Applewood Cabinet Painting
Applewood, Mississauga ยท 1950s Shipp-built bungalows and side-splits
Applewood Cabinet Painting offers sprayed kitchen cabinet painting, vanity painting, wood refinishing, door replacement and new hardware for owners and landlords across Applewood Acres, Applewood Heights, Applewood Hills and Rathwood. Insurance covers every Applewood job we take on. After a free look at your kitchen, you get a written quote that spells out the prep, primer, topcoat and cost of each part.
Call +1 (289) 206-9979.
Send your street and a ballpark of doors, and a phone call follows to arrange a free look at the kitchen. Or call +1 (289) 206-9979.
Each card links to a page on the sanding, the products and how the price adds up.
We unhang every door and drawer front, strip off the grease, scuff and prime it to suit its material, spray on a tough enamel and put it back up. Kitchen cabinet painting recolours the whole room while counters, sink and flooring stay exactly as they are.
See Kitchen Cabinets
Original bungalow kitchens are small, closed rooms with solid wood or plywood cabinets that have often been painted several times already. Cabinet painting in these houses starts with the old layers, because what is under the top coat decides how the job is done.
See Bungalows
Oak lets brown tannin seep up through water-based primer, and its open grain telegraphs through colour unless it gets filled. So the first coat in oak cabinet painting is always a shellac-based primer that seals the tannin in.
See Oak Cabinets
With refinishing, the worn topcoat comes off by stripping or sanding, new stain balances the colour, and a sprayed clear layer protects the wood. It is our pick over paint when the timber is the most attractive feature of the kitchen.
See Refinishing
Spray equipment breaks the enamel into a fine mist that settles into one even film, with no brush lines or roller texture. That is the difference between cabinet painting that looks factory-made and a finish that looks homemade.
See Spray Painting
Shiny factory doors call for a bonding primer built to stick to slick faces, since an ordinary one just lets go. Sound melamine and laminate accept cabinet painting well, while thermofoil that has started lifting needs stripping or replacing first.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
With refacing, fresh doors and drawer fronts go onto the boxes you already have, and the frames are sprayed to match them. We can also swap just one or two damaged doors and finish them with everything else during cabinet painting, so the fix blends in.
See Refacing and New Doors
Two-tone cabinet painting puts one colour on the uppers and a deeper one on the lowers or the island. Plenty of people paint only the island, which is usually the simplest way to give the room a fresh centrepiece.
See Two-Tone and Islands
Painting a bathroom vanity usually takes one or two days, and the room is back in use quickly. We treat vanity cabinet painting as a full job, with primer and enamel chosen for daily steam and splashing.
See Bathroom Vanities
A condo galley usually has ten to fifteen doors and turns around quickly. Condo cabinet work depends on planning the elevator booking, the parking and the odour control with the building before any work starts.
See Condo Kitchens
Pantry cupboards, laundry cabinets, closet doors, bookcases and rec room bars go through the same steps as a kitchen. Since nearly all of them are fastened to walls, they are coated where they stand inside a plastic enclosure.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
We plug old knob holes until they disappear under the new colour and bore new ones through a jig so pulls line up exactly. While doors are off for cabinet painting, worn hinges are replaced with soft-close hinges.
See Hardware and Hinges
Our most requested shades are white, cream, greige, sage, navy and charcoal, but a tiny paper swatch rarely predicts how any of them will look at home. Our cabinet painting colour process sprays one of your real doors and leaves it with you for a few days.
See Colour ConsultationThe price is the first benefit. Local cabinet painting for an entire kitchen typically falls from $2,500 up to $5,500, and brand new cabinets in that same space begin around $15,000.
Sturdy postwar boxes stay put. The plywood and solid lumber carcasses in 1950s and 1960s Applewood houses often outlast modern particleboard, and cabinet painting keeps that strength in the house.
Counters, plumbing and flooring stay where they are. Nothing is torn out, so there is no bin on the driveway and no weeks of cooking in the basement.
You get a hard, level surface. Doors are sprayed in thin coats of cabinet enamel, which dries level and stands up to daily wiping far better than wall paint.
Colour is your choice again. A dark 1990s oak kitchen can become cream, sage, greige, navy or white, and a sample door sprayed in your chosen shade settles the decision before the job starts.
