Cabinet painting prices
How Much Does It Cost to Paint Kitchen Cabinets?
Having your kitchen cabinets professionally painted in Amador County might run from about $4,000 for a small kitchen up to $11,800 for a large one. Bathroom vanities and laundry room cabinets start around $2,500. Two things move that number more than anything else: the size of your kitchen and the condition your cabinets are in. The real ranges are below.
All paint will stick to your cabinets in the beginning. How long it lasts depends on how much the people doing the work care about the outcome.
Cabinets live a harder life than walls do: grease, steam, the odd knock, and a thousand openings a year. Nowhere in the house does that sentence earn its keep faster.
Before the number
What Moves the Price of Cabinet Painting
The size of your kitchen.
More cabinet runs mean more surface to prep and spray, and more time on the racks. That’s the honest driver, and it’s why the ranges below are organized by kitchen, not by some formula.
The condition your cabinets are in.
Well cared for cabinets cost less to refinish than greasy or worn ones, because most of a cabinet job is the part you never see: degreasing, sanding, and priming before any color goes on. When a cabinet finish fails, it’s almost always the prep that gave out, hardly ever the paint.
How many coats yours need.
Depending on their condition and the color you’re going to, cabinets take anywhere from two to four coats, and there’s no such thing as a guaranteed one-coat paint. A dramatic color change sits at the top of that span.
How the finish goes on.
Our standard, wherever your kitchen suits it, is a fully sprayed, furniture-grade finish across the doors, drawer fronts, and boxes, with the doors and drawer fronts curing on our racks away from dust. If your cabinets carry an unknown coating from a past project, we might go with a durable enamel and hand-finish the boxes instead, and we’ll tell you which of the two yours calls for when we see them.
Extras while the doors are off.
New pulls or hinges cost the least to install during a refinish, since the doors are already off. If you’ve been wanting them, this is the moment.
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What Cabinet Projects Might Cost
| Project | Doors and drawers | Might run |
|---|---|---|
| Large bathroom vanity or laundry room | 10 to 15 | from $2,500 |
| Small kitchen | 15 to 20 | from $4,000 |
| Smaller two-wall kitchen | 20 to 25 | $4,300-$5,400 |
| Galley kitchen | 25 to 30 | $5,400-$6,500 |
| Larger kitchen | 30 to 40 | $6,500-$8,600 |
| Open kitchen with island | 40 to 45 | $8,600-$9,700 |
| Four-wall kitchen | 45 to 50 | $9,700-$10,800 |
| Large kitchen | 50 to 55 | $10,800-$11,800 |
Above a small kitchen, we price cabinet work at about $215 per door and drawer front, which is where every range in that table comes from: the low number is the bottom of the count, the high number is the top of it. Vanities and small kitchens have a starting price instead, because the setup takes the same time whether there are twelve doors or twenty.
Where you land inside a range comes down to condition. Greasy, damaged, or previously coated cabinets need more prep and sometimes four coats instead of two.
A third option
What If You Want New Doors?
Sometimes the boxes are fine and the doors are the problem. Flat slab fronts, a dated raised panel, or no trim at all. Refinishing solves a tired finish, but it cannot change the shape of a door.
So we do a third thing that most people don’t know is an option: new doors and drawer fronts, with your existing boxes prepped and sprayed to match. You keep the boxes and the layout, which is where the cost and the demolition live, and you change the part you actually look at.
A smaller kitchen will add $2,500 to $4,000. A large kitchen will add $6,000 or more.
That sits on top of the refinishing price for your kitchen size, and it moves with the door style you pick, since a large door costs more than twice what a small one does.
That’s real money, and it’s the honest number. What you are not paying for is demolition, new boxes, or a new layout, because none of that happens. If you’re getting a refacing or replacement quote as well, you’ll have our number in hand to hold them against.
These are ballparks for planning, not your quote. Your number gets fixed in writing after we’ve seen the kitchen.
Comparing quotes
Why Are the Cabinet Quotes So Far Apart?
Cabinet quotes swing more than almost any other painting work, and it’s rarely about the cabinets themselves. It’s what the quote leaves vague. Is the finish sprayed for a smooth result, or brushed and rolled so you can see every stroke a year later? Are the boxes included or just the doors? Is every door and every piece of hardware going back on, or is that quietly left to you? Is the prep a real degrease-and-sand, or a quick scuff that the finish will pay for in year two?
The gap between a cheap quote and a fair one usually lives in what nobody wrote down, and you find it after you’ve already said yes to someone. So we write ours down: the proposal names the prep, the products, the coats, and exactly what gets sprayed and reinstalled. If anything needs to change mid-job, you approve it in writing first.
We’re rarely the lowest bid, and we’d rather you hear that from us now than feel blindsided later. Sometimes it runs the other way too: if your cabinets are honestly better off replaced than refinished, we’ll tell you that while we’re standing in your kitchen.
Straight answers
Cabinet Painting Cost Questions
Answered here the same way we answer them standing in your kitchen.
+How much does it cost to have your kitchen cabinets professionally painted?
Most full kitchens run between $4,000 and $11,800, depending on the size of the kitchen and the condition of the cabinets. A small kitchen starts around $4,000, while a large or open-plan kitchen with an island runs about $8,600-$11,800. A written proposal after one visit fixes your exact number.
+Is painting cabinets cheaper than replacing them?
Usually by a wide margin, because your existing cabinets are typically solid wood boxes that would cost many times these prices to replace, and they’ve just gone tired and dark on you. When that’s not true and replacement really is the better move, we’ll say so at the estimate rather than refinish something we shouldn’t.
+Do you stain cabinets, or only paint them?
Both. We paint cabinets and change their color, and we stain and refinish cabinets that are already stained, often without stripping them down. It goes past kitchens too: bathroom vanities, laundry cabinets, entertainment centers, bookcases, and other built-ins.
+How many coats do painted cabinets need?
Two to four, depending on the shape your cabinets are in and the color you’re going to. Nobody can honestly promise a good cabinet finish in one coat, so we don’t.
+I’m looking for someone to paint my kitchen cabinets. How do I start?
Book an estimate online, which takes about 90 seconds, or call or text (209) 256-4587. We come look at your cabinets, you tell us what you’re picturing, and you get a fixed price in writing. Nothing is due until you decide to hire us, and every painter on the job is our own employee.
The 90 second step
Get Your Number
Booking an estimate online takes about 90 seconds. We look over your cabinets in person, then you get a written proposal that fixes the scope and the price. If you hire us, 10% holds your project dates, never more than $1,000.
Want a number for your own place before you book? Get an instant quote.
Michael Hines Painting · Ione, CA 95640 · (209) 256-4587
The other guides
What Everything Else Costs
Same idea, same lack of a form. Every guide we publish is here.
How Much Does Interior Painting Cost?
Rooms from $700. Whole interiors $7,700 to $20,000.
Read the interior painting guideHow Much Does It Cost to Paint a House Exterior?
About $6,000 to $22,000 or more.
Read the exterior painting guideHow Much Does Deck Staining Cost?
$2,400 to about $24,000.
Read the deck staining guideAll four sit under the painting cost guides hub. For how the work itself is done, see our cabinet painting and refinishing page.