Paint chips under store lights are a poor guide, so we spray one of your actual doors in your favourite candidate shade and leave it standing in the room. The shades we are asked for most in cabinet painting right now are warm white, cream, greige, sage and deep green.
Most East Credit kitchens have a fixed counter, a tile backsplash and a floor that are staying. A colour that looks right in a showroom can clash with a speckled 1990s granite top or a beige ceramic floor, and the sample door shows that before any money is spent.
A chip is a tiny printed swatch, and it is a weak basis for a cabinet painting colour. A sample door shows your actual wood, your actual sheen and a true sprayed coat, sitting in the same light it will face every day.
We take your sample door to the shop, give it the same primer and cabinet painting coats as the full job, and return it to stand against your counter, floor and tile for several days. A decision this visible deserves at least that long.
Putting two finished samples next to each other usually ends the debate within a day. That small cost is tiny compared with redoing a kitchen that missed the mark.
Satin, semi-gloss and gloss are the three sheens for cabinet painting enamel, and one colour looks noticeably different in each. Satin blurs minor flaws and calms the shade, which flatters an older raised-panel door.
Semi-gloss bounces back more light and wipes down more easily, a good match for a busy kitchen with small kids. High gloss magnifies every wave in the wood, so it seldom flatters a raised-panel or arched door.
Daylight plays a part as well. Most whites turn a touch warmer during their first year in strong sun, and a satin sheen disguises that shift better than semi-gloss does.
The colour you are covering affects the cabinet painting colour you get. Covering honey maple or golden oak calls for a stain-blocking primer, or the old wood tone can ghost through white or cream.
The arches on cathedral uppers also change how a colour reads. A deep green or navy makes the arch stand out, while a soft cream makes it look traditional. The cathedral door cabinet painting page covers options for those doors.
Since most countertops stay put, they become the anchor. A speckled 1990s granite or laminate clashes with cool grey but gets along well with cream, warm greige and sage.
Tile comes next, and it can be the trickier anchor, because a bold colour or a busy pattern shrinks the list of good matches. Flooring matters least, since the base cabinets sit between it and the rest of the room.
When a new counter is on the way, choose the stone first and the paint colour second. Using two colours widens the choices, and two-tone kitchens and island painting shows how.
Warm white is the colour we spray most often over 1990s oak and maple here, because it brightens a kitchen that faces into a shaded back yard. Soft greige and sage come next. Deep green and navy are popular for islands.
Cream suits cathedral doors that are keeping their arch, since it makes the curve look traditional. Comparing sample doors side by side settles the cabinet painting colour before any cabinet painting is booked.
Deep shades add to cabinet painting costs because they take more material and time to spray. Navy, forest green and charcoal usually take a third coat, and a deeply tinted base costs more per can than white.
Going light over a dark stain adds cost as well, because the primer has two jobs, hiding the old tone and gripping the wood. That explains the shellac primer on oak and cherry, as our oak cabinet painting page describes.
Cost should not talk you into a shade you do not love. Knowing the full cabinet painting figure early just makes the decision easier.
The final colour gets chosen in your own kitchen, under your own lights, on a sample made from one of your own doors. You pay nothing for the visit, the written cabinet painting quote or the colour advice. Call +1 (365) 217-9589, share the shades you are considering, or return to the home page.
Ensuite vanities, laundry uppers, pantry towers and wall units are primed and topcoated just like the kitchen.
Kitchen cabinet painting gives a tired 1990s kitchen a fresh colour and a tough sprayed coat, and the boxes, countertop and sink never leave the wall. Each door is cleaned, scuffed, primed to suit its wood and sprayed before it is rehung.
See Kitchen Cabinets
Arched cathedral doors can be painted as they are, filled to a square top, or swapped for flat shaker doors while the rest of the kitchen is painted. Cabinet painting on these doors starts with one decision about the curve, and we price every option at the visit.
See Cathedral Doors
Oak cabinet painting needs a stain-blocking primer because oak tannin bleeds brown through water-based products. The open grain also telegraphs through paint unless it is filled level before the topcoats go on.
See Oak Cabinets
Cabinet refinishing removes the old clear coat by sanding or stripping, refreshes the stain tone and locks the colour in under a fresh sprayed clear topcoat. We recommend it instead of paint whenever the grain is the best feature in the room.
See Refinishing
A spray gun breaks the coating into tiny droplets that flow together and level before they set, leaving no brush lines or roller stipple. Cabinet painting applied this way looks much like a finish from a cabinet factory.
See Spray Painting
Shiny factory doors keep paint only when a purpose-made bonding primer goes on first and the surface itself is still firmly attached. Cabinet painting does well on solid melamine and firmly bonded thermofoil, but a vinyl skin that is already lifting is past saving with a coating.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
Refacing hangs brand-new doors and drawer fronts on the carcasses already in your kitchen, while door replacement swaps only the few doors that are damaged or out of style. Both are often paired with cabinet painting so the new and old parts finish in one matching colour.
See Refacing and New Doors
Light uppers over darker lowers, or a painted perimeter with a contrasting island, are the two-tone layouts people ask for most. A lone island is a full cabinet painting job in its own right and one of the quickest ways to change a room.
See Two-Tone and Islands
Most vanities take one or two days, and no job we do is easier to live around. The doors are sprayed at the shop, the base is sprayed on site, and after cabinet painting the bathroom is back in service fast.
See Bathroom Vanities
Condo and townhouse kitchens are small, usually ten to twenty doors, and the job moves quickly once the building rules are sorted out. Cabinet painting in a shared complex works best when parking, work hours and noise are planned first.
See Condo Kitchens
Pantry cupboards, laundry uppers, mudroom lockers, family room wall units and bookcases receive the primer and sprayed enamel the kitchen does. Since most are fastened in place, their cabinet painting happens on site inside a plastic tent.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
Leftover knob holes are plugged and filled so the new colour hides them completely, and new holes for pulls are bored off a jig so each handle sits level. Tired hinges get swapped during cabinet painting, since the doors are down anyway.
See Hardware and HingesWe visit, tally each door and drawer, identify the material and list the whole job on paper. Neither the visit nor the quote costs you anything.
Share any cabinet details you have handy, and we will call to book a time. The form goes through with just a name and a number. To talk it over by phone, call +1 (365) 217-9589.
