Kitchen Cabinet Painting Costs SA 2026 - Get Free Quotes

Kitchen Cabinet Painting Costs in South Australia

Cabinet respraying across South Australia generally costs $80 to $220 per door or drawer front, which puts a small kitchen of 10 to 15 doors at $1,800 to $4,000, a medium kitchen of 20 to 25 doors at $2,800 to $6,000, and a large kitchen with an island and pantry at $4,000 to $9,000. A laundry or bathroom vanity runs $500 to $1,500, and off site spray booth finishing adds 20 to 40 per cent. Against a full replacement at $15,000 to $40,000, the arithmetic usually favours painting where the carcasses are sound. The question is whether they are.

Set against $15,000 to $40,000 for a new kitchen, the arithmetic looks obvious. It usually is, with one important qualification. Cabinet painting only works where the substrate will hold a coating and the carcasses are sound. Australian kitchens are built from a small number of materials, some of which take paint beautifully and one of which frequently should not be painted at all. Establishing which you have is the entire first step, and it is done by looking at a door edge rather than by describing the kitchen over the phone.

The second thing that separates a good outcome from a disappointing one is application. A kitchen brushed with a roller and a brush looks brushed, and no amount of premium product hides it. Cabinetry is sprayed, either in a booth off site or carefully on site with extensive masking, and the finish quality difference between those two approaches is visible. There is a safety dimension worth knowing before you start ringing around. The finish most people actually want, the hard smooth surface that resembles a factory kitchen, comes from a two pack polyurethane system containing isocyanates. Those products need proper spray booth conditions and respiratory protection, and they are not something to have sprayed inside an occupied home.

This page covers when painting beats replacing, how to identify your door material, the vinyl wrap problem, the process end to end, degreasing, on site versus off site, coating systems and safety, curing and downtime, hardware and benchtops, and older kitchens. Broader painting background sits in the SA painters guide, and general interior work in the SA interior painting guide. Read the substrate section first, since what your doors are made of decides everything that follows. Nothing else on this page matters if the answer there is vinyl wrap.

Painting Versus Replacing

The honest answer is that painting suits some kitchens very well and is a waste of money on others, and the test has nothing to do with how the kitchen looks. Painting makes sense where the layout works, the carcasses are structurally sound, the doors are flat and undamaged, the hinges and runners still function, and the only real problem is that the colour is dated. That describes an enormous number of Adelaide kitchens from the 1990s and 2000s, where the joinery was well made and the finish has simply gone out of fashion. A kitchen with sound boxes, a workable layout and dated door colours is the ideal candidate. One with water damaged carcasses or a layout that frustrates you daily is not.

It does not make sense where the layout is wrong for how you use the room. Paint does not move a sink, add a dishwasher, fix a bench that is too low, or create storage that was never there. It also does not make sense where the carcasses have failed. Swollen particleboard around the sink and dishwasher, delaminated door edges, sagging shelves and doors that no longer sit square are all signs the joinery has reached the end of its life, and a beautiful coating on failing boxes is money spent on a short extension.

Between the two sits a third option that gets overlooked. Replacing the doors and drawer fronts while keeping the existing carcasses gives you a new kitchen appearance, new hardware and modern materials at well below full replacement cost, and it suits kitchens where the boxes are fine but the doors are damaged or unsuitable for coating. Cabinet resurfacing covers that approach, and cabinet installation specialists handle door replacement. Where the layout itself needs to change, a kitchen renovation is the honest answer even though it costs several times more. A contractor who tells you that instead of taking your respray money is one to trust.

Replacing Doors Instead of Painting Them

Between respraying what you have and replacing the whole kitchen there is a middle option that most South Australian households never price, and on a kitchen with sound carcasses it is often the better answer. New doors and drawer fronts fitted to the existing cabinets give you a genuinely new kitchen face without touching the boxes, the benchtop or the plumbing. Expect $4,000 to $12,000 for a medium kitchen depending on the door material and finish, which sits above a respray and well below a full replacement. The decision turns on the condition of the carcasses rather than the doors, since sound boxes are the thing that makes it viable.

