7-9K for an average sized kitchen, by a Pro, spraying professional grade products, like a 2K poly. If they’re brushing trim paint, like Emerald, that’s high. And wrong. More detail is more. Bigger is more. More services, like replacing door hinges or drawer glides, is more.

No idea about northern Colorado (or what's available there - rural, small town, city?) but I'm having my cabinets painted for $7000. Medium sized L-shape kitchen with large island and paneled appliances. That does not include painting the currently stained espresso interiors.

I'm in the metro DC area.

Thank you both, it sounds like it's not as far out of the ballpark as we thought it was. Everything on google seems to say $3000 or thereabout. We were truly shocked!

It is a professional painter,

"Paint to be used for base cabinets will be Sherwin Williams Emerald Polyurethane Trim Enamel Paint to be used for doors and drawer fronts will be a Sherwin Williams Precat lacquer"

and they "use Festool sanding and HEPA CT Dust Extractor systems to sand the woodwork in your home, providing a virtually dust free environment and keeping sound levels low"

So this sounds right then, or no. According to the first response on this thread, it's a high estimate if they're using emerald, however they're only using it on the base cabinets....

1800 Sq ft of wall space & trim wouldn't cost $8000 where we live. That's way too much ever for a REALLY good painter. Cabinets are a different story. Still high, but you will pay for a really good job.

Mark_rachel that's what I thought. Seems insane.

That sounds about right to me. It's the trim work that's killing you with the price.

I just paid $5600 for a 2500 sqft house and 2 car garage including molding/ trim and all 24 doors. Also included painting ceilings in the downstairs area (about 1600 sqft). I’m in Orlando.

Haven't had cabinets painted. I paid $9K to have walls & trim in just under 3000sf house...20 years ago! Central Ohio.

It's high as hell if they are just spraying off the shelf consumer paint.

At least if they were using SW - KA+ system that would be passable(although there is better stuff out there).

Also, just an opinion, but Emerald Poly leaves a really gritty finish. It is trash IMO.

A professional paint job on cabinets looks like:

Clean -> mask off the room -> degloss/sand -> spray primer -> sand -> spray pigment -> spray clearcoat(2K Milesi as mentioned above is good) -> sand -> final clearcoat.

It is not terribly uncommon for pros to spray the doors and brush the boxes to reduce cost. You'll get a bit of a mismatch in finish but it saves a LOT of money in labor to mask off the room.

Some other things:

- There is no such thing as "paint and primer in one" or "paint that doesn't need primer."

- You need multiple coats of every layer other than primer.

- There is often significant dry time REQUIRED between coats by the manufacturer for newer waterborne/low voc products.

Taking all this into account, an $8K refinish is still probably a bit high in a small kitchen just for cabinets.

can't comment on the walls and trim, (I just do it myself) but I just had my cabs painted.

They removed all of the doors/drawers, dismantled the slides, handles, etc and took them back to their shop. sanding, priming and spraying w/lacquer. (I ended up just refacing because the price was only 2K more and I like the door style better) They also removed all of the crown (saved it to paint) and removed all of the outdated fluted and rope trim. All of the base pieces were sanded, primed and sprayed on site. everything else was taken back to their shop. I also had the microwave moved (see 2nd pic)

and I had the island modified w/two large drawers on the left side, modified for micro and they made me a custom vent hood for over the range top. also had the desk area modified w/mirrored doors

here's a close up of the new doors/drawers. some of the old ones were slab front. (backsplash is not completed)

the new faces are solid wood w/mdf center panels (better for painting)

pantry area. they also refaced all 8 of these

orig quote was 13K. since I chose to go w/all new doors/drawer fronts, it was another 2K.

So, 8K isn't too far off. however, I would not want Emerald paint.

The key to a good quality job is how they prep. As mentioned above, sand, clean well, prime, sand again, clean well, spray w/the chosen paint finish, (if needed, fine sand or wet sand again) and then the final coat. For that price, I would NOT want SW Emerald. I've used that paint to paint furniture and didn't like it at ALL! It's not a top grade paint meant for kitchen cabinets. Some use BM Advance. I use this for furniture and trim. it does have a 2-3 week curing time though. However, it's much much better than Emerald.

Find another company for an estimate. Did you check Yelp for some recommedations? I found my company through them. He received almost all 5 stars w/over 80 customers reviewing.

Wurth Lewis and Company Denver distributes Milesi products. Call them for a list of customers in your area.

pictures of your kitchen will help with pricing

This is what happens when everyone wants their daughter to marry a doctor or lawyer. A guy who comes home with paint on his clothes is beneath them, so no one goes into the trade.

Beth H - Beautiful Kitchen!

Here is what the kitchen looks like.

I was thinking it might be worth it to just replace the cabinets with some taller ones and paint just the lower. But getting them to match might be tricky if we do that?

LOL at that bring a “small” kitchen. That’s a pretty big kitchen. If you want to get into cabinet replacement, then do that. And skip the painting entirely. You can fix all the other issues then.

I guess it's all in perspective ;) Our two previous kitchens had more cabinets (as far as actual number of cabinets goes, not size of kitchen) - this was downsizing for us. Plus I think the pictures make it look bigger then it is.

price is on point if they are do it right with the correct products. I think customers get caught up on is that if they are painting my whole house for the same price as the cabinets that there is something wrong with that but, when finishing cabinets there so much time going onto prep and using the right products are not cheap.

I would use the 8K towards new cabinets. More drawers/ fewer cabinet dividing stiles...

Now having done both and seeing the drastic difference in results, I would never pay a painter to paint cabinets with standard paint products. A lot of the cost is the prep work (labor is high these days). Standard paints can never produce a professional result and will not have the longevity of lacquer. I would go with a true pro and have them use lacquer paints. You will be much happier in the end.

I wasn't feeling well so I went to the doctor. He says I need to have my gall bladder removed. He quoted me $3000. Does this seem reasonable? :- O