Doors and drawer fronts are sprayed flat in a booth, and the face frames and carcasses are finished where they stand. Cabinet painting keeps the layout, the counters and the plumbing exactly where they are and changes only what shows.
Kitchens here fall into a few clear groups, and the group decides the prep. A post-war slab door in Donevan needs a scuff and a bonding primer, a cathedral-arch door in Northglen needs shellac and grain filler, and a builder kitchen in Taunton needs a check for swollen fibreboard before anything else. The colour consultation happens at the same visit.
What A Kitchen Cabinet Painting Quote Lists Line By Line
A quote that cannot be compared is not much use. Ours counts every door, every drawer front and every false front, names the substrate we found, names the primer that substrate needs, names the topcoat and sheen, gives the coat count, and prices the boxes, the interiors and any hardware work separately.
Cabinet painting extras are written in rather than left to be discovered. Grain filling on oak, bonding primer on melamine, a second colour across an island, crown moulding, filled handle holes and new hinges each carry a line. Nothing is added later without a new written number.
How Long Kitchen Cabinet Painting Takes In A Working House
Most kitchens need two or three working days indoors and five to ten days from start to finish. Day one is removal, labelling and degreasing. Day two and three are sanding, filling, caulking, masking and the box coats. The doors are away for the rest of that window while they are sprayed and stacked flat to harden.
The room stays in service the whole time. Cabinet painting without doors is inconvenient rather than impossible, and the sink, stove, fridge and counters are never shut down. Large kitchens with an island, or two-tone work, add two or three days.
Cure Time Is Longer Than Dry Time On Every Product
A finish that feels dry is not yet hard. A waterborne alkyd enamel can be handled within hours and stands normal use after a week or so, though it goes on hardening for close to a month. A two-component polyurethane reaches full hardness inside a day, which is one reason it gets used on the doors that take the most abuse.
That difference matters most at the cutlery drawer and the handle edges. Gentle use for the first few weeks, no abrasive pads and no wet cloths left lying on a door edge will carry the kitchen cabinet painting through its first month intact. After that it cleans like any hard surface.
What Kitchen Cabinet Painting Costs Across Ontario
The common band for a whole kitchen is $2,500 to $5,500. Small kitchens of eight to twelve pieces start near $1,500, and large kitchens, islands and two-tone work reach $6,000 to $9,000 and above. Per door, the market sits at roughly $130 to $250. Refacing runs $3,000 to $10,000 and replacement starts around $15,000 and climbs past $40,000.
Those are market ranges and not a price for a particular house. Door count is the biggest driver, then substrate, then whether a second colour or new doors are involved. The written quote is the number that applies to the kitchen in question.
Built-In Cabinet Painting Happens In Place
Fixed cabinetry cannot be taken to a booth for cabinet painting. Doors and drawer fronts still come off and go out, but the carcass, the shelves, the face frame and any fixed shelving are sprayed where they stand, inside sealed plastic with the floor papered and an extraction fan running.
That is ordinary practice rather than a compromise. The same method finishes every kitchen box in this trade, and cabinet painting on a wall unit or a mantel is no different in principle from cabinet painting on a run of base cabinets.
Soft-Close Hinges Are Worth Doing While The Doors Are Off
Old hinges are usually the worst part of an old kitchen and the cheapest thing to put right during cabinet painting. Thirty-year-old European hinges sag, rattle and let doors hang crooked, and the fix is a direct swap for a soft-close hinge that uses the same cup bore. Nothing has to be rebuilt.
Soft-close drawer slides ask for more work, because the drawer box and the cabinet both have to accept them. We check the boxes and say honestly whether it is worth it. Either way it happens during the cabinet painting, while the kitchen is already apart.
Book A Free Kitchen Cabinet Painting Visit
A half-hour cabinet painting visit is enough to count the doors, identify the material and give a firm written price. Call +1 (289) 201-5963 or use the contact form and we will arrange a time that suits the house. The home page lists the remaining cabinet painting services offered through the city and the towns lying east and north.
Kitchen Cabinet Painting Questions
What does the written quote list?
It lists the door and drawer count, the substrate we found, the primer, the topcoat, the sheen, the coat count and a total. That makes two quotes easy to compare line by line. The visit that produces it is free and runs about thirty minutes.
Which parts of the kitchen are sprayed off site?
Doors, drawer fronts and loose shelving travel to a filtered booth and are sprayed flat. Face frames and carcasses are sprayed in place behind sealed plastic with an extraction fan running. Counters, sinks and appliances stay where they are, so the room keeps working while the doors are away.
How soon can the kitchen take normal use?
The doors go back on once they have hardened flat, which takes most of a week for a full kitchen. Waterborne enamels want about a week before heavy use and keep hardening for roughly a month. Two-component polyurethanes are hard within a day. Go easy on door edges at first.