Every door, drawer front, face frame and end panel is stripped of grease, sanded, primed by substrate and sprayed in thin coats. Cabinet painting done in that order gives a hard finish that survives daily cooking for a decade.
Kitchens in Cambridge fall into two broad camps. There is the oak and melamine stock that went into Fiddlesticks and Clemens Mills in the late 1980s, and there is the factory-white shaker in newer Silver Heights and Moffat Creek houses where the owner simply wants a different colour. Both get the same cabinet painting sequence and a different primer, and oak cabinet painting explains why the older stock costs more.
What A Written Cabinet Painting Quote Names Before Anything Is Touched
The quote counts pieces. Every door, every drawer front, every exposed end panel and every open shelf is on the list, because piece count is what the labour is built from. A twenty-two piece kitchen and a thirty-six piece kitchen are different jobs even when the rooms look the same size.
It also names the substrate, the primer, the topcoat family, the number of coats, the sheen and the colour. Cabinet painting that is quoted without those lines is quoted on guesswork. Interiors of the boxes, crown moulding and cabinet doors with glass inserts are priced as separate lines so you can take them or leave them.
Cabinet Painting Starts With Degreasing And Labelling, Not Colour
Nothing sticks to cooking film. The whole kitchen gets washed twice with a degreaser, and heavily waxed cabinets need a solvent cleaner because water-based products slide straight over old wax. That step alone fills most of day one on a full kitchen cabinet painting job.
While the cleaning happens, every front comes off. Doors are numbered on the back, hinges and screws go into labelled bags, and the layout is photographed so a thirty-piece kitchen goes back exactly where it started. Drawer boxes stay in place because only the fronts are painted.
Primer Is Picked By Substrate, Not By Habit
Oak and cherry get a shellac-based primer that blocks tannins. Melamine, laminate and intact thermofoil get a waterborne bonding primer instead. Already-painted MDF shaker doors get a straightforward bonding coat and go on quickly. One primer used across all of them is why cabinet painting most often fails inside a year.
Primer is sanded once it hardens, which knocks down the raised grain and any dust nibs. Only then do the topcoats go on, two or three of them, with a light hand sanding between each coat.
Cabinet Painting Cure Time Runs Longer Than Dry Time
Dry means the surface can be handled. Cure means the film has reached full hardness, and on a waterborne alkyd enamel that is about seven days to normal use and thirty days to full hardness. Two-component polyurethane cures far faster, often inside a day, which is one reason it gets specified on busy family kitchens.
The practical rule after cabinet painting is simple. Use the kitchen gently for the first week, keep shelf liners and heavy stacks off painted surfaces, and keep abrasive pads and strong cleaners away until a month has passed.
Built-In Cabinet Painting Happens Where The Unit Stands
A bookcase anchored to a wall in a West Galt house is not going anywhere. The room gets emptied, the floor and adjacent walls get masked with plastic sheeting and tape, an extraction fan goes in a window, and the unit is sprayed exactly where it sits.
Containment is the whole game on in-place work. Overspray travels further than people expect, so the seal has to be complete before the gun comes out. Done properly, on-site cabinet painting produces the same finish the booth produces, and nothing else in the house picks up dust.
Old Holes Vanish Under Cabinet Painting, But Only If They Are Filled First
A handle change almost always means new hole spacing. Older kitchens ran knobs with one screw or pulls on three-inch centres, and most current pulls are wider than that, so the old holes have to go.
Every hole takes a two-part filler, gets sanded back level, then gets primed. Once the cabinet painting is sprayed the repair is invisible, because the filler takes primer exactly like the surrounding surface. Filling holes after the doors are painted never disappears the same way.
What Kitchen Cabinet Painting Costs Across Ontario In 2026
Most whole kitchens sit between $2,500 and $5,500. Small kitchens start around $1,500, large layouts and two-tone schemes run $6,000 to $9,000 and beyond, and per-door pricing generally falls between $130 and $250. Refacing lands at $3,000 to $10,000 and full replacement starts near $15,000 and climbs past $40,000.
Those are market ranges, not your number. Only the written quote produced after an in-home visit governs your job. Doors past saving can be swapped through cabinet refinishing and refacing and painted to match the rest.
Have The Kitchen Counted And The Cabinet Painting Priced
Half an hour in the room is usually enough, and the written quote follows. Bring your questions about colour, timing and how long the kitchen is out of action, and you get plain answers. Start from the home page for an overview of the service, send the details through the contact page, or call +1 (226) 271-7770 and book a date.
Kitchen Cabinet Painting Questions
How long does a full kitchen take?
Expect a couple of working days on site, with about ten days from the first morning until the fronts are back. Doors cure flat in the shop while the boxes are sprayed at the house. Water, power and the fridge stay available, and the kitchen can be used gently once everything is hung.
Do the hinges get replaced?
Worn hinges can be swapped for soft-close units while the doors are off, because that is the cheapest time to do it. Most European cup hinges swap one for one. Old handle holes are filled and sanded flat under primer, and new holes are drilled from a jig.
Can some parts be left off the job?
Yes. Interiors, crown moulding and glass-insert doors sit on separate quote lines, so any of them can come off without reopening the rest of the price. Most kitchens are done as one set of fronts and frames, since new colour beside old rarely matches.