Laundry and utility rooms
A laundry room is small, warm, damp and busy, which makes it one of the toughest rooms in the house for a cabinet finish. Kitchener Elite Cabinet Painting & Refinishing paints laundry and utility room cabinets across Kitchener and Waterloo Region, from a pair of uppers over a front-load washer to a full wall of storage with a folding counter.
In more than 16 years and 1,700 jobs, laundry rooms have taught us lessons a kitchen never does. Dryer heat softens fresh paint, lint clings to anything tacky, and detergent drips leave rings on the wrong sheen.
So we choose the coating, the sheen and the schedule for the room itself. Most laundry banks take 2 to 4 days in total, with our crew in your home for 2 to 3 of them.
Heat, damp and soap
Laundry room cabinets fail from a mix of heat, moisture and chemicals that no other room combines. Paint that would last a decade in a dining room can soften, stain or peel above a dryer.
These are the problems we see most:
Before we start, check that the dryer vent is firmly clamped and exhausting outdoors. Heat damage from appliances vented at cabinets is not covered by any paint warranty, ours included, because no cabinet coating is made to take it.
Below grade
Many Kitchener laundry rooms sit in the basement, and a cold, damp basement is the main reason we sometimes delay a laundry job by a few days. Our on-site coating needs the room at 15°C or warmer, and it cures best when the air is not muggy.
In our shop we hold 18 to 24°C and 40 to 55% relative humidity, and we try to get your basement as close to that as practical. Before day 1 we usually ask you to:
Cabinets that sit right against a concrete wall can trap condensation behind them. If a back panel is stained or soft, we would rather show you before quoting than paint over it.
Colour and sheen
A laundry room is a good place to try a colour you might not risk in the kitchen. It is a small space, you visit it every day, and a cheerful colour makes the chores feel a little lighter.
Light colours and a little more sheen bounce the ceiling light around a small room. Clean whites like Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace (OC-65) or a pale blue in satin or semi-gloss make a basement laundry feel noticeably brighter.
Carrying the kitchen colour into a main-floor laundry makes the house feel planned, which buyers notice. We can match any Benjamin Moore or Sherwin-Williams colour and check it against your kitchen doors before spraying.
Satin at about 25 to 35% gloss is our usual pick, and semi-gloss at about 50% wipes clean even faster. We avoid matte in laundry rooms because detergent leaves a shiny ring on a flat finish.
If you want ideas beyond these, our cabinet colour guide has more shades that suit small, hard-working rooms.
Appliances
We paint around your washer and dryer in place, masking them completely, rather than disconnecting them ourselves. If you want the side panels or the wall behind the machines painted, have them pulled forward before day 1.
A few ground rules keep the job safe and quick:
Stacked units and front-loaders on pedestals leave very little room at the sides. We mask those gaps carefully and paint the visible edges only.
How it works
A laundry room usually takes 2 to 4 days from start to finish, with 2 to 3 days of our crew in your home. The doors spend most of that time in our shop, which keeps the room usable for longer.
The stages are the same as for any of our cabinet jobs, explained in full on our cabinet painting process page.
Floors are covered with Ram Board, the washer and dryer are masked, and every door, drawer front and hinge is labelled before it comes off.
Boxes are degreased twice with Krud Kutter, sanded and primed. Melamine gets INSL-X STIX bonding primer, while oak and cherry get Zinsser B-I-N.
Doors get two coats of Renner 2K in our booth. The boxes are sprayed on site with Benjamin Moore ADVANCE inside plastic zip walls.
Doors go back on after at least 24 to 48 hours of curing. Hold off on laundry on the day the boxes are sprayed, then run loads normally from the next day with the door open.
Pricing
Painting a full laundry room bank costs $1,100 to $2,600 before HST. A small set of two or three uppers is priced per piece and usually falls at our $650 minimum job.
| Laundry room scope | Typical price | What changes the price |
|---|---|---|
| Two or three uppers over the machines | $650 minimum job | Door style and whether the boxes are melamine |
| Full laundry wall or bank | $1,100 to $2,600 | Number of doors, tall cabinets and drawers |
| Utility sink base | $110 to $150 per door, plus the box | Any repair to a swollen base floor |
| Tall broom or pantry-style door | $160 to $220 each | Height and panel profile |
| Cabinet interiors | $45 to $65 per box | Number of shelves |
Laundry rooms booked with a kitchen are priced per piece within the same job, so the small-room minimum stops being a factor. Our cabinet painting price guide explains how pieces and extras are counted.
FAQ
The questions we hear most about laundry rooms are about the cabinets themselves and how quickly the machines can run again.
Yes, as long as the melamine is intact and not swollen. We scuff sand it, apply INSL-X STIX bonding primer and do an adhesion test patch first, as explained on our painting melamine cabinets page.
Skip laundry on the day the boxes are sprayed, because dryer heat and airborne lint on wet paint leave a fuzzy, soft patch. From the next day you can run the dryer normally, ideally with the laundry room door open for the first week.
Yes. We check the base floor for swelling first, then prime and paint it like the rest of the bank. Wipe up splashes rather than letting water sit on the toe-kick, since standing water is the one thing no coating survives.
Yes, please empty every cabinet and clear the top of the machines before day 1. Cleaning products, laundry pods and bleach should go to another room for the whole job.
Yes, interiors are an add-on at $45 to $65 per box. Most people skip them in a laundry room, but they make sense on open shelves or glass-front uppers.
Free quote
Send us a wide photo of the laundry room and one of the open sink base, and we will send back a fixed written quote within 1 business day. Tell us whether the room is in the basement, so we can plan for temperature and humidity.