Kitchen cabinet painting removes every door and drawer front, degreases and sands the lot, primes for the substrate and sprays thin coats of a hard enamel so an existing kitchen looks new without replacing a single box.
The kitchens around St. Catharines run from 1950s birch slabs in the north end to golden oak in Vansickle and builder MDF in Martindale, and each one gets its own prep. Insurance covers the work. The quote is where the prep for your particular doors is spelled out.
Roughly three quarters of kitchen cabinet painting happens before any colour goes on. Doors and drawer fronts get labelled, photographed and taken off with their hinges. Everything is washed with a degreaser, because cooking grease is the most common reason cabinet paint peels. Then each surface is scuffed to a dull, even texture, dents get filled, and hardware holes get plugged if the handles are changing.
The primer depends on the door. Oak and stained wood get a shellac primer that blocks tannin bleed. Melamine, laminate and thermofoil call for a bonding primer. Already painted MDF and maple get a standard high-build primer. Skipping this choice is how wall paint ends up on cabinets, and wall paint on cabinets fails within a year.
Three thin sprayed coats cure harder than one thick brushed coat, because the enamel needs air and time to cross-link and a heavy film never fully gets either. A filtered booth away from the house handles the doors, while the boxes and face frames get sprayed at home inside sealed plastic. Each coat is sanded lightly before the next. Cabinet spray painting explains the booth, the containment and the products in more depth.
The cabinet painting topcoat is waterborne alkyd enamel in some kitchens and two-part polyurethane in others, and the job and the colour decide which. Both are low-VOC. The polyurethane cures faster and harder, and the enamel gives the widest colour choice, so the quote says which one is going on and why.
Plan on two or three days of cabinet painting work at the house and seven to ten days with the doors away. Removal, degreasing and sanding fill the first day. While the doors are away, the boxes get primed and sprayed over the following day or two. The doors come back cured, get rehung and adjusted, and the hardware goes on.
During the gap the kitchen keeps working without its doors, so the stove, fridge and sink stay in use. The finish feels dry within hours and is hard within a day, but it keeps curing for two to four weeks depending on the product. Gentle use in that window is what keeps the cutlery drawer and the area around the handles from chipping later. Older kitchens in Secord Woods or Merritton with peeling DIY paint add a day for stripping.
The quote counts doors and drawer fronts, identifies the substrate, describes the prep, states the primer, the topcoat, the coat count and the colour, prices the hardware work, and gives the total. Across Ontario in 2026 a whole kitchen most often comes in at $2,500 to $5,500. A small kitchen can start near $1,500, and a large kitchen or a two-tone kitchen with an island runs $6,000 to $9,000 and up, which comes to about $130 to $250 a door.
Those figures describe the market. Your kitchen's own price is the one in the written cabinet painting quote after the free visit, and that is the number the job gets done for. Cabinet colour consultation is included, and one door gets sprayed in the chosen colour before the whole kitchen is committed.
Count the doors if you can, or do not, and we will count them on the visit. Book the visit or call +1 (905) 367-8017 and we will come out anywhere from Port Dalhousie to Thorold. The St. Catharines Cabinet Painting home page covers the other cabinet painting work we take on, vanities and built-ins included.
Cabinet painting is the one job that changes a whole kitchen without touching the counters, the plumbing or the floor, and the first visit costs nothing at all.
Identical prep, primer and sprayed coats go onto all the other cabinets around the house.
Oak cabinet painting locks the tannins in golden oak under a shellac primer, deals with the open grain by filling it or keeping it, and lays a hard sprayed enamel over 1980s and 1990s doors that are solid, well built and simply the wrong colour.
See Oak Cabinets
Post-war bungalow kitchen cabinet painting restores the original birch and plywood slab doors of 1950s to 1970s kitchens, or the 1980s oak that replaced them, in the small galley layouts those houses were built with.
See Post-War Bungalows
Thermofoil, melamine and laminate doors carry slick factory surfaces where ordinary primer will not hold, so the job begins with bonding primer, plus an honest verdict on the doors worth painting and the ones past saving.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
Cabinet spray painting means doors finished in a filtered spray booth, boxes finished behind sealed containment in the kitchen, and thin, even coats of enamel or 2K polyurethane that cure hard with no brush marks, which is cabinet painting done the factory way.
See Spray Painting
Bathroom vanity painting is the smallest job on the list, usually six to ten pieces finished inside one or two days, with a primer and topcoat chosen to stand up to the steam and splashes of a bathroom.
See Bathroom Vanities
Cabinet refinishing keeps the wood. Stripping or sanding takes the old finish off, new stain goes on, and a clear coat seals it, so solid walnut, cherry or white oak doors look new without paint covering the grain.
See Refinishing
A two-tone kitchen puts a painted perimeter beside a darker or wood-toned island, and where the perimeter is already fine, just the island gets sprayed in navy, green or charcoal as a job of its own.
See Two-Tone and Islands
Refacing fits fresh doors and drawer fronts onto boxes that are still sound, and door replacement swaps out a single damaged or delaminated door and sprays it to match, for a fraction of what a full kitchen replacement costs.
See Refacing and New Doors
Condo kitchen cabinet painting deals with a small galley, the building's rules, the elevator and the parking, and because the doors are sprayed away from the building, the unit stays livable while its boxes get sprayed inside two days.
See Condo Kitchens
With the doors already down, the old handle holes are filled and hidden under paint, a template guides fresh drilling, and worn hinges are exchanged for soft-close units sized to the same cup.
See Hardware and Hinges
Cabinet painting for pantries, laundry and mudroom cabinets, built-in wall units, bookcases, window seats and fireplace mantels covers the cabinets that are not in the kitchen, and most of these pieces get finished on site.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
A colour consultation pins down colour and sheen before any spraying starts, with a sample door finished in the real colour and checked in the kitchen's own light against the counters, the floor and the backsplash.
See Colour ConsultationWe arrive, count the doors and put the quote in writing. The visit costs nothing and there is no pressure to go ahead.
Describe the kitchen as fully as suits you. We phone back to book the visit. Two things send the form: who you are and how to reach you. If you would sooner talk, the number is +1 (905) 367-8017.
