a shellac primer, the open grain gets filled or stays on show, and a hard sprayed enamel goes over top.
See Oak Cabinets
Slick factory surfaces such as thermofoil, melamine and laminate shed ordinary paint, so this kind of cabinet painting starts with an adhesion primer that grips them, followed by a sprayed enamel topcoat that holds for years.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
Refacing hangs brand-new doors and drawer fronts on cabinet boxes still worth keeping, or replaces a lone damaged door, after which every piece is sprayed at once so the whole kitchen reads as one matched set.
See Refacing and New Doors
A two-tone kitchen sets a light painted perimeter against an island done in stained wood, charcoal, green or navy, and the island can be done as part of the whole kitchen or sprayed by itself as its own small job.
See Two-Tone and Islands
Condo kitchen cabinet painting suits a galley with somewhere between ten and fifteen doors, respects the building's rules on hours, elevators and parking, and sends the doors away to the booth so the suite remains livable while the work is done.
See Condo Kitchens
Painting a bathroom vanity takes a day or two: its doors, drawer fronts and box get the full kitchen prep and a sprayed enamel that tolerates steam, at a fraction of a kitchen's size and price.
See Bathroom Vanities
Rental property cabinet painting gives landlords a durable, sprayed, wipe-clean kitchen finish between tenants, priced per unit and scheduled around move-out dates, with hardware and hinge fixes done at the same visit.
See Rental Properties
Tall pantries, laundry and mudroom cabinets, wall units, bookcases and fireplace mantels are built into the house, so instead of going to a booth they get sprayed in position behind sealed plastic, using the same hard enamel a kitchen gets.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
Hardware and hinge work rides along with a painted kitchen: abandoned handle holes get filled and sanded smooth, a drilling template places the new ones, soft-close hinges replace the tired originals, and the metal finish is picked to suit the colour.
See Hardware and Hinges
Colour and sheen get settled before any cabinet painting begins, on full-size sample doors sprayed in the actual product and left standing in the actual kitchen, with the colour matched from whichever paint deck the owner prefers.
See Colour ConsultationGive us whatever you know about the kitchen, and a call comes back to arrange a time. A name plus a phone number gets the form through. To skip the form and talk it over, call +1 (226) 271-3465.
