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.
We spray in two locations. Fronts head to the filtered booth, and whatever is screwed to the wall gets coated in your kitchen within a taped plastic tent. Primer, enamel and coat count match exactly at both.
A brush leaves ridges, and ridges collect grime. On a flat slab door from an Applewood Acres bungalow, every stroke shows once the kitchen gets new pot lights or under-cabinet strips. Rollers leave an orange-peel texture that looks no better.
Sprayed cabinet painting avoids both. Each coat goes on thin and flows flat before it sets, and a light sanding between coats keeps the surface smooth. The result is also tougher, since a thin, hard film resists chipping at handles and drawer edges better than a thick, soft one.
Doors lie flat on racks in the booth, so the paint levels without sagging. Filters keep dust out of the wet finish, and the temperature stays steady from coat to coat. Those three things are hard to control in a working kitchen.
The booth also takes most of the odour and mess out of your house. That matters in a closed bungalow kitchen, where there is no second room to retreat to, and in condos, where hallway odour draws complaints. Condo cabinet work covers the building side.
Cabinet boxes are fixed in place, so on-site cabinet painting needs containment. We run plastic from floor to ceiling, tape it at every seam, cover the floor from the door to the kitchen and set up air extraction. Counters, appliances and the sink are wrapped.
Face frames, end panels and any visible box sides are sprayed with the same coatings as the doors. The work zone usually needs one day, and the plastic comes down once the last coat is dry to the touch.
Many Applewood bungalows and side-splits have had the wall between the kitchen and living room removed. That opens up the house, but it also means there is no door to close during spray cabinet painting.
In those homes, our containment goes further. We run plastic from floor to ceiling across the opening, protect the furniture on the far side and route the air extraction to a window. Your living room remains tidy and in use, with all cabinet painting kept behind the barrier.
Waterborne alkyd enamel is the topcoat we use most. It flows flat, tints to almost any shade and smells mild. Coats are a night apart, the doors handle light use within roughly a week, and full hardness arrives near the one-month mark.
Two-part polyurethane is the tougher choice. A hardener goes in just before spraying, and the coating cures by chemical reaction, so it is hard within about a day. It costs more and must be sprayed within hours of mixing, and it is our pick for heavy-use kitchens and mudroom cabinets.
Primer depends on the material. Shellac-based primer seals oak and cherry, bonding primer grips melamine, laminate and sound thermofoil, and a general bonding primer suits maple, poplar and old paint. Slick surfaces get their own page at melamine and thermofoil work.
Waterborne coatings dry by giving off water, and damp summer air slows that down. On muggy days in Mississauga we allow longer gaps between coats on the boxes, since the booth controls conditions for the doors only.
A day of extra waiting is better than a soft finish. Enamel hurried along on a sticky day stays soft and dents for months, which is why the forecast sets our pace more than the calendar does.
On paper you will see the primer, the topcoat, the coat count and the sheen chosen for your kitchen, plus the reason for each. The visit is free. Call +1 (289) 206-9979, pick a time here or head back to the main page.
Bathroom vanities, pantry cupboards, laundry cabinets and basement bars in side-splits get the kitchen's primer and enamel.
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
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 ConsultationWe come out, count every opening, name the material and put the job in writing, free of charge.
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.
