Willowdale house and condo owners ask these on nearly every call.
If it depends on your building or your doors, we will answer it at the free visit.
No, it is a different product. We use furniture-grade coatings for cabinet painting: a water-based alkyd enamel that levels nicely and can be mixed in almost any colour, or a catalysed polyurethane that cures much harder. Both are low in odour and both are sprayed. The product chosen for your kitchen is named on the quote.
Yes, for cabinet painting in the booth, and it makes a real difference to the finish. In our booth, clean air, constant heat and flat racks give each door ideal drying conditions. Boxes and frames remain at home and get coated inside a plastic enclosure.
Yes. We sand away the shine, fill chipped edges and apply an adhesion primer designed for hard factory coatings. Few cabinet painting jobs come up more often in Willowdale's newer houses.
Yes, when the surface is still tight. A bonding primer grips the slick finish and the topcoat bonds to that. Peeling thermofoil is off the table, since no coating can glue lifting vinyl back down. Fronts beside the range and dishwasher are always inspected first.
Plan on a few weeks of lead time, longer in the busy spring and fall months. Early booking also leaves room for a finished sample to stay in the kitchen before you choose. One ruined front can usually be handled on shorter notice.
Only when the quote says so. Painting interiors roughly doubles the sprayed area, since every shelf, side and back needs coating, and adjustable shelves are finished on both sides. Plenty of clients coat only fronts and frames and keep the original interiors.
A new front takes its place and joins the rest of the cabinet painting, so the match is exact. Sink-side swelling or a cracked panel affects just that one front, and replacing it typically adds a few hundred dollars.
Very little. Any product with a noticeable smell is used at our booth, away from where you live. What we spray in the house is water-based and low in odour, and it clears quickly with good airflow. That matters most in condo towers, where air is shared between suites.
Yes, if you are changing them. Installing new counters after cabinet painting can chip or scratch the fresh finish. Counters, backsplash and plumbing come first, and cabinet painting comes last. When the stone is staying, colours get chosen around it.
After cabinet painting, use mild dish soap, warm water and a soft cloth. Abrasive pads, gritty powders and strong sprays can scratch or flatten the sheen, above all during the early weeks. Wipe up spills quickly, especially near the sink and dishwasher.
A kitchen with 50 or more doors is usually sprayed in two or three batches, so the full job can take two to three weeks from start to finish. We are in the house for four to six working days in total, and the kitchen is never left with every door off at once.
Yes, by a wide margin. Toronto figures put full cabinet painting at $2,800 to $6,000, refacing at $3,300 to $11,000, and a replacement kitchen from about $16,500 to beyond $45,000 in a large home. Your own written quote carries the precise number.
The pages below go into more depth on the work described in these answers.
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
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.
See Refacing and New Doors
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 ConsultationList 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.
