Every painted cabinet, one crew
Kitchener Elite Cabinet Painting & Refinishing paints the cabinets in every room of the house, from the kitchen and the ensuite vanity to the mudroom bench, the garage wall and the built-ins beside the fireplace. We also refinish cabinetry in offices, dental clinics and small commercial spaces across Kitchener-Waterloo.
Since 2010 our painters have finished more than 1,700 residential jobs in Waterloo Region, Guelph and the townships around them. That volume shows up in the small calls: which 1980s oak doors will bleed tannin, which builder melamine needs a bonding primer, and which thermofoil should be replaced instead of painted.
Whatever the room, you get the same sprayed finish, a fixed written quote and a 1-year labour warranty. The real question is which service suits the cabinets you have, and the groups that follow make that easy to answer.
Kitchens
Painting is the fastest way to change how a kitchen feels while keeping the boxes, countertops and backsplash you already paid for. A medium kitchen of 21 to 35 pieces usually costs $3,400 to $5,200 before HST, while new mid-range cabinets in Waterloo Region typically start around $20,000 installed.
Doors and drawer fronts go to our spray booth for two coats of Renner 2K waterborne polyurethane while the boxes are sprayed in place behind zip walls. A typical 25 to 40 piece kitchen takes 5 to 7 working days, and the fridge, sink and stove stay usable on all but about one of them.
A navy, green or charcoal island adds contrast without repainting the whole kitchen. We paint it in place over 2 days, usually for $650 to $1,400.
Tall pantry doors and full-height panels are $160 to $220 each, since they carry about twice the surface of a standard door and need careful hinge adjustment to hang straight. Pantry interiors can be added at $45 to $65 per box.
Most IKEA fronts, including painted fibreboard lines like VEDDINGE and foil lines like VOXTORP, take paint well over a bonding primer once a test patch passes. IKEA kitchens are priced per piece, exactly like any other kitchen.
Dark lowers under light uppers, or a contrasting island and pantry wall, add a second colour for a flat $250. We spray sample boards of both colours so you can judge the pair in your own light.
Condo jobs follow the building's work hours, usually 8:00 am to 5:00 pm on weekdays, with the elevator booked and padded. Your property manager gets our certificate of insurance before day one.
Refinishing and upgrades
Not every job is a straight colour change. Some cabinets need a worn finish renewed, a split stile glued, soft-close hinges fitted or new doors altogether, and these usually go on the same quote as the painting.
Refinishing renews the finish on cabinets you already own: worn lacquer by the sink and dishwasher, sticky or yellowed clear coats and sun-faded doors. We tell you whether a respray or a full colour change will give the better result.
We never roll or brush cabinet doors. Doors are sprayed in our booth with air-assisted airless and HVLP guns, and boxes are sprayed on site with a fine-finish HVLP, so there is no roller stipple or brush drag anywhere.
Doors and drawer fronts only, for DIYers painting their own boxes, builders with new raw MDF doors and painters who want booth-sprayed fronts. Doors are $110 to $150 each and drawer fronts $75 to $95, both sides sprayed.
Glass-front uppers, open shelving and water-stained sink bases are where painted interiors pay off. Interiors add $45 to $65 per box.
Blum Clip Top Blumotion soft-close hinges are $14 each supplied and installed, and pulls from Richelieu's Canadian catalogue or your own are fitted for $4 a piece. Old holes are filled, or new ones drilled, for $6 each.
Loose joints, swollen edges and split stiles are fixed before any primer goes on, because paint only hides a repair that is already sound. Most minor repairs are $40 to $150 per item.
When doors are peeling, broken or simply the wrong style, new doors and drawer fronts go on the existing boxes and everything is painted to match. It is the usual answer for lifting thermofoil and cathedral-arch doors you would rather replace.
Our finish
Every service on this page uses one coating system, so a vanity painted this spring matches a kitchen painted the following year. Doors and drawer fronts get Renner 2K waterborne polyurethane in our booth, and fixed boxes, face frames and built-ins get Benjamin Moore ADVANCE sprayed on site.
The full sequence, from labelling hinges to the final walkthrough, is on our cabinet painting process page. Per-piece rates for every service are on our cabinet painting price list, and colour ideas are in our cabinet colour guide.
By material
What your cabinets are made of decides the primer, the prep and sometimes whether paint is the right answer at all. Kitchener's 1980s oak, 1990s melamine and 2000s thermofoil kitchens each fail in their own way when the prep is wrong, and our guide to which cabinets can be painted helps you tell them apart.
Oak needs Zinsser B-I-N shellac primer to stop yellow tannin bleed, and its open grain still shows through paint unless it is filled. Grain filling with Aqua Coat is $35 per door or drawer face.
Melamine holds paint only over a true bonding primer. Every melamine job starts with a scuff sand, INSL-X STIX and an adhesion test patch before the full kitchen is booked.
Thermofoil can be painted only when the vinyl is fully bonded, with no bubbles, peeling or heat damage. If it is lifting beside the oven or dishwasher, new MDF doors painted to match are the honest fix.
MDF gives the smoothest painted finish of any cabinet material once its thirsty cut edges are sealed with two coats of primer. It is also what most new Shaker doors are made of.
Free quote
Send us a few photos of your cabinets and the room, and we will tell you which service fits, what your cabinets are made of and what the job should cost. Quotes go out within 1 business day of receiving your photos.