You keep your kitchen. Doors travel to our booth while the cabinet boxes are sprayed on site behind plastic, and meanwhile the fridge, range and sink stay in service.
Older kitchens need a plan before they need paint, and that plan is what we sell. Most houses in this part of east Mississauga went up between 1952 and the late 1980s, so the cabinets we open range from site-built pine and fir with many old paint layers to golden oak from a 1990s update to melamine in a newer condo. Each one takes a different first step, and our cabinet painting quote names that step in writing.
Nothing on our quote is a guess. On it you will find our tally of doors, drawers and panels, the material, the degreaser and primer planned, the enamel, your sheen and the number of coats being charged. With every figure broken out, you can hold our price up against anyone else's. Read how an Applewood job runs or ask for the free visit.
Cabinet painting in an Applewood house also means asking what is already on the doors. A kitchen from the first Shipp years may still carry paint from the 1950s under the newer coats. We test that paint before anyone sands it, and the result shapes how the whole job is done.
Applewood Acres is where the neighbourhood began. G.S. Shipp and Son bought farmland once planted with apple orchards, south of the Queen Elizabeth Way and west of Dixie Road in 1951, sold 126 houses in ten days in the spring of 1952, and went on to build about 853 homes. Many of those bungalows and side-splits still have compact, closed kitchens with a window over the sink and cabinets built on site.
These rooms look compact, yet they hold more openings than you would guess, and many doors carry three or four owners' worth of paint. That affects prep, cost and safety. Old layers are the subject of bungalow kitchen cabinet painting, while kitchen cabinet painting walks through each stage in sequence.
Oak tannin will stain through a water-based primer if nothing blocks it. Plenty of Applewood Heights and Rathwood owners swapped their first kitchen for oak or oak veneer somewhere between 1985 and 1999, and we seal every one of those under shellac-based primer ahead of any colour.
Grain is the next choice. Filling gives a flat, modern face, while leaving it open lets the oak texture show through the colour. We price both ways, as explained under oak cabinet painting.
Some cabinets look better as wood. A well-kept cherry or walnut kitchen, or a solid wood built-in that a previous owner never painted, may deserve a fresh stain and clear coat rather than cabinet painting. We tell you which way we would go when we see the room.
That work has its own page at cabinet refinishing. A mix is common too, with the perimeter painted and a wood island refinished.
Spray equipment is why good cabinet painting looks like it left a factory. Pot lights pick out every brush stroke, but a sprayer puts down fine coats that flow flat before setting. Fronts get their coats at our filtered booth, and anything fixed to the wall is coated on site within a plastic tent.
Coatings, cure times and booth work are explained under spray cabinet painting.
Shiny factory finishes shed regular primer. Melamine, laminate and thermofoil fronts accept cabinet painting once they are sanded dull and given a bonding coat designed for slick surfaces. Thermofoil that already curls near a range or dishwasher is another matter, because its vinyl skin will go on peeling beneath any colour.
Those doors show up in the Rathwood townhouses, in condo units along Bloor Street and Dixie Road, and in basement suites. Our melamine and thermofoil guide lists the checks we run.
A sink-base door puffed up by a slow drip is only one bad door. We order a replacement in the same profile, spray it alongside its neighbours, and nobody can pick it out later. If damage runs through most of the kitchen, new fronts hung on the existing boxes give more for the money.
Around Mississauga, a full set of new fronts tends to land from $3,000 up to $10,000. Our refacing and door replacement guide compares every option.
A painted island is the most common two-tone request in Applewood. Many side-split kitchens gained a peninsula or a small island in a later update, and painting it navy or sage under white uppers changes the room without touching the layout. Two colours mean two setups, so the quote shows the extra cost on its own line.
Pricing and colour pairs are covered under two-tone and island cabinet painting.
Every cabinet in the house can go through the same system. A bathroom vanity takes a day or two and gets a finish chosen for steam. A pantry cupboard, a laundry run or a built-in bookcase is sprayed in place behind plastic, since it is fixed to the wall.
Folding them into the kitchen visit is cheaper than a second trip months from now. Read about vanity painting and pantry and built-in cabinet painting.
