Cabinet Painting Questions, Answered

Yes, it is very different. Cabinet painting uses cabinet-grade coatings. The two main types are waterborne alkyd enamel, which levels smoothly and comes in thousands of colours, and two-part polyurethane, which has a hardener stirred in and sets far tougher. Each goes on by spray gun with little odour. Your written price names the product chosen.

The doors are sprayed in a booth with filtered air and steady temperature. Filtered air stops grit landing in wet coating, and racks hold each front level while it dries. The boxes cannot be moved, so they are coated in your home behind plastic sheeting.

Yes. Kitchen cabinets inside a townhouse unit are usually the owner's to change. Some complexes ask for notice to the property manager, proof of insurance and set working hours. We send our insurance papers and follow the rules of your complex. Spraying happens in our booth, not on shared property.

Intact melamine and thermofoil accept colour once scuffed and coated with an adhesion primer designed for glossy plastic. Thermofoil that is already peeling cannot be fixed with paint, since the vinyl goes on separating from the board below the new coat. We strip or swap those fronts beforehand.

A few weeks ahead is common, and spring and fall are the busiest times. Booking early also gives you time to test a sample door in your kitchen before choosing a colour. Small jobs like a single vanity can often fit in sooner.

Only if the quote says so. Painting interiors roughly doubles the area to be sprayed, because every shelf and side wall is included. Most people paint the doors, drawer fronts and outside of the boxes and leave the interiors as they are.

We replace that door. We order a matching front and run it through the booth alongside the others, so its colour is identical. A swollen door under the sink or a split panel is the most common reason.

Not for long. Anything with a real smell happens at our booth, not in your house. The products used on the boxes in your kitchen are waterborne and low in odour, and any smell clears quickly once a fan is running. That matters in townhouses and condos where air moves between units.

Before. Setting a new top onto fresh cabinet painting can mark or chip it. If new counters, tile or plumbing are planned, do those first. When your counter stays, a sprayed sample helps match colour to it.

Warm water with a drop of dish soap on a soft cloth is enough. Keep scrubbers, gritty powders and harsh solvents away, most of all during the early curing weeks. Around the sink and dishwasher, dry any splash promptly.

Mississauga has humid summers and dry winters once the furnace is on. Solid wood doors shrink a little in winter and swell in summer. A hairline beside a raised panel in mid-winter normally disappears by summer. Seasonal wood movement causes it, not failed cabinet painting.

Yes, by a wide margin. In the GTA, whole-kitchen cabinet painting generally lands from $2,500 up to $5,500. Fresh fronts on your current boxes generally sit between $3,000 and $10,000, while full replacement opens near $15,000 and may exceed $40,000. Your written quote is the price that applies to your kitchen.

Yes, and those kitchens often have solid boxes worth keeping. Erin Mills townhouses and semis from the 1970s often have stained veneer or slab doors. They need thorough degreasing and a careful sanding so the thin veneer is not cut through, then primer and sprayed enamel. The result looks like a much newer kitchen.

Expect two or three days of work inside your home, with the entire cabinet painting job normally wrapped up inside a two-week window. Dark colours, grain filling and extra rooms can add time. Your written quote gives an estimated schedule.

Yes. Sheridan Homelands sits just below Dundas Street West, and its semis and smaller detached houses date mostly from the 1960s through the 1980s. Those kitchens tend to hold stained veneer, early oak or painted wood fronts, and each gets the primer that suits it. Cabinet painting bookings there follow the same free visit and written price as anywhere else in Erin Mills.