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.
The north end, Lakeshore, Port Weller, Western Hill, Secord Woods and Merritton were built for GM and canal workers, and thousands of those bungalows, backsplits and sidesplits still carry their first kitchen. Full insurance stands behind every job, and these kitchens are a large part of the week.
The veneer on an original post-war slab door is often less than a millimetre thick, so aggressive sanding goes straight through it and leaves a patch that will show under any paint. Cabinet painting on these doors means degreasing thoroughly, scuff sanding by hand with a fine grit, and letting the primer do the levelling. Where a corner of veneer has lifted, it is glued down and clamped before the primer goes on.
The upside is that the doors are simple and the boxes are solid. Plywood boxes built on site in 1958 are usually tighter than the particleboard that replaces them, and they are worth keeping.
Paint that is already peeling is not a surface, and painting over it just adds weight to a layer that has let go. Most post-war bungalows in Merritton and Secord Woods have had at least one coat of latex wall paint brushed on over the decades, and it peels in sheets at the edges. We strip or sand it back to a sound layer, spot prime any bare wood, and rebuild from there. The quote adds a line for stripping when it is needed.
Cabinets in a house built before 1980 may carry old paint with lead in it. We do not sand old site-applied paint hard without a test, and the visit is where that gets checked.
Sixty-year-old hinges have worn screw holes, and the doors sag and rub. The holes are filled with hardwood plugs or filler and redrilled, and the hinges are replaced with new ones, often soft-close. Old handle holes that do not match the new pulls are filled, sanded flush and painted over, and a template guides the new holes. The hardware and hinges page covers the options and the finishes.
A slab door in a warm white, a soft grey or a deep green with a simple bar pull keeps the mid-century character of the house and suits it. A slab door can also be given a shaker profile with applied moulding before cabinet painting, which reads as a new kitchen. Both are done from the same boxes. On a north-end bungalow with a 1980s oak replacement kitchen, oak cabinet painting applies instead, shellac primer and grain-fill decision included.
Most of these galley kitchens have fourteen to twenty pieces and sit near the bottom of the cabinet painting price range. Send the address or call +1 (905) 367-8017, and a photo of a door edge helps us see the veneer before the visit. The St. Catharines Cabinet Painting home page covers the rest of what we do across the city.
A bungalow kitchen built in 1960 has already outlasted two generations of replacements, and cabinet painting done with care for the thin veneer gives it another few decades.
Identical prep, primer and sprayed coats go onto all the other cabinets around the house.
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.
See Kitchen Cabinets
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
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.