Carcass condition is easy enough to assess yourself. Open a door and look at the bottom of the cabinet under the sink, since that is where water damage shows first, and check whether the shelves sag and whether the boxes are square. Swollen particleboard at the base, doors that will not sit flush no matter how they are adjusted, and shelves bowing under normal loads all point toward replacement rather than refacing. Sound carcasses with tired doors are the ideal candidate for new fronts.

Layout is the other test, and it is the one people skip. Refacing and respraying both keep your existing layout exactly as it is, so if the kitchen does not work now it will not work afterwards in a nicer colour. Where the problem is bench space, the position of the sink or an awkward corner cabinet, spending on a cosmetic fix is money that would have been better put toward a proper renovation. Ask yourself whether the complaint is how the kitchen looks or how it functions.

Hardware is worth considering at the same time in all three scenarios. Hinges and drawer runners are the components that fail first, and replacing tired hinges with soft-close units during a respray costs relatively little while the doors are already off. Doing it later means taking everything down again, which is the expensive version of the same job. Ask for hardware to be quoted as a line rather than assumed either way.

Benchtops sit outside all of this and often decide whether the result satisfies. A resprayed kitchen with a dated benchtop still reads as a dated kitchen, and a benchtop replacement onto existing cabinets runs $1,500 to $6,000 depending on material. Sequencing matters here, since benchtop templating happens with the doors off and the two trades need coordinating. Deciding on the benchtop before booking the spray is the sensible order.

What Your Doors Are Made Of

This is the single most important section on the page. Open a cupboard and look at the edge of a door, because the edge tells you almost everything. Painted MDF or two pack doors Are the ideal candidate. The door is a solid sheet with a paint finish, the edges are profiled and painted rather than banded, and the surface takes an abrasion and a new coating readily. These respray beautifully and sit at the lower end of the price range.

Solid timber and timber veneer Also take paint well. Timber doors sand cleanly, accept primer without difficulty and hold a finish for years. The main consideration is that the grain will still read through a paint finish unless it is filled, which some people like and others do not. Ask for that to be named on the written quote.

Melamine and laminate Are the most common Australian kitchen doors and the most technically demanding. The surface is a hard, non porous, factory applied laminate designed specifically to resist things sticking to it, which is exactly the property you are fighting. Painting melamine successfully requires thorough degreasing, careful abrasion to key the surface, and a specialist adhesion primer formulated for non porous substrates. Done properly it lasts. Done with an ordinary undercoat it peels off in sheets within a year, usually starting at the edges and around handles. Vinyl wrapped or thermolaminated doors Are a category of their own and are covered in the next section.

Aluminium framed and glass doors Can be done but need different products for the frame, and the glass has to be masked or removed. They are usually priced separately. If you cannot tell what you have, photograph a door edge and the back of a door and send it with your enquiry. Any experienced contractor identifies it immediately, and it changes both the price and the advice.

Vinyl Wrap, a Special Case

Vinyl wrapped doors were installed in enormous numbers through Australian kitchens from the 1990s onward, and they are the most common reason a contractor declines a cabinet painting job. The door is an MDF core with a thin vinyl film heat wrapped over it, sealed around the back edges. The film gives a clean moulded look at low cost, which is why it was so popular. It fails in a predictable way. Heat and steam, particularly above ovens, dishwashers and kettles, break down the adhesive bond and the vinyl lifts, bubbles and peels away from the MDF underneath. Once that has started it continues.

Painting over intact vinyl is possible with the right adhesion primer and some contractors do it successfully. Painting over vinyl that has already started lifting is not, because the coating bonds to a film that is itself letting go, and the whole thing comes away together. Removing the vinyl first exposes raw MDF with a rebated profile that was never designed to be seen, and preparing that to a paintable standard usually costs more than replacing the doors. The practical guidance is straightforward. If your doors are vinyl wrapped and the film is intact everywhere, painting is a reasonable option and you should discuss the primer specifically. If any door is lifting, bubbling or peeling, particularly around the oven or dishwasher, replacing the doors onto your existing carcasses is nearly always the better use of money.

