Many people ask me “how much does it cost of painting kitchen cabinets”?
After several decades of doing it (I began in Malibu in the late ’80s…) I came up with an easy formula. If your cabinets are only on one wall, they are most likely in a condo or an apartment, and they are not very voluminous. Those cabinets I have two rates for.
The Pricing
If they are simply worn and need restoring back to the original stain color and re-varnished (or polyurethaned) I can do it for as little as $900, including materials i.e. stain and varnish.
If, on the other hand, their look is dated, and you’re wanting to upgrade them without installing new cabinet doors and or facings, I can paint them for $2,700, including both sides of the doors and the facings that the doors sit on.
When you compare this to perhaps$6000.00 or $7,000.00 to replace them, the savings become very evident!
The other advantage is that new cabinets are most likely paint grade and not stain-grade, like the ones in your home, so they usually come already painted in white only, and you don’t get to see the beautiful grain in the wood, the
way yours will reflect when done by me in the color of your choice. Hiring me, I can also help with
color suggestions that I’ve seen work over the years…
Should your cabinets occupy two walls in your kitchen, as is most commonly the case, I could restore and refinish them for $1,800, and to paint them would cost you $3,600. The painting would include painting their hinges if they are hung on the inside (newer style) and having a choice either way if they are exterior mounted.
If your cabinets are on three walls, or if they are on two and you have an island you want to be done as well, it would cost $2,700 to refinish and seal and $4,500 to paint them (all the same color) extra colors cost $450 more. ( i.e. island one color, rest another, or upper one color, lower another).
Should you have cabinets on three walls and an island, refinish would be $3,600, painting $5,400. as you can see, all numbers are multiples of 9, which is the ideal number in Feng-Shui.
Upon signed contracts, color consulting is free, should you just want a color consultation alone, the cost is $90 over the phone or $180 in person.
| Tasks | Cost |
| 1 Wall (warn and restoring) | $900 |
| 1 Wall (upgrade and paint) | $2700 |
| 2 Walls (restore and refinishing) | $1800 |
| 2 Walls (painting) | $3600 |
| 3 Walls/ (2 Walls + Island) (Seal and refinish) | $2700 |
| 3 Walls/ (2 Walls + Island) (paint) | $4500 |
| 3 Walls + Island (refinish) | $3600 |
| 3 Walls + Island (paint) | $5400 |
| Color Consultation (phone) | $90 |
| Color Consultation (In person) | $180 |
Other things you should know before hiring
Kitchen cabinets must be properly cleaned before we begin working on them. We recommend a simple solution of water with dawn detergent in it. Pay special attention to the areas nearest the stove, as they will have the greatest concentration of grease, also the very top of the doors, the ridge, is a place where dirt can accumulate.
Cleaning the cabinets prior to hiring us is not optional, it must be done, and if you don’t want to do it personally, we recommend hiring someone you can trust to do a good job and not skip any areas, as you will be responsible for any paint adhesion as a result of your/their neglect!
Today, there are myriad new paint products that can be applied to cabinets for adhesion and beauty, but choosing the right one is essential. As a matter of fact, when I would be screening a job applicant for my painting co. (American Painting Co.) the way I would determine their level of expertise was by inquiring them about how they would paint kitchen cabinets in San Diego themselves if they had to. I would unequivocally find out how professional they were by their descriptions…
Important Fact
Another important fact to note is that we don’t remove the cabinet doors to paint them as most other companies do. We found that process to be counter-productive, since the more handling we do, the higher the chances of marring the doors and damaging the fresh paint job, plus the doors would have to be moved four times, in order to apply primer first to one side, then the other, and then the paint also.
That’s why we ask you to remove the knobs should your cabinets have them, yourselves! Most people prefer to change the knobs if they have them, anyway, so removing them would be a part of their project, and if they don’t have them nor want to install any (we don’t recommend it) then it’s a non-issue!
Paint may dry right away, but to truly set hard, it takes 6 weeks, the first 2 weeks are critical when it comes to handling them, so rushing to install knobs on a freshly painted set of cabinets can be detrimental, as you want the surface to be well and cured should your screwdriver miss the screw-in back of the knob and hit the painted surface!
Good things happen over time, so we don’t recommend rushing things when you want to succeed! With a quarter century of experience in this endeavor, we know what the pitfalls are and how to avoid them, so if you are serious about having your kitchen look good again, we more than encourage you to calls at 858-255-5465 or look us up online at AmericanPainting.co, a mirror site to our home-site bestsandiegohousepainting.com. Marcelo