Trim and door painting
Trim and doors
Read more
Painting in Frederick & Central MD
Cabinet painting and refinishing
Cabinet refinishing done as its own process rather than as wall painting applied to a kitchen. Doors come off, everything is degreased and scuff-sanded, a bonding primer goes on, and the finish is sprayed.
Licensed & insuredFree written estimatesFrederick-based crewClean-site guarantee
Quick answer
How much does it cost to paint kitchen cabinets in Maryland?
Most kitchens land between $2,500 and $7,000, and the number comes from the door and drawer count rather than the size of the room — roughly $90 to $180 per door or drawer front. A twelve-door kitchen with simple slab fronts sits low in that range; a thirty-door kitchen with detailed profiles and painted interiors sits at the top.
The work
What cabinet painting actually involves.
Kitchen cabinets are the hardest painted surface in a house to get right, because they are the only one that gets touched by greasy hands several times a day and then wiped. Everything that goes wrong with a cabinet repaint traces back to one of two omissions: the grease was not fully removed, or no bonding primer went on. Paint will not stick to cooking residue and ordinary primer will not grip a factory-cured finish, which is why so many do-it-yourself cabinet jobs start shedding at the handles and the top rail inside a year.
So we treat it as a separate trade. Doors and drawer fronts come off and get labelled, hinges and hardware come off rather than getting cut around, and the boxes stay in place and get masked in. Everything is degreased with a proper cleaner, scuff-sanded to break the sheen, and primed with a bonding primer. The finish is sprayed, because a brushed cabinet door always reads as a brushed cabinet door no matter how good the brush is.
The honest trade-off is time. A kitchen is out of normal service for most of a week — you will have the sink and appliances, but not the doors — and the finish wants a fortnight of gentle treatment before it is fully hard. That is the price of a finish that lasts. Anyone who offers to paint your kitchen cabinets in place over two days is going to hand you something that looks right at the handover and wrong by next winter.
Doors removed and sprayed flat
Degreased and bonding-primed
Kitchens, vanities and built-ins
What cabinet painting costs in Maryland
Maryland cabinet refinishing. Door and drawer count drives the price far more than kitchen floor area, so an estimate starts with a count.
- Kitchen cabinet refinishing
- $2,500 – $7,000
- Per door or drawer front
- $90 – $180
- Bathroom vanity
- $350 – $750
- Cabinet interiors, as an add-on
- +$400 – $1,100
- New hinges or handles fitted
- $8 – $25 per piece
Ranges, not quotes. Real numbers come from a walkthrough — access, condition, height and finish level move a price more than square footage does. Estimates are free and in writing.
Get your numberFull cabinet painting cost guide for MarylandPrefer to just talk?
Call and describe the job. You’ll get a straight answer on whether it’s something we do and roughly what it runs.
(301) 524-1729
Self-performed
Cabinet painting and refinishing
What’s included
Everything the cabinet painting scope actually covers.
Written into the estimate, not assumed. If something on your job is not on this list, it gets priced and named before anyone starts.
Doors off and labelled
01Every door and drawer front comes off, gets numbered and gets sprayed flat. Hinges and hardware come off too, which is the only way to get a clean edge.
Degreased properly
02A proper degreaser over every surface, not a wipe with a damp cloth. Cooking residue is invisible and it is the single most common reason cabinet paint lets go.
Bonding primer, not ordinary primer
03A factory-cured or previously finished cabinet face needs a primer built to grip it. This is the step that decides whether the finish is still on in five years.
Sprayed finish
04Doors and fronts sprayed off-site or in a masked area and left to harden flat. A sprayed cabinet reads as furniture; a brushed one reads as a repaint.
Boxes, frames and interiors
05Face frames and the visible edges of the boxes finished to match. Cabinet interiors are an option rather than an assumption, and priced separately.
Hardware refitted or upgraded
06Original hinges and handles refitted, or new ones fitted and the old holes filled. Changing handle spacing is a good moment to do it, while the doors are already off.
On the job
Painting work across Frederick & Central MD.
What the trade looks like at each stage. Photos of our own recent jobs come out at the walkthrough, on the actual house.
Straight answers
Cabinet painting questions
Not covered here? Call and ask — you’ll get a real answer, not a “depends on the job”.
Plan on four to six working days for a typical kitchen. You keep the sink, the appliances and the inside of the cabinets throughout — what you lose is the doors, which are off being sprayed and hardened flat. We put them back on when the finish is hard enough to handle, not when it is merely dry.
Substantially, when the boxes are sound. Refinishing a kitchen runs a fraction of what new cabinetry costs, and it is the right call when the carcases are solid and the layout works. It is the wrong call when the boxes are water-damaged, the hinges are failing throughout or you want a different layout — paint does not fix any of those.
Not if the three steps that matter were done: full degrease, scuff sand, bonding primer. That is where handle-edge chipping comes from, and it is why we will not skip any of them to hit a lower price. Give the finish two weeks of gentle use after refitting and it hardens to something that takes daily handling.
Same crew, same visit
The rest of the painting work.
Most painting jobs are two or three of these at once, which is why they are priced and scheduled together rather than as separate call-outs.
From the field
Read up before you book.
Longer answers than a quote page has room for — how the work fails, what putting it right actually involves, and when waiting is the honest call.
Sources worth your time
Check us, and check the work
None of these are ours. They are the offices and standards bodies that set the rules we work to, so you can verify what we say rather than take it.
EPA on VOCs and indoor air
Why the smell of fresh paint matters, what low-VOC and zero-VOC actually mean, and how long to ventilate a room after a repaint.
OpenNational Association of Home Builders
Where the residential-construction standards and material research behind these decisions are published.
OpenMaryland Home Improvement Commission
Check any Maryland contractor's licence before you sign. Ours is on file with the Commission.
Open
Talk to the people doing the work
Get a straight number for the whole job.
Tell us what needs doing. We’ll walk it with you, sequence every trade it touches, put the price in writing, and leave you to decide.
Get a quote
Let’s price your project.
Two short steps. No obligation, no pressure — just a clear number and a straight answer about what the job involves.
Tick as many as you like. Most jobs are two or three of them at once, and I sort out the detail when I come and look. Nobody gets turned away for choosing the wrong box.
