I would say that would be a tad high in my location for that size kitchen, but your location, the amount of detail in the doors, the amount of crown molding, the height of the cabinets, whether or not you are having glazing added---all of this has relevance on the quote. If they are doing a good quality job, with all of the VERY labor intensive prep that entails, then two quotes in the same ballpark would peg that as being the going rate in your market. Do double check their prep and painting process to be sure you are getting your money's worth.

Really and truly assess the quality of your cabinets that you are investing that much money in. On average, you can get all brand new cabinets for just about twice that price, but they will have all modern construction and conveniences, not to mention the chance to tweak your layout to be more functional. Keeping what you have is certainly a greener choice, but it's not always the best choice.

BTW, if you have some painting skills, then painting the cabinets yourself is certainly possible and you would save approximately 6K. Painting is mostly about labor and time. If you've got that, you save money. If you lack that, then you have to spend the money.

We had our cabinets painted in our last house... unfortunately I can't remember what we paid to have it done... the cabinets were golden oak and not in great shape. We had them painted white. The painters degreased the cabinets and did quite a bit of prep - it is a lot of work. They looked great when done but 7 years later (and two kids) and they were in VERY tough shape. Tons of chips in the paint, etc.

This gets to LWO's point: $6.5-7.5K is a lot if there are problems in the kitchen or if the paint job isn't going to hold up and you'll be looking at doing it again. Again as LWO pointed out, with new cabs you will have modern conveniences, factory finish that will withstand more abuse than painted on site, updated layout (if need be).

not trying to spend your money... just seconding the position to look into alternatives of how that money could be spent.

I have a much smaller kitchen (about 10x10) and it's costing me about $4500 to paint new doors and drawer fronts, plus the old oak frames. I'm about an hour north of San Francisco. There's a lot of prep, including filling old hinge cutouts. It's the single most expensive component of my kitchen remodel. It's still cheaper than new cabs + installation. Were I to do it all over again, I might reconsider, but it was the best path for me at the time.

To answer the question where am I located...suburbs of Chicago. Thanks for the input so far!

I'd see about getting new doors and painting the frames to match. That may work out about the same and you'd have a factory finish on the doors.

SF Bay area pricing: i can't remember my lineal feet, is about 32-38 feet, small kitchen 11x13, i paid $3200 to paint my new raw wood cabinets once they were installed (prime and 2 coats, all sprayed on). i will now go over them with 1-2 coats hand painted as i like that look.