A contractor who inspects vinyl wrap doors and tells you not to paint them has just saved you a few thousand dollars. That advice costs them the job and is worth more than a quote from someone willing to try. Take it as a signal about how they work generally. It is worth confirming before the doors come off.

How the Job Actually Runs

Knowing the sequence helps you judge whether a quote covers everything and how long you will be without a working kitchen. Doors and drawer fronts come off first and are labelled so they return to the right position, because kitchen joinery is rarely as symmetrical as it looks. Hinges and handles are removed. Where the work is going off site, the doors are wrapped and transported.

Degreasing follows and is the step that determines whether anything else works. Abrasion comes next, keying the surface so the primer has something to grip. On melamine this is a careful process, because too little leaves a glossy surface and too much cuts through the laminate into the particleboard beneath. Ask specifically what degreasing process is used, since it separates a lasting job from one that peels at the handles within a year.

Then primer, chosen for the substrate, followed by two or more topcoats sprayed in light passes with flash off time between them. Doors are laid flat or hung depending on the setup, and the fronts and backs are done in separate operations with drying between. Carcasses and face frames stay in the kitchen and are done on site, masked off from benchtops, walls, floors and appliances. This is the part that requires real care in an occupied home, and it is where overspray damage happens if masking is rushed. Finally doors go back on with hinges adjusted and new handles fitted if supplied. Expect the whole process to take one to two weeks where doors go off site, and three to five days where everything is done on site.

Why Kitchens Defeat Paint

Cooking generates airborne fat, and over years it settles on every surface in the room as a thin film that is invisible, uneven and completely hostile to adhesion. This is the single most common cause of cabinet painting failure, and it is more important than the primer. It concentrates worst above the cooktop and around every handle, which is exactly where failures appear. A quick wipe with household detergent does not remove it.

The film is heaviest above and beside the cooktop, on rangehood surrounds, and on the doors of overhead cupboards nearest the stove. It is lighter but still present on the far side of the room. Because it is invisible, it is easy for an inexperienced applicator to assume a wipe with sugar soap has dealt with it. Proper degreasing means a dedicated degreaser rather than general detergent, applied and rinsed thoroughly, with attention to the edges, the profiled sections and the areas around handles where hands have touched the surface for years. On a heavily used kitchen it may need doing twice.

Handle areas deserve particular mention because skin oils accumulate there and they are also the highest wear points on the finished job. A coating that fails around the handles first is nearly always a degreasing failure rather than a product failure. When comparing quotes, ask what degreasing product is used and how many passes are included. It is a short question that separates people who have done a lot of kitchens from people who have done a lot of walls.

Why a Brushed Kitchen Never Looks Sprayed

The single largest gap between a professional cabinet respray and a weekend attempt is not the paint, the preparation or even the skill, it is the application method. Kitchen doors are flat, glossy and viewed at close range under directional light, which is the least forgiving combination in the whole of house painting. A sprayed finish lays down as a continuous film with no texture, while a brushed or rolled finish carries brush marks and roller stipple that catch the light on every door, every day. That is why an owner who has done a perfectly good job of painting their walls is often disappointed by the same effort on cabinetry.

Doors also present a problem that walls do not, which is edges. Every door has four of them plus two faces, and coating all six surfaces without runs, sags or a build-up along the edge requires the doors to be laid flat, coated, cured and turned. A household doing this on a garage floor over a weekend generally ends up with either runs on the vertical edges or an uneven film thickness, and both show. Degreasing is the other step that separates outcomes, and it is the one most commonly skipped. Kitchen doors carry a film of cooking grease that is invisible and covers every surface, concentrated heaviest around handles and above the cooktop. Paint applied over it adheres to the grease rather than to the door, which is why peeling around handles is the classic sign of inadequate preparation rather than a product fault.

