Doors only, sprayed in our shop
Not every cabinet job needs a crew in the kitchen. Kitchener Elite Cabinet Painting & Refinishing also takes doors on their own: homeowners drop off doors while they paint the boxes themselves, and builders and installers send new unfinished MDF doors to be spray-finished in our shop.
We have finished cabinet doors for 16+ years and more than 1,700 jobs, and every one went through the same booth, primer and Renner 2K topcoat. That consistency is what DIYers, kitchen installers and painting contractors without a spray setup are paying for.
Pricing is per door and per drawer front, so you know the cost from a simple count before you load the car.
Doors only
Door-only cabinet painting means you bring us the doors and drawer fronts, we spray them in our booth, and you pick them up finished and ready to hang. We never need to visit the house, so there is no masking, no zip walls and no time off work waiting for a crew.
We finish almost any door that is flat, sound and dry:
Water-swollen particleboard and peeling thermofoil are the exceptions. Those doors need cabinet repair or replacing before paint can help.
Who it is for
Three kinds of customers keep our drying racks full: homeowners who want a pro finish where it counts, builders who need doors finished to a spec, and painters who would rather not build a booth.
Doors and drawer fronts take the daily knocks and sit at eye level, so they are where a sprayed finish matters most. You paint the boxes at your own pace and we spray the doors in the same colour and sheen.
New raw MDF doors arrive at our shop unfinished and leave primed, sealed and sprayed in the colour on your order. A basement suite, rental unit or new build gets doors that look factory-made without a factory lead time.
Plenty of good painters brush and roll walls all day but have no booth for cabinet doors. They bring us the doors, we spray them in their client's colour, and they paint the boxes on site.
Before you load the car
Good preparation means every door goes back on the right opening with the right hinges, and it keeps your quote accurate. Take a few minutes with painter's tape and a marker before drop-off:
Bring the count sheet with you, or send it with photos when you ask for a quote. If you want new pulls in a different spot, we fill the old holes and drill new ones before primer through our cabinet hardware upgrades, at $6 per hole.
Two kinds of prep
New raw MDF needs sealing, while old finished doors need cleaning and scuffing, and the prep is different enough that we treat them as two separate jobs. Both end with the same two Renner 2K topcoats sprayed in the booth.
| Step | New unfinished MDF doors | Previously finished doors |
|---|---|---|
| First job | Dust off and check for machining marks | Degrease twice with Krud Kutter and rinse |
| Sanding | Light scuff on faces, edges smoothed | 220 grit scuff, or 120 to 150 grit where the old finish is failing |
| Edges and repairs | Routed and cut edges sealed with primer twice, because raw MDF edges soak up paint and turn fuzzy | Chips and old hardware holes filled with two-part filler |
| Primer | Primer that seals the MDF fibres | INSL-X STIX on glossy or manufactured finishes, Zinsser B-I-N on oak and cherry |
| Topcoat | Two coats of Renner 2K, 320 grit between coats | Two coats of Renner 2K, a third if going white over dark wood |
| Result | The smoothest finish we produce | Smooth, though oak grain still shows unless it is grain filled |
MDF gives the smoothest result of any cabinet material, and our service for painting MDF cabinet doors goes deeper into why its edges need extra care. Oak doors can be grain filled at $35 per face, a step covered in detail under painting oak cabinets.
Drop-off to pickup
Doors spend 3 to 4 working days in our shop once we start them, and we set your drop-off and pickup dates when you book. Bookings usually run 2 to 3 weeks out, and spring and the weeks before Christmas fill fastest.
Send a door count and photos, get a fixed written quote within 1 business day, and pick a drop-off date at our Gage Ave shop.
We check every piece against your count sheet, then clean, sand, fill and prime it, sealing raw MDF edges twice.
Two coats of Renner 2K go on in the booth with 320 grit sanding between them, then the doors rest on racks for at least 24 to 48 hours.
We wrap the finished doors for the drive home. Handle them gently for the first 7 days; full hardness takes about 30 days.
Priced per piece
Cabinet door painting costs $110 to $150 per door before HST, sprayed on both sides, and $75 to $95 per drawer front. Where your doors fall in that range depends mostly on style, since a flat slab sprays faster than a raised panel with deep profiles.
| Piece | Price before HST |
|---|---|
| Cabinet door, both sides | $110 to $150 each |
| Drawer front | $75 to $95 each |
| Tall pantry door or full-height panel | $160 to $220 each |
| Oak grain filling | $35 per door or drawer face |
| Filling old hardware holes or drilling new ones | $6 per hole |
| Minor repair, such as a split stile or swollen edge | Usually $40 to $150 per item |
| Minimum order | $650 |
A typical set of 16 doors and 6 drawer fronts comes to roughly $2,210 to $2,970 before HST. Builders and painting contractors with repeat orders get a written quote for each batch, and our full cabinet painting price list shows how door-only work compares with a whole kitchen.
Why our shop
A door finish is only as good as the room it is sprayed in and the coating in the gun. Ours is a climate-held booth and a two-component topcoat, run by painters who have focused on cabinets since 2010.
The booth stays at 18 to 24°C and 40 to 55% humidity all year, so coats level and cure the same in February as in June.
The crosslinked two-component finish stands up to wet hands, cleaners and kicks far better than any one-component paint.
More than 1,700 jobs means we have already seen your door style, your wood species and most of the problems hiding under an old finish.
Our shop is a few minutes from Highway 7/8: about 10 to 15 minutes from Waterloo, 20 to 25 from Cambridge or Elmira, and about 30 from Guelph.
Common questions
Door-only customers usually ask the same few practical questions before their first drop-off.
Yes, most IKEA fronts can be painted, including painted fibreboard lines like VEDDINGE and foil lines like VOXTORP, with bonding primer after a test patch. Older high-gloss ABSTRAKT doors need testing first, and our IKEA cabinet painting service explains which lines take paint best.
Yes, please remove hinges, pulls and knobs and bag the screws with each door. If a hinge is seized or its screws are stripped, leave it on and tell us, and we will include it in the quote.
Yes, within our $650 minimum order, which covers roughly four to six doors depending on style. Matching one replacement door to an existing kitchen is possible, though an older factory finish may differ slightly in sheen.
We finish new doors rather than build them. Builders bring raw MDF doors from their own supplier, and homeowners who need new doors can use our cabinet refacing service, which pairs new MDF doors with painted boxes.
Yes. By pickup the doors have cured for at least 24 to 48 hours, which is enough to hang them carefully, but wait 14 days before adding stick-on bumpers and clean gently for the first 7.
Get a per-door quote
Send a door and drawer front count with a few photos, and we will reply with a fixed per-piece quote within 1 business day. Once you book, you get a drop-off date and a pickup date before anything leaves your house.