Condo cabinet painting is mostly a scheduling job. The towers around Dixie Road and Bloor Street and along Burnhamthorpe Road need elevator bookings, insurance papers and quiet hours. We take the doors out of the building to spray them, which keeps odour out of the hallways.
Our condo cabinet painting guide explains elevator bookings, odour control and pricing.
Handles and hinges go on last, yet they are what guests notice first. Unused knob holes are plugged before priming, fresh holes are bored through a jig, and tired hinges become soft-close hinges while every door is off anyway. Each hardware change shows as a separate quote line.
Handle and hinge choices are listed under hardware and soft-close hinges. Colour choices, sample doors and sheen are covered under cabinet colour consultation.
Mississauga swings from muggy July weeks to dry, furnace-heated air in January, and wood cabinets move with it. Solid wood doors swell a little in summer and shrink in winter. A fine line can open where a door panel meets its frame in the cold months and close again by June. Seasonal wood movement causes it, and the cabinet painting itself is fine.
Humidity also changes the schedule. Waterborne enamel dries more slowly in damp air, so on humid days we leave more time between coats on the boxes. The booth keeps conditions steady for the doors, which is one more reason we do not spray them in the kitchen. Planning around the weather keeps the cabinet painting finish hard instead of soft and easy to mark.
Our cabinet painting route covers every part of Applewood, starting with the Applewood Acres streets by the Queen Elizabeth Way and running up to Rathburn Road. That covers the first Shipp streets of Applewood Acres near Applewood Village Plaza, the late-1950s houses of Applewood Heights around Dundas Street and Tomken Road, the 1960s homes of Applewood Hills near Bloor Street, and the 1970s and 1980s side-splits, back-splits and townhouses of Rathwood near Rockwood Mall.
We drive Dixie Road, Cawthra Road, Tomken Road, Dundas Street, Bloor Street and Burnhamthorpe Road every week for cabinet painting visits. Tell us which street you are on and we will pick a day for the free visit.
The first step is the visit. We count the doors, drawer fronts and panels, identify the material, check the worst door, test any old painted finish that might date from before 1960, and send a written quote for the cabinet painting.
Day one is all prep. Grease comes off, each door and drawer is labelled, hinges go into marked bags and the layout is photographed. No paint is opened that day.
In the booth we patch dents and unused holes, sand every face to one uniform dullness, and apply whichever primer that material calls for.
Next come two or three sprayed coats of cabinet enamel, lightly sanded between passes. Back at the house, face frames and boxes receive matching coats inside sealed plastic, with floors and countertops protected.
Once cured enough to handle, the doors return and are rehung. We tweak each hinge for even reveals, mount the pulls and do a final walk-through with you.
The last step is cure time. The finish is dry within hours, but it keeps hardening for weeks, so gentle use for the first week or two protects the new cabinet painting.
Sprayed doors, painted islands, new handles and tidy storage, photographed after the final hinge went in.
We come out, count every opening, name the material and put the job in writing, free of charge.
Cabinet painting an entire kitchen here typically sits in the band from $2,500 up to $5,500. A small Applewood Acres galley or a condo near Dixie and Bloor can begin close to $1,500, and bigger or two-colour rooms often reach somewhere from $6,000 up to $9,000 or beyond. Per door, cabinet painting comes to about $130 to $250. Only your written quote sets your price.
Not until it is tested. Houses built before 1960 were often painted with lead-based paint at first, and the early Applewood Acres kitchens date from 1952 on. We test the old layers before any sanding. If lead is present, we use contained, dust-free methods or recommend new doors.
Yes. We coat the doors off site, and the boxes need one or two days inside a plastic enclosure at home. Cooking carries on as normal, and dishes wait on the open shelving.
Expect us inside your house for two or three working days on a typical kitchen. The doors are usually back on within one to two weeks, depending on colour and coat count.
Well-prepped, sprayed cabinet painting lasts for years of daily use. Chipping usually traces back to one of four things: leftover grease under the primer, a primer mismatched to the surface, wall paint used where enamel belongs, or rough handling before the coating has cured.
Any detail helps, from door style to the year the house went up. We will call to pick a time, and only a name and phone number are required. If you would rather talk, call +1 (289) 206-9979.