Adhesion primers are not optional on melamine and laminate, and this is where retail products disappoint most often. Those surfaces are designed to resist staining and marking, which is precisely the property that stops paint bonding to them, and a standard undercoat will not hold. Specialist adhesion primers exist and work, but they are a different product to what a general hardware aisle offers. None of this means a household cannot do it, and plenty do with acceptable results on a laundry or a small vanity. What it means is that the expectation needs to match the method, and anyone hoping for a factory finish on a main kitchen is better served by paying for spray application. The gap between the two is visible from across the room.

On Site or Off Site Spraying

Both approaches are legitimate and they suit different situations, so the question is which trade off you prefer. Off site means the doors and drawer fronts go to a workshop with a spray booth. The booth gives filtered air, controlled temperature, proper extraction and dust free curing, and doors can be laid flat which produces a more even film without runs. The finish is measurably better and the coating options are wider, since a booth allows two pack systems that cannot responsibly be sprayed in a house.

The trade offs are cost, 20 to 40 per cent more, transport risk, and time without doors on your cupboards, usually one to two weeks. On site means everything is sprayed in place with masking, or doors are sprayed in a garage or on the property. It is cheaper and faster, your kitchen is out of action for less time, and there is no transport handling. Weigh that against a finish that is genuinely better and a house that stays liveable throughout.

The trade offs are real. Dust in a domestic environment settles into wet coating, temperature and humidity are uncontrolled, overspray can travel further than expected, and the product range is limited to what can safely be sprayed without booth extraction. In an Adelaide summer, on site spraying in a garage carries an additional problem, since a closed garage above 35 degrees causes two pack and solvent based products to flash off far too quickly, giving a rough, dry sprayed finish. Contractors who work on site here start early or work in the cooler months. Most Adelaide cabinet respraying businesses operate booths in the industrial areas around Wingfield, Regency Park, Lonsdale and Edwardstown, and the carcass work is done on site regardless. A hybrid arrangement, doors off site and frames on site, is the most common approach and generally the right one.

Two Pack and What Sprays Well

Coating choice for cabinetry is a different conversation from wall paint because the performance demands are much higher. Two pack polyurethane, commonly called 2 pac, is the professional standard and it is what factory kitchen doors are finished in. It cures by chemical reaction rather than by drying, produces a hard, smooth, chemically resistant surface, and cleans up under daily use in a way nothing else matches. It is also the most expensive option and it requires booth conditions. Waterborne enamels have improved enormously and now offer a credible alternative for on site work. They are low odour, safe to spray in a domestic setting with reasonable ventilation, and durable enough for normal kitchen use, though they remain softer than two pack and take longer to reach full hardness.

Solvent based enamels sit in between and are increasingly uncommon in occupied homes because of odour. Ask which product family is quoted, since cure time, durability and odour all differ considerably between them. Most cabinet sprayers will explain it readily. That detail separates two otherwise similar prices.

Adhesion primers are where the substrate question gets answered. Melamine, laminate and vinyl all need a primer specifically formulated to bond to non porous surfaces, and using a general purpose undercoat on those materials is the most common technical error in this trade. Manufacturers including Dulux, Wattyl, Haymes and Resene publish technical data sheets naming which substrates each primer is designed for, and a contractor who names the product lets you check it. Sheen level is a practical decision as well as an aesthetic one. Satin and low sheen hide surface imperfection and fingerprints better than gloss, and a high gloss kitchen shows every wave in the door and every mark from a hand. Matt finishes look striking but mark more readily and are harder to clean.

Isocyanates and Home Safety

This section matters and it is rarely explained to homeowners considering a cabinet respray. Two pack polyurethane products contain isocyanates, which are respiratory sensitisers. Exposure can cause occupational asthma, and once a person is sensitised, further exposure at even very low levels can trigger a severe reaction. This is not a nuisance odour issue, it is a recognised occupational health hazard with specific control requirements.

Spraying these products requires proper respiratory protection, usually air supplied rather than a cartridge respirator, along with booth extraction and controlled access to the spray area. Workplace requirements for hazardous chemicals and spray painting are administered by SafeWork SA. The practical consequence for a homeowner is simple. Two pack should not be sprayed inside your house, and a contractor offering to spray 2 pac in your kitchen while you stay in the property is offering something that should not be happening. Doors go to a booth, or you choose a different coating system.

