How much does it cost to paint kitchen cabinets?

This is probably one of the most asked questions I get regarding kitchen cabinet painting. First of all, there is no easy answer. That's like asking "how much does a house cost?" There are so many different variables that factor into pricing, so I will break it down.

Yes...size does matter, in this case. Obviously larger kitchens will have a higher price than smaller kitchens. But the biggest factors that determine price are the number of doors, the number of drawers, wood type, previously painted, the desired finish, glass doors, decorative moldings and trim work, and if the homeowner is willing to do some of the work.

Let's break it down.

An abundance of cabinet doors will require more labor. One option that I always offer is that the homeowner can remove and install the cabinet doors and drawers for a price reduction. This means less labor for me, and a cost savings for the homeowner. Even still, each cabinet door gets refinished on both the front and back, and some have a floating panel in the middle.

If your cabinetry has a lot of detail, moldings, or abundance of trim, that will add to the cost due to more labor being spent on prep and painting of those areas. Glass doors add extra to the project because not only does the glass need to be removed and reinstalled, but most of the time clients want the inside of the cabinets painted as well since they will be visible.

Cabinetry that has previously been painted will need to be stripped in order to be repainted. This is to ensure that proper prep work is done so that finish failure is not an issue. Stain vs paint is also a factor on cost. Painting cabinets requires a scuff sanding, while staining cabinets requires that the existing finish be completely removed prior to applying stain.

New hardware would add to the project cost as well if you want to change the existing holes. There is a charge for filling and drilling new holes. It's easiest to use the existing hardware size if possible but I understand the desire to want to change it up. Changing hardware is always an option, and its best to let the painter know before painting during the prep stage.

Speciality finishes will also increase the price. Typically, this involves more than one finish, which means additional products and labor.

When it comes to cabinet painting, an average sized kitchen usually starts around $2,700 and can go up as high as $5,000.

What would it cost to do it yourself?

That depends on the equipment that you already have on hand. The biggest (most expensive) pieces of equipment that I use when refinishing cabinets are my sander and dust collection system, and paint spray gun. If you were to purchase these items for refinishing your kitchen, you would probably break even after the cost of paint and supplies for the rest of the project.

Paint is also a large part of the cost. Quality paint can cost $60-$120 per gallon. Typically an average sized kitchen takes 1-2 gallons of paint and 1-2 gallons of primer.

Quality products results in a quality finish. Which is why I only use professional products and equipment. This means I don't cut corners with cheap or DIY paint. Latex paint should not be used on cabinets, only a paint formulated for wood should be used. Also please don't use chalk paint for cabinets either, it was not designed for cabinets. Chalk paint is porous and meant for DIY on furniture typically for distressing.

What to look for in a refinisher?

To get the best results, you should use someone known for cabinet painting. Find out the process, the products they use, make sure the company carries liability insurance, and ask to see samples of their work. You want to know what costs even more than refinishing cabinets? Fixing cabinets that were once refinished and having to strip and stain them all completely.

If you want more information on the process on how I paint cabinets for clients, you can read more about it in this blog post.

Having your cabinets painted is going to be a much cost effective solution versus having them refaced or completely replaced and can completely change the look of a room.

Be sure to follow along on Facebook or Instagram where I'm always posting more information!

Card Catalog Furniture Makeovers

Some of these pieces are true card catalogs, and some just look like it. I love working on this style, and wanted to share a few that I have done.

Don't forget to see all of my transformations by following me on Facebook or Instagram.

First is this metal piece that used to belong to my client's grandparents. It was previously painted brown, just needed a fresh update.

The drawers on this are a bit larger, so I would consider this an apothecary cabinet. It was covered in a thick goopy brown paint, and I stripped the entire piece and added label holders for a look that is more true to its style.

Another apothecary style cabinet, this one a bit taller and different hardware was used. Each handle is attached to an individual drawer, in true apothecary style:

This one is a faux card catalog look since it is only one drawer, but what is unique about this is that it came from the top of an old coffee table that I had previously refinished and I added hairpin legs.

I have done a few mid century style dressers and opted to give them the look of several smaller drawers to replicate a card catalog style:

My client found this vintage library card catalog and scooped it up, then had it refinished by me. The hardware is original to the piece, and I stripped and stained the entire thing.

