Churchill Meadows owners ask these most often, so here they are with straight answers.
Some answers depend on seeing your doors in person, and that visit is free.
Cabinet painting uses a furniture-grade coating, not wall paint. It is one of two products: a waterborne alkyd enamel that flows smooth and comes in almost any colour, or a two-part catalyzed polyurethane that sets far harder. We spray both, and neither has a strong smell. Your quote names the one your kitchen gets.
Yes. The factory finish is cleaned and scuffed, a bonding primer goes on, and a stain-blocking primer is added where the dark toner could bleed. The primer is built up until the brown is fully hidden before any topcoat goes on. We do more of this kind of cabinet painting in Churchill Meadows than anything else.
The finish is better in a booth. Filtered air keeps grit off the wet paint, heat holds even, and every door dries lying flat. Boxes stay where they are, so we coat them at home inside a plastic enclosure.
Yes, if the surface is sound. With a bonding primer designed for glossy factory faces, cabinet painting holds well on melamine, laminate and firmly attached thermofoil. If a thermofoil skin is already lifting, paint will not hold it down, so that door is stripped or replaced first.
Only if the quote includes them. Painting inside the boxes almost doubles the work, and each loose shelf needs both faces done. Many owners paint the outside, the front edges of the boxes and the end panels, and leave the melamine interiors as they are.
A few weeks ahead is typical, and spring and fall fill up fastest. An early booking also gives a sample door time to stand in your kitchen for several days. A small job, like a vanity or a single replacement door, can often be fit in sooner.
We swap in a new door and run it through the cabinet painting alongside the others, so nobody can tell which one is new. A swollen sink base or a torn thermofoil door is a problem with one piece. Expect one new door to cost in the low hundreds.
Not for long. The strongest smell happens in the booth, away from your home. What goes on the boxes in the house is a low-odour waterborne coating, and it clears quickly with fresh air moving. This matters most in stacked and condo townhouses with shared walls.
If the counters are changing, yes. Installing a new top after cabinet painting can chip and scratch the new finish. Painting is the last step in a kitchen update, after the counter, the backsplash and any plumbing. If the counter is staying, we judge the sample door against it.
Clean the doors with a soft cloth, warm water and a drop of mild soap. Scouring pads, powder cleaners and strong solvent sprays can dull or cut the finish, especially in the first few weeks. Wipe up spills quickly, most of all around the sink and dishwasher.
Wood shrinks when the furnace dries the house, and it swells again in humid Mississauga summers. A thin line at the edge of a centre panel or at a joint in February is the wood moving, not the cabinet painting failing. It usually closes by summer, and slab or MDF doors show it less.
Yes, if you like them. The old holes stay open during cabinet painting and the pulls go back on at the end. Most owners move to brass, gold or black instead, and that may mean plugging the old holes and boring new ones with a jig.
Yes. Island cabinet painting on its own is a common job, and it is the lowest-risk way to try a bold colour like navy or green. If you later paint the rest of the kitchen, the island can be matched or left as the contrast piece.
Yes, by a wide margin. In Mississauga, whole-kitchen cabinet painting generally falls in a $2,500 to $5,500 band, new doors on the old boxes cost roughly $3,000 to $10,000, and a complete new kitchen seldom starts below $15,000. Your written quote decides your own figure.
The service pages below go into more detail on what these answers cover.
We unscrew every door and drawer front; each one is degreased and sanded, takes a primer chosen for its material, and receives a tough sprayed enamel before it is rehung. Kitchen cabinet painting gives the room a new colour while the counters, sink and floors stay exactly where they are.
See Kitchen Cabinets
Dark espresso maple and brown thermofoil can be painted white, greige or any light colour when the factory finish is scuffed and sealed under a bonding primer first. Espresso cabinet painting takes one more primer step than a light kitchen, and that step is what keeps the brown from showing through.
See Espresso Cabinets
Oak needs a stain-blocking primer so its tannin does not rise through the new colour, and a choice about whether to fill the open grain. When oak cabinet painting follows those two steps, the finish stays clean and even for years.
See Oak Cabinets
Refinishing leaves the grain on show: we sand or strip the old coat, stain the wood to a new tone and spray a fresh clear finish over it. It is the right choice when the wood is worth showing, and paint is the right choice when it is not.
See Refinishing
Sprayed coats land as a fine mist that flows level before it dries, so the finished door has no brush lines at all. Cabinet painting done with a sprayer looks like a factory finish instead of a weekend project.
See Spray Painting
Slick factory surfaces need a bonding primer made to grip them, because ordinary primer slides off. Sound melamine, laminate and thermofoil all accept cabinet painting, although a vinyl face that is already peeling is beyond what paint can rescue.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
New doors and drawer fronts hang on the boxes you already own, and the frames and end panels are coated to match. When only a few doors have failed, those pieces are replaced and finished along with the rest in the same cabinet painting job.
See Refacing and New Doors
White or warm white on the upper cabinets with navy, sage or charcoal below is the look most people ask about, often with the island in the darker colour. Island cabinet painting on its own is also a full job we quote separately.
See Two-Tone and Islands
One vanity usually needs a single day, now and then two, which makes it our smallest booking. The vanity's fronts ride to our booth and its base is finished where it sits, so the bathroom is usable again soon after the cabinet painting wraps up.
See Bathroom Vanities
Stacked townhouses and condo towns usually have compact kitchens with ten to twenty doors, so the work moves quickly. Condo cabinet painting goes smoothly when parking, access and the board's rules are sorted out before the first day.
See Condo Kitchens
Pantry cabinets, laundry uppers, mudroom lockers, basement bars and built-in desks all get the same primer and sprayed enamel as the kitchen. Since most of them are anchored in place, we carry out this cabinet painting on site inside a sealed plastic enclosure.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
Unused pull holes are plugged and filled flush, and fresh holes are bored with a jig so the pulls sit level along each run. Tired hinges can be changed to soft-close models while the doors are down for cabinet painting.
See Hardware and Hinges
Warm white tops the request list, followed by soft cream, greige, sage, navy and charcoal, yet a tiny chip from the paint store gives little idea how each will read in your house. We spray one of your doors in the actual shade and leave it in the kitchen, so the cabinet painting choice happens in your own light.
See Colour ConsultationColour, door style, rough age: note whatever you can, and expect a call to pick a day. Just a name and number will send it. You can also call us at +1 (289) 206-9978.