Where waterborne products are sprayed on site, the risk is far lower but ventilation, containment of overspray and keeping household members and pets out of the area still apply. Overspray and waste have an environmental dimension as well. Spray residue, solvent and equipment wash out should be contained and disposed of properly rather than rinsed into a gully or a stormwater drain, which is administered by the South Australian Environment Protection Authority. Ask any contractor how and where they spray, and what protection they use. A professional answers immediately because it is part of how they operate.

Curing and Kitchen Downtime

Cabinet coatings feel dry long before they are hard, and treating a freshly finished kitchen as if it is fully cured is the most common way owners damage their own new finish. Two pack becomes touch dry within hours and handleable within a day, but continues hardening for one to two weeks. Waterborne enamels take longer to reach full hardness, often two to four weeks. During that period the practical rules are to avoid stacking anything against door faces, be gentle with doors and drawers rather than letting them slam, avoid taping anything to the surface, avoid harsh cleaners, and wipe spills promptly with a soft damp cloth rather than scrubbing.

Plan the downtime honestly. Where doors go off site you have open cupboards for one to two weeks, which is inconvenient rather than impossible, and most households manage by moving frequently used items to the bench. Where carcasses are sprayed on site the kitchen is genuinely unusable for a day or two. Time it around your household. Doing a kitchen the week before Christmas or during school holidays with everyone home is a choice people regret.

Adelaide's dry climate helps here. Low humidity means coatings cure on schedule and the winter months, when interior painting work is otherwise busy, are perfectly suitable for booth work since the booth controls its own conditions. The same dryness works against you in midsummer, when a coating can skin over before it has levelled. Worth settling at the inspection rather than later.

How Long the Kitchen Is Out of Action

Downtime is the practical question most households ask second and should probably ask first, because a kitchen without doors is a kitchen that still works but does not feel like it. The doors come off at the start and go back at the end, and everything in between depends on whether the work is sprayed on site or taken away to a booth. Knowing the realistic window lets you plan around it rather than being caught out on day four. Off site spraying is the cleaner option and the one that keeps the mess out of your house entirely. Doors are removed, numbered, taken to a booth, coated under controlled conditions and returned, which takes five to ten working days on a typical kitchen. During that period you have open shelving and a functioning kitchen, which most households find perfectly manageable.

On site spraying compresses the timeline to two or three days but takes over the space while it happens. Masking a kitchen properly for spray application is a sizeable job in itself, the room is unusable during application, and the overspray control has to be thorough or it travels. It suits a household that wants the job done quickly and can vacate, rather than one working around it. Curing is the part that continues after the painter leaves, and it is where most damage happens. A coating is dry to touch within hours and fully cured in one to four weeks depending on the product, and during that window the surface is soft enough to mark. Stacking plates against a door, taping anything to it, or scrubbing a spill off too vigorously all leave marks that would not appear on a cured finish.

Handles and hinges go back on at the end, and rushing that is a common way to mark new doors. Ask when the doors can safely be handled and when they can be closed against the carcass, since those two points are not the same. A door closed onto a soft finish can stick to the frame and pull the coating when opened. Ask when the doors can be closed against the carcass, since that is later than when they can be handled.

Handles, Hinges and Benchtops

The elements around the doors affect the finished result more than their cost suggests. New handles are the highest impact, lowest cost change available in this whole job. Handles run $10 to $40 each and replacing dated ones alongside a respray transforms the appearance far more than the paint colour alone. The one thing to check is hole spacing, because existing holes constrain what will fit unless you are prepared to fill and redrill.

Hinges are worth assessing while the doors are off, since it is the only time they are easily accessible. Worn hinges cause doors to sag and sit unevenly, which is very visible on a freshly finished kitchen, and replacing them at that point costs little. Handle and hardware specialists can advise on compatibility. Drawer runners follow the same logic. If they are sticking or dropping now, they will still be doing it under new paint.