Sometimes just adding card catalog hardware to furniture gives it the illusion of having multiple drawers. This is best done with pieces that have grooves cut to look like smaller drawers:

What do you think? Do you like the look of card catalog style? Do you have any in your own home? If so, what do you use it for? I envision storing winter gear by the front door, or wine bottles in the kitchen, or craft storage, basically lots of storage options!

Master Bathroom Remodel

I can't believe it has been a full year since the remodel began on our master suite.

Here is the inspiration board I put together to show the Interior Designer for the Master Bathroom:

And this is what the bathroom looked like when we started:

Straight from the 90s. White tile, tiny shower that made me feel claustrophobic, seashell patterned tile around the whirlpool tub, honey oak cabinets and trim, one large builder grade mirror. Not my favorite look.

I brought in an Interior Designer to help me with the design plan. This is always the very first step in my remodel projects, find out why in this blog post.

I knew I wanted to rip out the shower and install new tile and open it up more. She helped me pick new tile, a gorgeous marble looking tile that would also flow through to the whirpool tub as well. She helped decide on new flooring and which way it would run in the room, which is something you need to consider with wood planks.

As far as the vanity area, I wanted to paint the cabinets a blue color, and she agreed. We decided on Poolhouse by Sherwin Williams. Then she said that I could pull the shiplap plank look from the bedroom to coordinate in the bathroom by adding it behind the mirrors. I loved that idea! I wasn't sure what to pick for the wall color in the bathroom, and she picked Canvas Tan from Sherwin Williams, which is a nice neutral tan color.

After all the planning and hard work, here is what it looks like now:

I added the shiplap myself and painted it, along with the walls, cabinets, and trim. For the cabinets, I really wanted to change a few things like I swapped out the old hinges for new hidden hinges, which meant drilling new hardware holes. I also wanted to hide my hair tools inside the cabinet, so I had an electrician swap out the electrical box from the outside of the cabinet to the inside.

We hired contractors for the plumbing, electrical work, removing the old shower, installing the new tile and glass shower doors, and installing the flooring.

I also swapped out the light above the tub from a recessed light to a pendant, you can find out more about that in this blog post.

This cute shelf is new and hangs above the toilet for extra storage. The Interior Designer that I hired owns a home decor store as well, and she selected this item for me. It fits perfect and adds some height and storage in the space.

If you want to see more of the Master Suite remodel, you can check out this post which talks about the Master Bedroom makeover.

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram and Facebook, where I also show more sneak peeks and advice.

Lets talk topcoats for furniture

Let's talk about the different types of topcoats to apply for protecting refinished furniture. I can only share my experience with the topcoats that I have previously used in the past.

After painting or staining furniture, it should have a protective topcoat finish applied. There are so many different kinds of topcoats, but I'm going to break them down and share my experience.

Wax - its easy to apply, basically just wipe on and buff away the excessive. It provides a flat finish and is used a lot over chalk paint. The advantage to wax is that it can be applied with a brush or cloth and does not need to be sprayed, meaning anyone can do it. If not applied correctly the finish can look streaky though. The downfall is that wax is not as durable as other topcoats, and needs to be re-applied frequently. This is best applied to very distressed pieces since the furniture is already distressed and adding more wear would not be an issue. It offers a light protection from scratches and water. I do not want my clients to have a lot of upkeep with their furniture, so I do not use wax as a topcoat.

Hemp Oil - also easy to apply with a cloth or brush, can be used over paint or used to revive old wood finishes. This finish is food safe and can be used in the kitchen. This is not maintenance free however, and requires a light coat every other year. I love hemp oil for cutting boards or light use furniture pieces, but I don't want clients to have to do a lot of work after taking home their furniture.

General Finishes High Performance Top Coat - can be brushed or sprayed, very versatile. This product was voted as the hardest, most durable consumer polyurethane topcoat. Its a popular sealer, I like that it is water based but can be applied over water-based or oil-based finishes. High Performance Top Coat comes in a variety of sheens, from flat to gloss. I prefer to use water based products while spraying and love the smooth finish that this provides. This is my default topcoat that I use for furniture refinishing. After 28 days of curing this product dries very hard, and will stand up to a lot of use. While it isn't waterproof, it is water resistant and provides very good protection.

