Is It Cheaper To Paint Or Replace Kitchen Cabinets?

Painting is cheaper, and it is not close. We paint kitchen cabinets for $75 to $125 per linear foot, so a 20 foot run runs about $1,500 to $2,500.

Replacing the same kitchen means new boxes, new doors, new hardware, demolition, disposal, and usually new countertops too. Cost is rarely what decides it. What decides it is whether your boxes are worth keeping.

You can check that yourself in five minutes, and this page shows you how. If the boxes are sound, kitchen cabinet painting gets you a new looking kitchen without the demolition.

Check your own cabinets first

Do this before you call anyone. It takes five minutes and it decides the whole question.

Press on a shelf. A solid shelf that does not flex means the box is worth keeping. A shelf that bows under your hand is particleboard that has given up.
Pull a drawer all the way out. Look at the corners. Tight joints are good news. Loose joints and staple holes are not.
Look under the sink. This is where water damage starts. Swollen, soft or crumbling board under there means the box is failing.
Check the cabinet beside the dishwasher. Steam swells the edges first, and a swollen edge will not hold paint.
Look at a door corner. If a thin skin is lifting away from the door, that is thermofoil peeling. Those doors need replacing, not painting.
Wiggle a door. Loose hinges are cheap to fix. New hinges cost a fraction of new doors.

Sound boxes and tired color is the easy case: paint. Failing boxes, water damage or peeling doors is the other easy case: replace. If your kitchen is somewhere in between, the sections on painting and replacing sort it out.

What you pay for, either way

The two jobs use different measurements, which is why quotes are so hard to compare.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

	Painting	Replacing
How it is priced	By the linear foot along the wall, plus the island	On the cabinets themselves: boxes, doors, drawer glides, hinges, installation
A 20 foot kitchen	$1,500 to $2,500	Set by the cabinets you choose
A 30 foot kitchen with an island	$2,250 to $3,750	Set by the cabinets you choose
Demolition and disposal	None	Someone pulls the old kitchen out and pays to haul it away
Your countertops	Stay where they are	Rarely survive removal, so a quote silent on the counter is not finished
Changing the layout	Not possible	Moves the plumbing and the wiring with it

Our painting range is $75 to $125 per linear foot. Measure along the wall from one end of your cabinets to the other, then add the island.

Where your kitchen falls in that range depends on a few things.

Door count, how much prep the doors need, what they are made of, how many coats it takes, and the finish you pick. Those are ballpark figures, not a quote. Two kitchens the same size can differ by 40 percent on door count alone.

There is a third option in the middle: refacing, which replaces the doors and covers the frames in new veneer. It costs much closer to replacement than to painting.

We do not reface cabinets. We paint and stain them, and we will say so plainly when refacing is what you actually want.

When painting is the right call

Kitchen in O'Fallon before we painted it, with dark stained cabinets and a dated look — Before: an O’Fallon kitchen with solid boxes and a dated color.

The same O'Fallon kitchen after we painted the cabinets, with the same layout and counters — After: same boxes, same layout, same counters.

That kitchen is the Fox Haven job in O’Fallon, 300 square feet of cabinets in Sherwin-Williams Alabaster (SW 7008), finished in 2 days in February 2026. The case study has the full scope of work.

Painting works when the structure is sound and you can live with the layout. That means all four of these are true:

The boxes are solid. Plywood or solid wood that does not flex is worth keeping. Most kitchens built before the late 1990s have it.
The doors are not peeling. A lifting thermofoil corner will not hold a coating, and neither will a swollen particleboard edge.
The layout works for you. Paint changes color. It does not move a wall, add an island, or turn 30 inch uppers into 42 inch uppers.
The hinges still hold. Worn hinges are replaceable for far less than new doors.

Your kitchen also stays usable for most of the job. The doors leave, the boxes get masked, and you keep your appliances.

When replacing is the better call

Replacing beats painting more often than a painting company usually admits. Replace when the boxes have failed, when the layout is wrong for how you cook, or when a wall is coming out.

Replace, too, if you want deeper uppers, soft close drawers throughout, or a pantry where the broom closet is now.

Painting a kitchen whose shape already annoys you buys you a repainted version of the same annoyance. We would rather say that up front than take a job that will not fix it.

If you are selling, ask your agent before you do either. In some St. Charles County price brackets a freshly painted kitchen shows as well as a new one. In others, buyers expect new cabinetry and spot the difference right away.

What a professional finish involves

A kitchen we are painting, with every door and drawer front removed and the boxes emptied — Doors and drawer fronts come off first. Nothing is sanded or primed until they do.

A sprayed finish outlasts a weekend of roller work because of the prep. Nearly all of it happens before any color goes on.

Doors and drawer fronts come off and get labeled. They only fit the opening they came out of.
Every surface is degreased. Kitchen cabinets hold cooking oil that sanding will not fix and paint will not stick through.
Surfaces are scuff sanded so the primer has something to grip.
A bonding primer goes on. Over stained or dark wood, this is what stops tannin bleeding through a light color months later.
Doors are sprayed, not brushed. That is what removes brush marks from the finish.
Boxes and frames are finished in place, with the kitchen masked off.
Hardware goes back on last, once the finish has hardened.

The coating matters as much as the prep. We use Sherwin-Williams products.

Their Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel data sheet lists 1 hour to dry to the touch, and 4 hours before the next coat, at 77°F and 50% humidity. It also says not to apply it below 50°F. Those times stretch in a cold or damp room.

That is why a rushed cabinet job fails at the last step, not the first.

Questions people ask before they decide

A properly prepped and sprayed finish holds up to daily kitchen use. Chipping is nearly always a prep failure. Grease left on the doors, no bonding primer, or hardware put back before the finish hardened.

Partly. Paint fills some of it, but open grain oak still reads as textured under a smooth white. A grain filling step reduces it further. If you want a completely flat door face, that is a door replacement question, not a paint question.

Sound laminate can be, with the right bonding primer. Thermofoil that has started peeling cannot. If a corner is already lifting, that door needs replacing.

The doors leave for the length of the job and the boxes are masked, so the kitchen is disrupted rather than unusable. The part people underestimate is the wait after the last coat, before hardware goes back on.

Often yes, since it costs far less than replacement at a point when you are trying to limit spending. Ask your agent what buyers in your bracket expect before you commit.

Single doors can be replaced and finished to match the rest. That is often far cheaper than a new kitchen, and it is worth asking about before you write the cabinets off.

What to do next

Measure your cabinet run before you call anyone. Then ask every company you speak to three questions: does the quote include degreasing, a bonding primer, and spraying rather than brushing? Those answers separate quotes more than the number at the bottom does.

We have been painting kitchens since 1983, with our own employees rather than subcontractors, and we have been BBB accredited since 2012. On cabinets that matters more than on walls.

The hands that mask and prime are the hands that spray. The gallery shows finished kitchens, and the case studies walk through full jobs.

Want a real number for your own kitchen? Book a free on-site consultation. We measure the run, check the boxes with you, and say honestly whether painting is the right call. There is no obligation, and the visit costs nothing. You can also call 636-544-1254.