Priceing Kitchen Cabinets

lornmastro

Got a job to paint kitchen cabinets. Thinking about charging $25.00/door and $15/linear foot for the face/exposed side of the boxes. What does everyone else charge?? Someone told me a good primer for this application is stix,they are wooden cabinets,anyone have experience with stix?. Thanks

bwalley

Painting wood cabinets is a bad idea.

At $25 a door how much prep work do you plan on doing?

Most painted cabinets are done with a catalyzed (sp?) finish.

Wolfgang

Some people charge by lineal foot, some by cabinet unit opening, and about a half dozen other ways.

The first thing you should do is figure the cost of your materials and get that amount as a down-payment on the job. Use that money to buy your materials cash, that way you know the supplier is paid for in full.

I say this because the way your question is written, the lack of pertinent information, and not knowing what primer to use; you'll probably lose your a55. (At least this way you can keep a good business relationship with the paint store.)

lornmastro

Why do you think that a bonding primer is not a good idea?? I have used it in the past with great results?? what primer is your primer of choice??

ModernStyle

Use an oil based primer like Cover Stain or Kilz, and and put on a decent top coat ........ no big deal.
I do it all the time and I charge a helluva lot more then $25 a door. Cabinets are expensive and if they are having you paint them then they have usually priced new one already. I charge alot to do cabinets, because they are very time consuming.

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Dave Mac

25 a door is very cheap, oil prime slow dry, kilz becomes brittles as it dries way to fast imo.

50 a door would be better, and you will need primer plust two coats, thats three coats. And this is not painting the inside.

bwalley

Only a hack wouldn't paint all sides of a door.

Dave Mac

wow quick to call names, must be a personel thing, good luck with it.

I agree both sides of the door must be painted, I was only talking about not painting the inside of the cabinets. Like I said lol

Dave Mac

O yea and remove the doors to paint. Some things I just assume a professional would know, but I guess some are at differnt stages in their carrers and are trying to learn.

lornmastro

Thanks all for your reply. I am currentlly painting cabinets and will be trying hard to keep track of my time so I can price them out a little better. FYI I will be doing all the prep work/painting both sides of the doors and taking the door off to paint and using an oil based impervo. I will admit I am not knowlegable when it comes to cabinets and what type of primer to use. Why would a slow oil primer or coverstain be a better choice than a bonding primer?? Thank for the education.

ModernStyle

Bonding is not going to be a major issue if you sand the cabinets before priming, you will want a nice alkyd primer to deal with any stains or bleed throughs. I just finished a small set of cabinets, 16 doors and 4 drawers for $1800, which I actually considered to be about 1/3 less then I should have charged.
I actually primed these cabinets with Cover Stain, then layed a coat of ICI Gripper on them, then 2 coats of Sherwin 's Pro Classic Acrylic semi-gloss. The Gripper was kind of an experiment to see it it would make the cabinets finish feel thicker and more durable, I believe it did.
I normally never paint the inside of the boxes, but I do take the doors and drawers homw to spray, nthing matches a nice sprayed on finish.

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woodtradesman

Right on, thats just about how I do my woodwork.

By the way, ICI Gripper rocks and I highly recommend it if you are going to spray

ModernStyle

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ModernStyle

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sean26

Hi Lorn:

I completed a cabinet repaint in an old home a couple months ago. My production rates were as follows (I'll break down the total time to time per door):

1) Remove door: 10 minutes (that's right, 10 minutes on average to remove a door! Depending on the state of the cabinetry, removal and remounting can take even longer than this);

2) lay out doors for priming: 12 doors = 20 minutes (it's easy to forget how much space you need to lay out a whack of 2' x 3' doors. If you don't have a workshop, it can be a real hassle arranging the doors so that you can reach them all without having to move them around after you've started painting them. You also need to set them up in a space that is as dust free as possible...Remember, you're going to be using oil finishes for the doors, so the drying time for each side is going to be 4-8 hours - enough time for dust, bits, insects, etc. to build up on the surface.)