General Finishes Conversion Varnish - this is the top of the line for General Finishes. It's a post catalyzed high solids, two component urethane formatted for professionals who need the highest level of durability and chemical resistance. I have used this when a client requires the most durable product and wants restaurant grade finishing. This is recommended for commercial applications or extremely high-wear surfaces such as countertops and bar tops. I have used this product on my own dining room table and have never had any issue with the finish. Because it requires a catalyst and needs to be used a few hours within mixing, there is an uncharge for the extra protection and because there is usually leftover product that cannot be reused. The conversion varnish is meant for spraying.

As with all furniture, the finishes are meant to withstand some wear and tear. Just like finishes you find in big box furniture stores, if a child drags a metal touch across it, there will be a scratch. Or if you leave a wet glass on the surface for a long period of time, it will leave a ring. At Flipping Unbelievable, we use high quality products to make our furniture as durable as possible, but painted furniture does require some special care. Its not my intent to sell you additional topcoats so that you have to reapply within the next couple of years so I select topcoats that are meant to last.

Make sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook for more tips, tricks, and inspiration.

Adjustable Drawer Pulls

Have you ever come across a piece of furniture that had center to center hole measurements that are not a standard size? In case you were wondering, standard size is typically 3 inches.

In most cases when this happens, I typically fill in the holes and drill new holes, but that option really works best for when a piece is being painted.

A cringe worthy solution is when the drawer pull is swapped out for two knobs instead, like this:

Please don't ever do that. It looks horrible.

So what is another option?
Drawer pulls with adjustable center holes!!!

Okay let me back up for a minute.

I have been looking for a sofa table for awhile. I was being picky though, I needed the correct height and length, and for the size I wanted these pieces were are to come by.

Until I found this on Facebook Marketplace:

I realize that this was poorly painted by someone else, but I was up for the challenge. Lucky for me, the person who had previously painted it did not bother to properly prep, and a lot of the paint was just chipping right off.

I don't have an exact number, but my guess is that it probably took about 40 hours to completely strip all the nasty paint and finish off. After all of that work, I couldn't bring myself to paint or stain it.

The hardware wasn't my style. I wanted something a little more modern. After a lot of searching though, I couldn't find any hardware that was 3 and 5/8" to fit the existing holes. This was not a standard size.

Until I stumbled across these pulls from Home Depot:

I had to order them online but they showed up pretty quickly. They came with directions and were so easy to install, I didn't even need any additional tools besides what they supplied.

There were a few different sizes to select, based on the size of the holes. Meaning if the holes were spaced further than 4 inches apart, a wider pull would be required.

All you need to do is place the screws in the holes with the bolt part facing the outside, add the washer and nut on the inside loosely tightened, and then slide the pull over the bolt part on the outside. Use the wing nut included to tighten completely. Easy as that! I do have a video tutorial explaining this on my Instagram highlight stories.

I'm so happy to have found this option. I'm sure I will be using these in the future, I love the look of them and how easy they are to install.

Here it is all finished. What do you think? Was it worth all the effort?

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Instagram for even more inspiration!

Master Bedroom Remodel

We have lived in our home for 5 years now, and the master suite remodel was last on our list of updates. Here is what my bedroom looked like just after we moved in:

For some reason we thought painting the walls a dark chocolate brown would camouflage the honey oak woodwork. We were wrong.

Like most of our remodel projects, we start off by hiring an Interior Designer. See my post here on why this is an important step!

Most of the time I know what I like and hire an Interior Designer to confirm my decisions or tell me I'm way off base. For my bedroom walls though, I really had no idea what color I wanted to paint them I just knew I no longer wanted the brown color that they currently were. We went through the master bathroom design first and I mentioned that I wanted a blue color for the cabinets. When we got to the bedroom walls I admitted I had no idea what color I wanted them but wasn't opposed to color. She suggested painting the bedroom walls the same color as the bathroom cabinets as it will tie the rooms together. BRILLIANT! Its the small details that make a space, and these details are what designers are trained to do.

Picking the trim color was easy, I went with the color that was in the rest of the home. In the past I have brushed the paint on the trim for the windows. It was a tedious task that took forever, with 2 coats for primer and 3 coats for paint. This time I decided to spray the window trim, as I had 6 larger windows that needed to be painted. It took hours of taping and covering the windows, but just minutes to spray the primer and paint on and the finish was perfect, so it was well worth it.

We planned to get new flooring since I am not a fan of carpet, but it had been years since we did the rest of the flooring in the home and the flooring we had before was no longer available. Our Interior Designer recommended running the flooring the opposite way of the adjoining flooring in order to make a more obvious transition. She also agreed with my vision of a lighter wood looking floor so that was good!

