Cabinet Painting & Refinishing in Chicago

For a typical Chicago kitchen with around 20–25 cabinet doors plus drawer fronts, professional cabinet painting and refinishing usually runs $3,000–$5,500. Smaller kitchens or bathroom vanity refinishing typically range $1,500–$2,500. We provide a precise quote after measuring your kitchen and reviewing cabinet condition.

Yes — if your cabinet boxes are structurally sound, professional painting and refinishing delivers a new-looking kitchen for 50–70% less than the cost of replacement cabinets. The visible savings come from keeping your boxes; the finish quality comes from how those cabinets are sprayed. A professionally sprayed cabinet with SW Gallery or ILVA coatings looks and wears differently than a brush-painted DIY job.

Properly prepped and professionally sprayed cabinets hold up to years of daily kitchen use. The real variable isn't the topcoat — it's the prep. Degreasing, scuff-sanding the existing finish, and a bonding primer are what determine whether a cabinet paint job lasts. A poorly prepped cabinet will fail in a couple of years regardless of what paint goes on it. We back all cabinet work with a two-year warranty on our workmanship.

Cabinet painting and refinishing typically costs 50–70% less than cabinet replacement. A standard Chicago kitchen repaint runs $3,000–$5,500; full replacement typically starts around $15,000 and climbs quickly with semi-custom or custom boxes. The math works when your existing cabinet boxes are sound — painting is not a fix for water damage, broken frames, or a bad kitchen layout, but for sound cabinets with dated color it's a fraction of the replacement cost.

Yes — laminate cabinets can be painted and refinished successfully with the right prep. The process is different from painting wood: laminate requires specific adhesion primers and extra care on edges and seams where delamination may have started. For a full breakdown of how laminate cabinet painting works, see our guide: Can You Paint Laminate Cabinets? A Chicago Contractor's Complete Guide.

Most Chicago kitchens complete in roughly a week start to finish. Doors come off and go to our spray shop on day one; cabinet boxes get prepped and sprayed on-site in parallel. Your kitchen will be in a bit of disarray during the work — boxes masked, countertops protected — but we keep it usable during evenings and reinstall doors as soon as they're fully cured.

Both, and that's deliberate. Cabinet doors and drawer fronts come off on day one and go to our dedicated off-site spray shop, where we control dust, humidity, and ventilation in a way no garage tent can match. The cabinet boxes — the carcasses still attached to your walls — get sprayed on-site with full containment to protect your kitchen. This hybrid approach is why our finishes come out smoother than on-site-only jobs, and why we can commit to a roughly week-long timeline — doors are being sprayed and cured in the shop in parallel while we prep and spray the boxes in your home.

We use professional-grade spray coatings — primarily Sherwin-Williams Gallery Waterborne Lacquer and ILVA 1K or 2K poly — the same finishing-shop products used on factory-finished cabinetry. These are a different product class than brush-grade cabinet paints like Benjamin Moore Advance, which is designed for brushed DIY application. When a customer specifically requests a brush-grade product for a smaller vanity or built-in, we'll use Benjamin Moore Advance.

Not completely. Leave items inside but clear a few inches back from the front. For drawers, we'll remove fronts or set drawers aside with contents. Standard cabinet exterior painting doesn't require fully emptying everything out.

Oak has open grain that can show through paint. We offer grain filling as part of our prep — a specialty filler plus extra primer — to achieve a smoother look. We can show you samples of painted oak with and without grain filling so you can decide which finish fits your kitchen.

Yes. If you supply new knobs or pulls, we'll install them at no extra labor cost. We can drill new holes, fill old ones, and retrofit soft-close hinges if desired. Let us know during the estimate phase so we can plan for it.