Cabinet painting cost dataset

Painting against refacing against replacing

Painting is 51% of replacing and 51% of refacing, and all three come from models on this site at the same BLS wages, which is the only way the comparison means anything — three figures copied from three different sources share neither wages nor assumptions and cannot be subtracted from each other. ⚠️ The result worth pausing on is the bottom two rows: on our own models, refacing this kitchen lands within a few percent of replacing it outright. Refacing is normally sold as the middle option, and here it is not the middle of anything — which makes it the row to question hardest, because a refacing quote then has to win on something other than price. See our refacing dataset and our cabinet installation dataset. ⚠️ The caveat, stated rather than hidden: the replacement model is indexed by linear feet of run, so its figure is a 10 by 10 reference kitchen rather than this exact door count. It is the right order of magnitude, not the same kitchen to the dollar.

Why the unit is the door

The cost per piece barely moves across a threefold change in kitchen size — $157 to $149 — because there is almost no economy of scale in one operation repeated. That is exactly why linear feet mislead here: two kitchens with the same worktop run can carry twelve doors or twenty-eight, and the second is more than twice the job. ⚠️ Two lines worth pricing separately: painting the visible cabinet sides and face frames as well as the doors is the difference between $3,704 and $4,230, and new handles and hinges add $384.

Substrate and method

⚠️ The row that matters most on this page is the one marked no. Thermofoil is a vinyl film heat-formed over MDF, and no domestic primer bonds to it reliably: it peels from the edges in sheets within about a year and takes the paint with it, leaving doors worse than they started and no way back. The calculator still prices that work, because refusing to show a number is not the same as being useful, but it says plainly it should not be bought. What the three methods buy is finish, not durability: brush marks visible in raking light, smooth, with a day of the kitchen sealed off, and closest to a factory finish. The pre-1978 row is lead paint containment under the EPA renovation rule, priced as extra hours rather than as a surcharge.

Line items

25% of the reference total comes from estimated rather than official figures. The reference job is 20 wood doors and 8 drawer fronts — 28 pieces, 24 equivalents — sprayed in the house with the cabinet boxes painted, existing hardware refitted: 36 trade hours and $151 a piece.

The reasoning behind each figure

Degreasing, sanding and keying every face

• Per equivalent door, counting a drawer front as half. Doors down, numbered, hinges off, washed with a degreaser, dried, then abraded on both faces and all four edges.
• ⚠️ This is the line that decides whether the job survives, and it is the first thing a cheap quote shortens. Kitchen cabinet doors carry a film of cooking grease that is invisible and that paint will not stick to — a beautifully sprayed finish over a greasy door peels off in strips at the handle edge within a year.
• Scaled by material: MDF needs less, laminate and thermofoil need considerably more because the surface is slick by design.

Taking the doors off and hanging them back

• Per equivalent door: unscrewing, labelling so every door goes back on its own hinges, and rehanging and adjusting at the end.
• ⚠️ The adjusting is the part that gets rushed. Cabinet doors are set to sit in line with each other, and a kitchen where every door has been taken off and put back roughly is visibly wrong along a long run even when the paint is perfect.

Bonding primerestimated, ±46%

• Per equivalent door, both faces and all edges. A bonding or shellac-based primer rather than a general-purpose one, because the whole job depends on this coat gripping.
• It is also what blocks tannin bleed on oak and knots on pine, which otherwise comes through a white finish as brown patches weeks later.

Cabinet-grade finish paintestimated, ±45%

• Per equivalent door, two finish coats. A hard-curing cabinet enamel rather than wall or trim paint — kitchen doors are touched, knocked and wiped daily and an ordinary trim paint stays soft enough to mark.
• ⚠️ Whatever the product, a painted cabinet takes weeks to reach full hardness. Doors closed hard against frames in the first fortnight print the frame into the paint, and that mark does not come out.

Grain filling on open-grain wood

• Per equivalent door: filler worked across the grain, left, sanded back flat, and repeated where it sinks.
• ⚠️ Only relevant on oak and similar. Without it the grain telegraphs through however many coats go on, which is fine if that is the look you want and a disappointment if you were expecting a flat modern door. Decide before, not after.

Priming and finishing

• From 1.15 hours per equivalent door brushed on site to 1.9 sprayed in a workshop — the finer the finish, the more handling, masking and drying time it takes.
• The workshop figure looks expensive per door and buys the only finish here that gets close to how the doors looked new. It also means the kitchen has no doors for a week or two.

Painting the cabinet boxes and visible frames

• Per door opening: the face frame around it and any end panel on show, done in place with the kitchen masked.
• ⚠️ Leaving the boxes out is the commonest way a quote comes in low, and it is visible from the first day: new doors against the old colour of the frames they hang on. Ask explicitly whether the frames are included.

Masking the kitchen and protecting worktopsestimated, ±55%

• Sheeting, tape and floor protection. Considerably more where the finish is sprayed in the house, because overspray travels: appliances, worktops, splashbacks and anything left out all have to be covered.
• A workshop job needs much less of it, which offsets part of what the workshop costs.

New handles and hingesestimated, ±63%

• Per equivalent door. The cheapest thing on this page that changes how a kitchen looks, and the moment to do it is while the doors are already off.
• ⚠️ New handles rarely land on the old holes. Where they do not, the old holes have to be filled and made invisible under the paint, which is easy while the door is bare and impossible afterwards.

Lead-safe containment and cleaning verificationestimated, ±53%

• Sheeting, HEPA vacuum consumables and cleaning verification wipes.
• ⚠️ In a pre-1978 house, sanding painted cabinet doors and frames disturbs painted surface, and a whole kitchen passes the six-square-foot per room exemption comfortably. It has to be a certified firm.

Not included in this dataset

New doors

Keeping the boxes and fitting new doors and drawer fronts is refacing, and it is priced on its own page here. It is the honest answer where the doors are thermofoil, water-damaged, or a style you will still dislike in a different colour.

New cabinets

Ripping the units out and starting again is a different order of project, priced on our cabinet installation and kitchen remodel pages. It is also the only one of the three that changes the layout.

Repairing the units themselves

Sagging shelves, broken drawer runners, doors that no longer close and swollen MDF under the sink are repairs, and paint does not fix any of them. They come before painting or they stay.

Worktops, splashbacks and appliances

Painting the doors changes how a kitchen looks more than anything else for the money, and it does not change any of those. If they are what you dislike, this page is not the answer.

Interior doors, trim and walls

Different job, different paint, different page — our interior painting calculator. It is worth pricing together though, because the crew and the masking are already there.

Living without a kitchen

A sprayed-in-place job takes the kitchen out of use for a day or more, and a workshop job means a week or two with no doors on the units. Neither is a line on an invoice and both are real.