Cabinet Painting in Detroit

New kitchen cabinets cost $15,000 to $30,000 or more. Cabinet painting costs a fraction of that and gives you a kitchen that looks completely different. If your cabinets are solid and the layout works, painting them is one of the best investments you can make in your home.

But cabinet painting is not the same as wall painting. Not even close. Cabinets get touched constantly — hands, grease, moisture, heat. The finish has to be harder and smoother than anything you put on a wall. That is why the process matters so much.

Here is how we do it at OnDemand Painters.

We start by removing every door, drawer front, and piece of hardware. Hinges, pulls, knobs — everything comes off. Each piece gets labeled so it goes back exactly where it came from. We do not paint cabinets in place with the doors still on. That is a shortcut that shows in the finished product.

Next is prep. We clean every surface with a degreaser to remove years of cooking grease, fingerprints, and grime. Grease is the number one reason cabinet paint fails — if it is not completely clean, the paint will not stick. After cleaning, we sand every surface by hand or with a fine-grit orbital sander. This scuffs the existing finish so the primer can bond properly.

Priming is critical. We use a high-adhesion bonding primer designed for slick surfaces. This is what makes the paint stick to the old finish and stay there. On bare wood or stained cabinets, we use a stain-blocking primer to prevent tannin bleed-through — that yellowish discoloration that shows up a few weeks after painting if you skip this step.

For the topcoat, we spray cabinet doors and drawer fronts. Spraying gives you a factory-smooth finish that brushes and rollers cannot match. No brush strokes, no roller stipple — just a clean, even surface. The cabinet frames and boxes get brushed and rolled carefully since they are still installed in the kitchen.

We apply two coats of finish paint, letting each coat cure fully before the next. We use cabinet-specific paints — either alkyd-modified acrylic or urethane-modified formulas from Sherwin-Williams or Benjamin Moore. These are harder than standard wall paint and built to handle the abuse kitchens dish out.

After everything is dry and cured, we reinstall doors and drawer fronts with new or existing hardware. We adjust hinges so doors hang straight and close properly. The result looks like a brand new kitchen.

The whole process takes about five to seven days. Your kitchen will be usable during most of the project — the stove, fridge, and sink stay accessible. There will be a day or two where things are more disrupted when we are working on the boxes themselves. We let you know the schedule so you can plan around it.

One thing to know: cabinet paint needs time to fully harden. It will be dry to the touch quickly, but the full cure takes two to three weeks. During that time, be gentle with the doors — do not slam them or stack heavy items against them.

We have been painting cabinets for over 20 years. Every job is done by our own crew. No subcontractors, no guessing about who is working in your kitchen. You get a written guarantee on the finish.