We hear these on almost every Applewood job, so here are plain answers.
Anything that depends on the actual doors gets answered in full at the free visit.
Only cabinet and furniture coatings, never wall paint. Most Applewood kitchens get waterborne alkyd enamel, which sprays smooth, tints widely and smells mild. High-traffic kitchens and mudrooms often get two-part polyurethane, which cures much harder. Your quote names the exact product.
Booth spraying gives a smoother result than spraying inside a kitchen. Filtered air keeps grit off the wet coating, the temperature stays even and each door dries flat on a rack. The boxes and face frames never come down; they are coated on site inside a taped plastic enclosure.
They could. Houses built before 1960 were often painted with lead-based paint at first, and many Applewood Acres homes date from 1952 to the mid-1950s. Paint sold in Canada for indoor use has been nearly lead free since the early 1990s, so the concern is the bottom layers. We test before any sanding and plan the cabinet painting around the result.
We change the method, not just the mask. There is no dry sanding and no heat gun. Dust is contained, cleanup uses a HEPA vacuum, and sound old paint is sealed under new primer rather than removed. Doors with thick, cracking layers are often better replaced than stripped.
Yes, when the surface is sound. Melamine, laminate and well-bonded thermofoil hold cabinet painting well over a bonding primer. Thermofoil that is already lifting will keep lifting, so we peel or replace those doors first.
Two to four weeks of notice is normal, with spring and fall the busiest. Booking early also gives a sprayed sample door time to sit in your kitchen before you choose. One broken door can usually be squeezed in earlier.
Only when the quote lists them. Interiors nearly double the spray area, and each shelf must be removed and coated top and bottom. Most Applewood owners paint the doors, frames and outer sides and keep the interiors as they are.
We replace it. The new door is primed and sprayed with all the others so it blends in. A door puffed up by a leak under the sink, or cracked across its panel, is a single-door fix priced in the low hundreds.
Only briefly. The heavy odour stays at the booth, and what we spray inside is a mild waterborne coating that clears fast with a window open or a fan on.
Yes, if it is going to change. A counter installed after cabinet painting can chip the fresh finish, so paint should come last in a kitchen update. If the counter is staying, judge your sample door right next to it.
Yes. We can tint the enamel to match existing trim, interior doors or a paint chip you already own. Trim paint and cabinet enamel are different products, so the match is made in colour rather than by using the same can. A sprayed sample door shows how close the match looks under your lights before the job begins.
Yes. Many Rathwood townhouses sit in complexes run by a condo board, and some boards set rules on work hours, trade parking and where equipment can go. Tell us the complex name when you book, and we will plan the cabinet painting around its rules.
Wipe them with warm water, a little dish soap and a soft cloth. Avoid scrub pads, powder cleansers and strong sprays, especially during the first month while the finish is still hardening. Dry up spills around the sink and dishwasher promptly.
Yes, by a wide gap. Locally, cabinet painting a whole kitchen tends to fall from $2,500 up to $5,500, fresh doors on your existing boxes from about $3,000 up to $10,000, and all-new cabinetry from roughly $15,000 to well past $40,000. Your own written quote is the number to go by.
The pages below expand on the topics in the answers above.
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 ConsultationAny 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.
