Grace Woodwork
Kitchen Cabinet Painting in Kilgore and East Texas
If your kitchen cabinets are solid but the color is tired, painting them changes the whole room without tearing anything out. We clean, sand, prime and finish them in a hard cabinet enamel built for daily use.
Repainting kitchen cabinets instead of replacing them
Cabinet painting is the least disruptive way to change a kitchen. The boxes, the counters and the layout stay where they are; the color and the finish change. Done properly, painted cabinets look like they came that way.
Kitchen cabinets are a hard place for paint. They get grabbed with greasy hands, splashed beside the sink and bumped by pots every day. Wall paint brushed over them tends to peel and chip at the edges. The job only holds up when the surface is prepared like furniture and finished with a paint made for cabinets.
We paint kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, laundry room cabinets and built-in bookcases for homes around Kilgore, Longview, Tyler and the other East Texas towns we work in. We also build and repair cabinets, so if a door is split or a shelf has sagged, it gets fixed before it gets painted.
How we paint kitchen cabinets
- Doors and hardware offDoors, drawer fronts, hinges and pulls come off and are labeled so everything goes back where it came from.
- Clean and degreaseYears of cooking leave a film that paint will not stick to. Paint makers say to degrease first, and we do it thoroughly.
- Repair and sandDings are filled, loose joints reglued, and every surface scuffed so primer can grip. Benjamin Moore suggests a 100 to 150 grit sanding before priming.
- PrimeA bonding primer goes on, chosen for what the cabinets are made of. Previously painted, glossy or laminate surfaces need a primer made for adhesion.
- Finish coatsTwo coats of a cabinet enamel such as a urethane-modified or waterborne alkyd, which levels smooth and cures hard.
- Cure and rehangPaint is dry to the touch in hours but takes days to weeks to reach full hardness. Doors go back on once they can take handling.
Is your kitchen a good candidate?
Painting works best on cabinets that are structurally sound. Before quoting, we look for the things paint cannot fix.
- Good candidates: solid wood or wood-veneer doors and frames, older painted cabinets, oak cabinets with a dated orange finish, sound boxes in a layout you like.
- Needs extra prep: laminate and thermofoil, which need a strong bonding primer and still wear faster than wood.
- Not worth painting: boxes or shelves where particleboard has swollen from a leak, and doors where the vinyl skin is already peeling away.
If the boxes are good but the door style is the problem, cabinet refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts instead. If the boxes are failing, new custom cabinets are the honest answer.
Choosing a color and a sheen
Common choices are whites and off-whites, grays, greens, blues, and two-tone kitchens with a darker island. Lighter colors show grime on the doors people touch most; very dark colors show dust and scratches. A satin or semi-gloss sheen wipes clean more easily than a flat finish, which is why cabinet paints come in those sheens.
Tell us the paint color you have picked and we can try it on one of your doors rather than judging from a paint chip. If you want the wood grain to show, staining is an option on real wood cabinets, though going from a dark stain to a light one means stripping, which costs more than painting.
Hardware is worth deciding at the same time. New pulls with a different hole spacing mean filling and redrilling the old holes before paint, not after.
Homes built before 1978 may have lead in older paint layers, and the U.S. EPA regulates paid work that disturbs it. Tell us roughly when your house was built when you send photos, so the job is planned with that in mind.
Common questions
Can kitchen cabinets be painted?
Most can. Solid wood, wood veneer and painted cabinets take paint well once they are cleaned, sanded and primed with the right primer. Thermofoil and laminate are harder and need a bonding primer, and doors whose vinyl skin is already peeling are better replaced or refaced.
How long does painted cabinet finish last?
Published guides put a professionally painted kitchen at roughly 8 to 15 years with normal care, with door edges and the cabinets by the sink showing wear first. Good prep and a true cabinet enamel are what make the difference.
Should the inside of the cabinets be painted too?
It is optional. Most kitchens look finished with only the outside, door backs and face frames painted. Painting the boxes inside adds time and cost, so we price it separately and you decide.
Can kitchen cabinets be stained instead of painted?
Wood cabinets can be restained, which keeps the grain showing, but going lighter means stripping the old finish first. Paint is the simpler way to make a big color change. Laminate and thermofoil cannot take a normal stain.
How much does cabinet painting cost?
We quote each kitchen after seeing it. For published national price ranges and what moves the number, see our guide to what cabinet painting costs.
Send a photo and we will tell you what it needs.
A phone picture is plenty. You will hear what the piece needs, what it will cost and roughly how long it will take before anything starts.
- HoursMonday to Friday, 9am to 5pm
- The shopKilgore, Texas, working across East Texas
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