Refinishing removes a worn clear coat, refreshes or changes the stain, and seals the wood under a new sprayed clear finish. The grain stays visible, so when the timber is the best feature of the room, refinishing wins over cabinet painting.
Some Streetsville kitchens have solid cherry, walnut, white oak or maple that still looks good under the wear. A few older village homes also have original wood cupboards that are worth bringing back. For these kitchens we often suggest refinishing instead of cabinet painting, and our quote explains why.
If the wood has rich grain and only the finish is tired, refinishing brings it back. Cabinet painting would cover the very thing that makes the kitchen worth keeping.
We look at the grain, the colour and the condition of the wood. Scratches in the finish and worn spots near handles usually sand out without any cabinet painting. Deep water damage and black stains near the sink may not. You get a straight answer on which one, refinishing or cabinet painting, suits the room.
Light wear only needs sanding. Heavy wear or an old dark stain needs stripping first. The method changes the time and the cost.
Sanding takes off the top layer of clear coat and smooths the wood below. Stripping uses a chemical remover to lift old finish out of the grain and the panel corners. Doors with carved or detailed edges usually need stripping, because sanding cannot reach into the profile. Both are done off-site in our shop.
We apply stain by hand and wipe it for even colour, then spray the clear coat in thin layers. Spraying gives a smooth, even film without brush marks.
You can keep the current tone, go lighter or go darker. Going much lighter is hard because the old stain soaks deep into the wood. Every stain gets tried on the hidden face of a door before it goes anywhere else. Clear coats range from flat through satin to semi-gloss, and we pick one based on how hard the kitchen gets used.
Black marks near the sink usually mean water got under the finish and into the wood. Sanding cannot always remove them.
Small marks may lighten with a wood bleach. Deep ones often stay, even after stripping. If the damage is on one or two doors, we can replace those doors and stain them to match, though new wood can take stain differently. When the damage is widespread, cabinet painting may be the better choice, because paint covers marks that stain cannot hide. Each door is inspected when we visit, and you hear which route will give the best result.
Cabinet refinishing in Streetsville usually runs close to the cost of cabinet painting, roughly $3,000 to $6,500 for a full kitchen. Stripping and heavy repairs raise the price.
A small kitchen with little damage costs less. A large kitchen with detailed doors and stripping costs more. Refinishing is often cheaper than refacing, and far cheaper than new cabinets. What you pay is the figure on your own written quote.
A refinished wood island in a painted kitchen is a popular mix. The perimeter gets cabinet painting in white or cream, and the island keeps its wood.
This works well in Streetsville homes where the island is solid wood but the wall cabinets are plain. It gives the room warmth and contrast. For more ways to mix wood and paint, read two-tone kitchens and island painting.
We come out, look at the wood, and tell you which option fits best. Neither the trip to your house nor the price on paper costs a cent. Call +1 (289) 207-0024, book the visit here, or see all our services on the main page.
Vanities, pantries, laundry rooms, built-ins and islands are primed and sprayed exactly as Streetsville kitchens are.
We take every door and drawer front down, clean off the kitchen grease, prime for the real material underneath and spray a hard enamel finish. Kitchen cabinet painting recolours every cupboard in the room, and the counters, sink and floor never move.
See Kitchen Cabinets
Older village houses often hold cupboards and built-ins covered in decades of oil paint, and those layers need cleaning, testing and a bonding primer before anything new goes on. Heritage home cabinet painting gives that old woodwork a fresh, hard finish while keeping the trim, panels and shape that make the house what it is.
See Heritage Homes
Oak pushes brown tannin stains up through ordinary primer, and its deep grain shows under colour unless it is filled first. Oak cabinet painting handles both with a tannin-blocking primer plus a decision about the grain before any coat goes on.
See Oak Cabinets
Fronts are finished in our clean-air booth, and the boxes on your walls are coated at home inside a sealed plastic enclosure. Spraying lays each coat of cabinet painting down thin and level, so the finish reads smooth with no brush or roller marks.
See Spray Painting
Shiny factory doors will hold colour after degreasing, a fine scuff and a coat of adhesion primer meant for vinyl and plastic faces. Cabinet painting works on thermofoil only while the vinyl skin is still tight, so we check every door before we quote.
See Thermofoil and Melamine
New doors and drawer fronts go onto the cabinet boxes you already have, and the boxes and frames are sprayed to match. On price and on how much changes, it falls somewhere between cabinet painting and a whole new kitchen.
See Refacing and New Doors
Putting a deeper shade on the island or the base cabinets, with pale uppers above, adds depth to a room without any renovation. Two-tone cabinet painting needs two colours, two spray setups and a clear plan for where each colour goes.
See Two-Tone and Islands
A vanity takes steam, splashes and hand cream every day, so it needs a harder finish and a proper cure before normal use. Vanity cabinet painting is normally a one- or two-day job and a fraction of what a replacement vanity costs.
See Bathroom Vanities
Condo and townhouse kitchens are usually small, but building rules about elevators, parking, quiet hours and odour shape how the job runs. Condo kitchen cabinet painting sends the doors out of the unit to be sprayed, so the smell and the overspray never reach the shared halls.
See Condo Kitchens
Pantries, laundry cabinets, mudroom lockers, bookcases and fireplace built-ins are primed and sprayed with the enamel we use on kitchen doors. Most of these are fastened to the wall, so we do the cabinet painting where they stand, with taped plastic sealing off the room.
See Pantries and Built-Ins
Unused knob holes get plugged before primer, a jig guides every new pull hole, and tired hinges are replaced with the doors already down. Adding hardware to a cabinet painting job costs less than doing it later and gives the whole kitchen a finished look.
See Hardware and Hinges
We spray one of your real cabinet doors in the shade on your shortlist and hang it back up for several days. Seeing a real sample under your own windows is the safest route to a cabinet painting colour you will still enjoy years later.
See Colour ConsultationWe visit, count every door, check the material and write the scope down for you. You pay nothing for either one.
Tell us about the cupboards, even roughly, and a visit gets arranged by phone. A name and a phone number are enough to send it. To speak with someone now, phone +1 (289) 207-0024.