Benchtops are the element that most often lets down an otherwise successful respray, because a dated laminate benchtop beside freshly finished doors draws the eye immediately. Options run from benchtop resurfacing at the cheaper end through to full replacement, and replacing a laminate top with stone at the same time as a respray is a common and effective combination. Splashbacks complete the picture and are frequently changed at the same time, since removing and replacing one is easier while the kitchen is already disrupted. Splashback installers handle glass and tiled options.

Older Kitchens, Asbestos and Lead

South Australian kitchens built before the 1990s carry two considerations that newer ones do not, and both are about what is behind or under the cabinetry rather than the doors themselves. Asbestos cement sheeting was used as wall lining, splashback backing and under bench lining in many kitchens through the middle of the twentieth century. It is safe while intact and undisturbed, and hazardous when drilled, cut, sanded or broken. Both need establishing before any sanding begins rather than discovered during it. A contractor working on older kitchens should raise them without prompting.

A cabinet respray does not usually disturb it, since the work is on the doors and face frames. Removing a splashback, taking out a section of cabinetry, or drilling for new fixings can. If your kitchen predates 1990 and any work is going behind the cabinets, testing first is inexpensive relative to the alternative. Asbestos testing settles it, and workplace requirements are administered by SafeWork SA.

Lead paint is the other consideration and it applies to genuinely old kitchens, particularly built in dressers and cupboards in pre-1970 homes that have been painted repeatedly over decades. Sanding those surfaces releases lead dust in a room where food is prepared. Testing before sanding is the correct approach, and where lead is confirmed the preparation method changes to wet methods or extraction with containment and thorough clean up. Health guidance is published by SA Health, and lead paint specialists handle confirmed cases. Original timber joinery in a heritage home raises a different question again, which is whether painting it is the right decision at all rather than whether it is safe. Heritage painting covers that judgement.

Looking After a Resprayed Kitchen

A resprayed kitchen will last as long as the preparation allowed and as long as the way you use it permits, and the second half of that is more within your control than most owners realise. Cabinet coatings live in the harshest environment in the house, exposed to heat, steam, grease and constant handling, and a few habits make a sizeable difference to how they age. None of them are onerous. Give the finish its full cure before treating it normally. Most systems reach full hardness somewhere between one and four weeks after application, and during that period the surface marks more easily than it ever will again. Avoid taping anything to doors, stacking items against them or scrubbing spills vigorously until the painter confirms the cure is complete.

Clean with a soft cloth and a mild detergent rather than anything abrasive or solvent based. Cream cleansers, scouring pads and spray solvents all attack the finish, and the damage tends to concentrate around handles where cleaning is most frequent. Wiping spills promptly matters more than cleaning hard later. Manage the steam. A kettle or rice cooker positioned under an overhead cabinet directs steam straight onto the door above it, and repeated exposure lifts the finish at the lower edge over time. Moving the appliance or using the rangehood is a free fix for a problem that otherwise looks like a coating failure.

Keep a small quantity of the finish coat for touch-ups and label it with the colour and the date. Chips around handles and on edges are inevitable over a decade, and a dab of the original product is far less noticeable than a later attempt at matching. A substrate check answers it in a minute. The answer tells you how carefully it was scoped.

What Drives the Price

Door count is the primary unit and it is the number to have ready. Count every door and every drawer front, including the ones under the sink and in the pantry. Substrate is next, because melamine, laminate and vinyl need more preparation and specialist primers than painted MDF or timber, which can shift a quote by 20 to 30 per cent on the same door count. Where the spraying happens changes both cost and outcome, with off site booth work adding 20 to 40 per cent and delivering a better finish.

The coating system follows from that. Two pack costs more than waterborne enamel and requires booth conditions, so the two decisions are linked rather than independent. Condition adds cost where repairs are needed. Swollen edges, chipped corners, delaminated sections and doors that no longer sit square all need attention before coating, and past a certain point they push the job toward door replacement instead. Extras bundled into the same visit are cheaper than separate engagements. A laundry, a vanity, a built in wardrobe or a study nook done alongside the kitchen shares the setup and the booth run.

