New doors and drawer fronts can go onto the boxes you already have, sprayed in the same colour as the frames. Think of it as the step between cabinet painting and a complete tear-out.
Refacing fits a room with healthy boxes and fronts that are worn, peeling, water-damaged or simply out of style. In Willowdale that often means peeling thermofoil in a 1990s kitchen or chipped gloss doors in a custom home.
If most doors are solid and flat, cabinet painting is the best value. If only a few are ruined, we swap those few and coat them alongside the originals. If most doors have failed, or you want a different style, refacing is the better choice.
A door style change is the other common reason. Owners who want a clean shaker door in place of a curved raised panel or a glossy slab often choose new fronts.
In a big infill kitchen, refacing every door can cost a lot because of the high door count. That is why most owners of large custom kitchens choose cabinet painting and replace only the doors that are damaged.
If the doors are flat MDF and the style still suits you, painting them is by far the better value. If you want a completely different look, refacing is worth pricing. We write both options on one quote so the difference is easy to compare.
In Toronto, refacing a kitchen usually costs $3,300 to $11,000, depending on door count, style and material. Full cabinet painting generally falls from $2,800 up to $6,000. Replacing everything begins near $16,500 and can exceed $45,000 in a big custom home.
Swapping one or two ruined fronts adds a few hundred dollars apiece to the cabinet painting quote.
A new door sprayed on its own never quite matches old doors painted months earlier. New and original fronts share one spraying session, one primer and one topcoat, so nobody can tell which are new.
Frames and gables get matching coats as well. New soft-close hinges are usually fitted at the same time, since new doors need hinges anyway. For hinges and pulls, visit cabinet hardware and soft-close hinges.
Plywood and MDF boxes in most Willowdale kitchens are rarely the part that fails. Keeping them saves the cost of demolition, new boxes and new counters.
Before advising you to keep a box, we look for sink leaks, weak joints and bowed shelving.
Many Willowdale owners want to move from a curved or ornate door to a simple shaker or slab door. Cabinet painting cannot change the shape of a door, so refacing is the right call when the style itself is the problem.
New MDF shaker doors are made to your exact sizes, primed, and sprayed in your chosen colour. On site, we coat the frames, gables and fixed fillers in the same colour. New drawer fronts arrive along with the doors, so the whole room shares one look.
Refacing costs more than cabinet painting because the new doors must be made, but it still costs far less than new boxes and counters. It also keeps the kitchen layout exactly the same, so the plumbing, appliances and stone stay in place.
We inspect every box and door and write a quote with the cabinet painting price, the refacing price and any single-door replacements side by side. Call +1 (647) 370-5454, arrange a visit, or head back to the Willowdale home page.
Condo vanities, pantry walls, laundry closets and custom built-ins are primed and topcoated with the kitchen system.
Each front is degreased, scuffed and primed according to its material, then sprayed with a durable topcoat and rehung. With kitchen cabinet painting the whole room gets a new colour, while stone, faucet and tile stay untouched.
See Kitchen Cabinets
The custom homes that replaced Willowdale's bungalows hold some of the largest kitchens in Toronto, often with 50 or more doors in lacquer, polyester or painted MDF. Cabinet painting refreshes those kitchens for a fraction of what new custom millwork costs.
See Infill Homes
Before oak takes colour, it needs a tannin-sealing primer and a firm decision on what happens to its open pores. Handled in that sequence, oak cabinet painting ends up even, smooth and free of brown bleed.
See Oak Cabinets
Certain wood kitchens deserve restoring rather than covering, so refinishing removes the tired finish, shifts the stain tone where needed, and protects the timber with a sprayed clear coat. When the timber is handsome enough to keep on view, it replaces paint altogether.
See Refinishing
Spraying lays primer and topcoat down in thin, even coats that level out smooth, with no roller texture and no brush lines. Cabinet painting done this way looks close to a factory finish and lasts longer at the handles.
See Spray Painting
Shiny factory finishes will accept colour, provided an adhesion primer goes first and the surface remains firmly stuck to its core. Before any thermofoil, melamine or laminate cabinet painting, we inspect each door one by one.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
Two-tone means pale wall runs matched with a deeper island or deeper base cabinets, and no cabinet painting layout is asked for more often today. An island can also be painted alone to give an older kitchen a new focus.
See Two-Tone and Islands
No cabinet painting booking is smaller than a bathroom vanity, which most often wraps up within two days. Steam and splashing mean it needs a hard topcoat and a full cure before heavy cleaning.
See Bathroom Vanities
Condo kitchens are small, but building rules, elevator bookings and shared air make the planning bigger than the job. With condo kitchen cabinet work, fronts leave the unit, so daily life inside carries on.
See Condo Kitchens
Pantries, laundry cupboards, mudroom lockers and fitted units receive the primer and topcoat a kitchen would. These units are anchored, so we do the job where they stand, inside sealed sheeting.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
Fresh handles and quiet-closing hinges complete a painted kitchen, and fitting them is easiest when the fronts are down anyway. Unused holes get plugged, new ones are bored off a jig, and hardware goes on after the cabinet painting has hardened.
See Hardware and Hinges
A full door finished in the shade and propped in your kitchen settles what a tiny chip never will. Cabinet painting colour consultation lets you judge true colour on your actual cabinetry, under your actual lighting, before deciding.
See Colour ConsultationA visit covers the door tally, the material check and a written scope. There is no fee for the visit or the quote.
List what you know about the cabinets, house or suite. We phone back to pick a time and need only a name and number. Or reach us directly at +1 (647) 370-5454.