3) Palm sand and sponge sand door (both sides): 10 minutes (make sure you use fine sand paper...this is also the time to apply a shellac primer on any part of a wood door where you anticipate bleed-through (i.e.: wood knotts, grease stains, etc));

4) Prime door: 10 minutes. (for cabinet doors, you have to apply the primer the same way you would a finishing coat, taking care to avoid lap marks and paint ridges); allow 4-8 hours drying time; repeat steps 1-4 for other side of doors; allow 4-8 hours to dry.

Finishing:

5)Lightly sponge sand both sides of primed door, making sure to remove dust with a tack cloth (it's essential to keep the surface of the doors as dust free as humanly possible between each coat of paint...I usually keep a can of compressed air by my side and give each door a blast before rolling on a coat): 10 minutes;

6) apply first finishing coat: 10 minutes; allow 4-8 hours to dry;

7) turn doors: 15 minutes (now that one side of the door has been painted you have to be careful to prop the doors off the floor with stilts that won't scratch or stick to the surface of the freshly painted side);

8) apply first finishing coat to back of door: 10 minutes; allow 4-8 hours to dry;

9) lightly fine-sand 1st coat and remove dust with tack cloth: 10 minutes;

10) roll on 'final' coat on front of door (I put final in quotes, because you won't know if you'll need a third coat until the second coat is on. Make sure to tell the customer that, although a primer coat + 2 finishing coats should cover the doors, a third coat is often needed for full, deep coverage);

allow 4-8 hours to dry, then turn doors: 15 minutes;

11) paint 'final' coat on back side of doors: 10 minutes; allow 4-8 hours to dry; remount doors: 10 minutes (again, add on 10 + ? minutes for stubborn doors).

Total labour time for each door: about 2.5 - 3 hours per door (provided everything comes off and goes back on without a hitch)

Total drying time: 8 hours (primer front) + 8 hours (primer back) + 8 hours (coat #1, front) + 8 hours (coat #1, back) + 8 hours (coat #2, front) + 8 hours (coat#2, back) = 48 hours!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, $25.00 per door is probably way too low a price. In labour alone, I'd charge at least 90.00 per door.

I hope this gives you some idea of what goes into painting a cabinet door - that is, if you want them to look like that set of doors that Modern painted (nice job!). I did my first cabinet re-paint about 5 years ago...and got hosed so badly that I actually contemplated changing trades. This is the one part of the trade that can really de-rail you if you don't know what you're getting into.

Good luck.

sean26

F..k, I didn't realize you had already started painting. Guess I was too late. Let us know how it goes.

lornmastro

Hey modern the cabinets look great!! Thanks sean for the breakdown. I know cabinets are a PA. I wish i had a dust free table that is 50ft. long. Will let you know my time breakdown when I am finish mine. It is not as detailed as yours sean. Still have to hang them. Will try and post a pic...if I can figure out how to do it.

CarrPainting

Hmm interesting thread.....

I painted the kitchen cabinets in my kitchen last spring... and redid the doors. Natural wood... the cabinets themselves are just cheap wooden cabinets from the 70's. I painted the physical cabinets white gloss using some 1980's oil gloss by Dutch Boy... 8 hours to dry huh? My cabinets were still tacky 3 days LATER LOL!

3 coats in all... 1 prime, 2 finish... took about 3 weeks stark to finish...

for the doors, I sanded them down to remove the old crappy cover stain varnish crap that was on them and exposed the natural grain of the wood then used Golden oak stain, and then like 10 coats of poly gloss.. bought new stainless hinges and knobs...my material cost was about $50 for the knobs and sanding discs... I had everything else on the shelf in my shop...they came out pretty nice, however I realised, that the doors should have been sprayed instead of brushed... trying to keep the poly level was a real PITA

that was my winter project.... this year I wanna build a new desk as my current desk sucks lol