Cabinet Painting Costs Across Adelaide

Adelaide pricing tracks door count and substrate rather than suburb, and the housing stock creates fairly predictable patterns. Count your doors and drawer fronts before calling, since that single number drives the quote more than anything else. Get it agreed before any deposit is paid. Ask what the cure period means for daily use.

The two medium kitchen rows are the same size job in different materials. Substrate accounts for the whole difference, which is why an accurate quote needs a photograph of a door edge rather than a description of the kitchen. That gap is the adhesion primer and the extra care melamine demands, not a margin difference. Confirm which product family is being used.

Regional South Australia

Country cabinet respraying works differently because the booth is the constraint rather than the labour. Ask what the figure assumes about the surface. Getting it in writing takes a moment. Most operators cover this without prompting.

Districts within a couple of hours of Adelaide, including the Hills, Barossa, Fleurieu and Murraylands, are comfortably serviced by metropolitan booths, and doors travelling to town and back adds a day at each end rather than changing the job. Further out the calculation shifts. Mount Gambier and Port Lincoln have local cabinet making and finishing capacity, so a local operator is often the better option than shipping doors to Adelaide. In the far west and north, on site spraying becomes more common by necessity, which makes the coating choice more important because two pack is not suitable for on site domestic work. A waterborne enamel sprayed well on site is a better result than an unsuitable product sprayed in a shed.

Bundling matters more in the country than anywhere else. A kitchen, a laundry, a vanity and a set of wardrobe doors quoted together justify a trip that any one of them alone would not. A quick site visit removes the guesswork. Worth raising at the first conversation.

What to Look Out For

Ask what your doors are made of and expect the contractor to answer by looking rather than by asking you. Anyone quoting a cabinet respray without identifying the substrate is quoting a number rather than a job. Be sceptical of any quote to paint vinyl wrapped doors that are already lifting. It will fail, and the contractor who tells you so is the one to hire.

Ask about degreasing specifically, including the product and the number of passes. It is the step that determines whether the coating holds, and it is the easiest one to skimp on invisibly. Establish where the spraying happens and what product is used, and treat an offer to spray two pack inside your occupied home as disqualifying. Isocyanates are a recognised respiratory sensitiser and the controls exist for good reason.

Get the finish sample before committing. A reputable contractor will show you a sprayed sample in your chosen colour and sheen, on a similar substrate, and looking at it in your own kitchen light beats choosing from a chart. Check what happens to your benchtops, splashback, floors, appliances and walls during masking, and confirm public liability cover with a certificate. Overspray damage in a kitchen is expensive to remedy.

Finally, understand the warranty and what voids it. Cabinet coating warranties commonly exclude damage from harsh cleaners, heat and impact, and knowing that before you scrub a mark off with something abrasive is useful. Licensing for building work contractors is administered by Consumer and Business Services, and consumer guarantees by the ACCC. Confirm it before committing to a date.

What to Look for in a Quote in SA

A cabinet painting quote worth comparing states the count, the substrate, the process and the products. Specifically: the number of doors and drawer fronts, the identified substrate, whether doors are sprayed on site or off site, the primer and topcoat products by name, the number of coats, the colour and sheen, whether carcasses and face frames are included, whether hardware is removed and refitted and whether new handles are supplied, the expected duration and how long your kitchen is out of action, protection and masking arrangements, and the warranty with its exclusions. When you enquire, count the doors and drawer fronts and photograph a door edge, the back of a door, and any damage or lifting. Say the approximate age of the kitchen, whether anything is swollen or delaminating around the sink or dishwasher, and whether you want the same layout or are considering bigger changes. That handful of details produces an accurate quote instead of a range.

Get three quotes and check they describe the same process, because on site and off site work are not the same product and should not be compared on price alone. Where one contractor recommends replacing doors rather than painting them, ask why, since that recommendation costs them the job and is usually well founded. Keep the product and colour details with your property records. Touching up a chip in two years is simple with that information and close to impossible without it, and the next owner of the kitchen will need to know what is on it. Custom joinery makers can match new pieces to an existing finish if you have the specification.