I removed all of the trim and carpeting myself. This allowed me extra time to paint the trim before the flooring was installed. I planned to spray all of the trim, but had to prep everything first by cleaning and sanding. I made sure to label every piece of trim that was removed to make sure it was easy to put it back in its correct place!

The most challenging part of the bedroom remodel was the ceiling. There are certain design elements that I don't like, without any particular reason at all. Tray ceilings in the master bedroom are on that list. Now I know it is not reasonable to have the tray ceiling removed, so instead I decided to make it look more visually interesting by adding shiplap. My plan was to simply locate the roof trusts and run the shiplap the opposite way in order to secure the planks. After a lot of attempts with the stud finder, I realized that the roof trusts weren't as easy to locate as I had thought. I called my uncle who is an expert in roof trusts and over the phone he was able to walk me through the trust design for the roof of my house, and I realized it was not all running one way. Here is the collaboration picture I drew with the help of my uncle. Have I mentioned I started my college journey studying Architecture? I didn't finish with that degree, and this picture might help you understand why..

So, after all of that, I decided that I would do the best I could with nailing the planks into the truss but also used a generous amount of Liquid Nails on each plank before nailing. I also used my jigsaw to cute a hole in the middle for the new ceiling fan, and then my miter saw to frame the edges of the shiplap for a nice clean look. Then went through and patched and painted every single nail hole. WORTH IT THOUGH. This ceiling is the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up and I'm so happy with how it turned out. Ceilings are getting more attention lately, I have noticed that builders are giving architectural design to ceilings and I love the concept. It draws the eye up in the room.

New bedding, a new rug, a new ceiling fan, new flooring, painted walls, painted windows and trim, shiplap planked ceiling and the room is complete! Here are a few before and after pictures for reference:

 So tell me, what do you think of this shiplap planked tray ceiling and bedroom update?

Want to see more of my refinishing? Check out Instagram and Facebook.

Top Transformations for Furniture

Some of the best transformations don't just come from paint, but when a piece is repurposed.

 This blog post is dedicated to a few of my favorite furniture transformations.

Lets start with this door. I picked it up at my local Habitat for Humanity Restore. It was less than $20. With my saw, some pocket screws and a new piece of wood for the seat, I made a unique bench out of the door.

 Before:

 

After:

Looks completely different right? This one was a keeper, it is currently in my own foyer.

One of the first major transformations I ever did was to convert an old radio into a bar cabinet. This was a big undertaking, even though some of the radio components were already removed, I had to remove the rest of the components, remove the gingham fabric, added a drawer, added a backing (copper tile look), added wine glass holders, and added a wine bottle holder (which can be removed if needed). Check out the difference:
Before:

After:

This one even won me an award in a General Finishes contest a few years ago. I have to admit it might be one of my favorites.

The next transformation I want to share is one that I recently finished. It involved a White Elephant gift exchange with another local furniture artist that I teamed up with. We each gifted each other a piece of furniture that would be considered ugly or dated. She gave me a coffee table to refinish. I decided it was better suited as an upholstered bench, so I removed the railings and top drawer, then added foam, batting and new fabric onto a piece of wood which I screwed onto the bench. But that's not all, I decided to also use the drawer that came with it as well and make another piece. I added a bottom to it since the old bottom was the coffee table part, then paired the piece with 4 hairpin legs to give it some height, and finished it off with card catalog hardware. It became a cute and modern end table!

Both of those items went home with the same person, I'm glad they will continue to live in the same home.


One of my clients wanted me to refinish a hutch for her, but she only wanted to use the bottom part and wanted to get rid of the top, so she gave it to me for free. It was a solid piece of wood, so I didn't want it going to the dumpster. Instead I added wood to the top and bottom, added wood to the doors (removed the glass) and added feet. It became a buffet!
Before:

After:

The last transformation I want to talk about is what was once an old desk. My husband was delivering a piece of furniture and he found this "beauty" sitting on the curb, so grabbed it for me. Its an old typewriter desk, but I didn't like the middle section as there was no longer a need for it. Instead, I cut the middle section out, and added a new side panel to each piece. One of the bottom pieces of trim was missing so I just replaced both.
Before:

After:

Now I know that turning a desk/vanity into two nightstands is not a new concept, but this project was new to me and I love how they turned out!

Check out my Instagram or Facebook page as I continue my journey of transforming furniture and cabinetry!