Cabinet Painting

Bucktooth Handyman mascot holding a gravity-feed paint spray gun

Cabinet Painting

The Cheapest Way to Get a Different Kitchen.

New cabinets cost more than most kitchen remodels used to. If the boxes are sound and the layout works, paint changes the room for a fraction of that — and done properly, it doesn’t look painted.

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Laundry room with dark-stained cabinets around the window before painting
The same laundry cabinets repainted cream and grey with a new countertop and tile backsplash

Laundry cabinets around the window: before · repainted, with a new counter and backsplash

Dark-stained L-shaped upper cabinets in a laundry room before painting
The same upper cabinets repainted off-white with new brass knobs

Laundry uppers: before · repainted with new hardware

Insured • Background-Checked Craftsmen • Two-Year Limited Workmanship Warranty

Why This Is the Highest-Impact Thing in a Kitchen

Cabinets are the largest continuous surface in the room. More than the floor, more than the counters, more than the walls. Change their color and the eye reads the whole space differently.

Which is why it’s also the most visible place to get it wrong. Cabinet doors get opened with wet hands, wiped with cleaner, bumped by pans, and scratched by fingernails — every day, for years. A finish that looks beautiful and can’t take that is a finish you’ll be looking at peeling in eighteen months.

Why Most Cabinet Paint Jobs Fail

Grease. Kitchen cabinets carry a film of cooking residue that isn’t visible and doesn’t wash off with soap. Paint over it and the finish never bonds properly — it looks fine at first and starts letting go at the edges.

A slick factory finish. Cabinets come coated to shed exactly what paint needs to grip. Skip the step that addresses this and the finish sits on the surface instead of holding to it.

Wall paint on woodwork. The most common shortcut and the most obvious one. Wall paint stays soft, so it marks, dents, and sticks to itself where a door meets its frame.

Brush marks and roller texture. On a wall, texture disappears. On a cabinet door at eye level, in kitchen light, it’s the first thing anyone sees.

How the Work Happens

Doors and drawer fronts come off. Often they leave — they’re prepped and sprayed in our shop or a contained environment, where the finish can be laid down without overspray in your house and can cure without dust settling into it.

The boxes and face frames are done on site.

Then everything goes back on and gets set. How much adjustment is available depends on your hinges — modern concealed hinges have three-way adjustment, and doors can be brought into alignment. Older hinges often have none, so a door that hung crooked will hang the same way unless the hinges are replaced. If your cabinets are in that category we’ll tell you before the work starts, because with the doors already off, it’s the easiest moment there will ever be to change them.

Products Are Our Call

The color is entirely yours. We’ll match anything.

The products are not negotiable, and that’s deliberate. Cabinet work uses professional woodworking coatings — not wall paint, not what’s on the shelf at a big box store. They cost more, they require the right equipment to apply, and they’re the difference between a finish that survives a kitchen and one that doesn’t.

If someone quotes you cabinet painting for noticeably less, this is usually where the difference is.

What’s Included

Kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, built-ins, and laundry or mudroom cabinetry. Interior and exterior surfaces of doors and boxes, depending on what makes sense for the cabinet.

New hardware installed at the same time, if you want it — pulls, knobs, and hinges. It’s the natural moment for it, since everything is already off. New pulls on a fresh finish are most of what makes a kitchen read as replaced rather than repainted, and new hinges are what let the doors hang straight afterward.

Part of our home refreshes and transformations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, in most cases. The doors come off and go with us, so you keep access to everything inside. There’s a stretch where the boxes are being worked on, and we’ll walk you through what that looks like in your kitchen before we start.

Not if it’s done right. Spraying is what makes the difference — no brush marks, no roller texture, an even finish across the whole door. That’s the reason doors leave rather than being painted in place.

Yes. Oak has an open grain, and there’s a decision to make about whether to fill it for a smooth modern finish or let it show through. We’ll show you both and you choose.

Depends on the condition. Some take a finish well with the right preparation and some don’t, and it’s not something anyone should promise sight unseen. We’ll look and tell you honestly.

The color, absolutely — any color you want. The products we use are our call, because cabinet finishes have to survive daily handling and cleaning, and the coatings that do that aren’t the ones sold for walls.

That depends on your hinges. Modern concealed hinges adjust in three directions and doors can be brought true. Older hinges often don’t adjust at all — in that case, a crooked door stays crooked unless the hinges get replaced. We’ll tell you which you have when we look.

Yes, and it’s the right time to do it. If you’re changing from knobs to pulls or moving to a different hole spacing, tell us early so it’s planned into the work.

Proudly serving Cleveland, Ooltewah, Chattanooga, and the surrounding communities of Southeast Tennessee.

Your To-Do List Has Waited Long Enough.

From a single repair to a full refresh, we’ll walk your project, answer your questions, and put it in writing.

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