Preparation is the job. Everything else is the easy part
A cabinet painting job is roughly three quarters preparation and one quarter spraying, and every shortcut lives in that first three quarters. Kitchen cabinet faces accumulate vaporised cooking oil for years, particularly above and beside the range, and no primer on the market bonds reliably through grease. Degreasing comes first, every time, and on a kitchen that has been cooked in hard it is not a quick wipe.
After degreasing comes filling and sanding. Dents, chips and old hardware holes that are not being reused get filled. Then every surface gets sanded to a uniform key, which on a raised-panel door means getting into the profile properly rather than skating the flats. Sanding is also where a previously painted cabinet reveals whether the last finish was prepared properly, because a poorly bonded old film lifts under the abrasive.
What is under your current finish changes everything
| Substrate | Preparation | The failure mode to check first |
|---|---|---|
| Stained and lacquered hardwood | Degrease, sand, stain-blocking primer | Tannin bleed through the new paint, particularly on oak |
| Open-grain oak | As above, plus grain filling if a smooth finish is wanted | Grain telegraphing through a smooth-look paint |
| Previously painted | Degrease, tape test, sand or strip depending on the result | Poorly bonded old film lifting under the new one |
| Thermofoil over MDF | Degrease, scuff, bonding primer | Film already lifting at corners or near heat. Paint traps that, it does not fix it |
| Melamine | Degrease, scuff, bonding primer | Chipped edges with no forgiveness; the core shows at every chip |
| Raw or stripped wood | Sand, seal, prime | Uneven absorption if the sealer is skipped |
Preparation routes used in cabinet refinishing practice. The substrate determines the primer, and the primer determines whether the job lasts.
Why doors go to the shop
Doors and drawer fronts come off, get labelled to their openings, and are sprayed flat in a controlled space. There are three reasons and all of them are practical. A sprayed film levels under gravity when the door is horizontal and runs when it is vertical. Overspray in a lived-in kitchen goes everywhere, including onto the countertop and the appliances. And a controlled space lets the shop manage temperature and airflow, which on the Gulf Coast is not a luxury.
The face frames and cabinet boxes that cannot be removed are masked and sprayed in place. That part is unavoidable, and it is why a painting job still involves protecting a kitchen properly even though most of the work happens elsewhere.
What Gulf Coast humidity does to a finish schedule
Coatings cure by releasing solvent or water into the surrounding air, and air that is already carrying a lot of moisture accepts less. NOAA's 1991 to 2020 hourly normals for Mobile Regional Airport record a mean dew point of 72.0 degrees on 15 July against 39.4 degrees on 15 January. That is a 32.6 degree seasonal difference in how much water the air holds, and it translates directly into flash-off time between coats.
Two consequences follow. First, a shop spraying in a conditioned booth is working to a predictable schedule and one spraying in an unconditioned building in August is not. Second, recoating too soon into a slow-drying first coat traps solvent, which produces a film that stays soft, marks easily and takes months to reach full hardness. Neither of those is exotic. Both are the difference between a finish that survives a family kitchen and one that shows a fingernail mark in week three.
The one thing paint cannot solve on this coast
A five-piece door has a centre panel that floats inside a frame, deliberately, so it can move. When that panel shrinks in a dry January it withdraws fractionally from the frame and exposes a hairline of previously hidden wood at the shoulder. Painted, that line is visible because the paint film has been cut. Stained, it is invisible because the stain went on before assembly and the exposed wood matches.
That movement is larger here than in most of the country. Wood Handbook FPL-GTR-282 puts the recommended in-service moisture content for interior woodwork at 11 percent in the damp warm coastal area against 8 percent nationally, and the seasonal swing around that figure is what moves the panel. Choosing a slab door, an MDF door or a stained finish sidesteps the issue entirely. The painted versus stained guide goes through the trade in full.
What cabinet painting costs in Mobile, AL
Thumbtack's national average for cabinet painting is $1,200 to $7,000, updated 8 July 2026. That band is wide because the amount of preparation varies enormously: a small kitchen of slab doors that have never been painted is a completely different job from a large kitchen of open-grain oak raised panels that needs grain filling and a stain-blocking primer.
Painting is the cheapest of the three renewal routes. Against it, refacing replaces the doors and skins the frames, and new doors and fronts sits between the two. Full replacement, at HomeAdvisor's national installed range of $500 to $1,200 per linear foot for custom work as of 17 June 2026, is an order of magnitude above all three.
| Route | What changes | What stays | Relative cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Painting and refinishing | Colour and sheen | Doors, fronts, frames, boxes, layout | Lowest |
| New doors and drawer fronts | Doors and fronts | Face frames, boxes, layout | Middle |
| Refacing | Doors, fronts and face frame surface | Boxes, layout | Higher |
| Replacement | Everything | Nothing, unless you choose to keep it | Highest |
Scope comparison. Published figures: cabinet painting $1,200 to $7,000 national average, Thumbtack 8 July 2026. Replacement $500 to $1,200 per linear foot installed for custom, HomeAdvisor 17 June 2026.
The cost guide lists every published figure with its publisher and date attached.
When painting is the wrong answer
- The boxes have failed. A perfect finish on a soft sink base is money in the wrong place.
- The layout is what frustrates you. Paint changes the colour and nothing else.
- Thermofoil is already lifting. Painting over lifting film traps the failure underneath.
- The doors are hollow-core or badly damaged, where the door itself is the problem.
- You want inset doors or a different overlay, neither of which paint can deliver.
- The existing finish fails a tape test across several doors, which means stripping, and at that point compare against new doors.
If any of those apply, read the refacing versus replacing guide before committing to anything.
Painting and refinishing across the region
Oak kitchens from the 1980s and 1990s are the most common painting candidate across Saraland, Daphne and Spanish Fort, and they are also the ones that need grain filling and a stain-blocking primer if a smooth painted finish is the goal. Older kitchens in Mobile and Fairhope more often carry several previous finishes, which makes the tape test the first thing worth doing.
Full service area, and assessments start on the contact page.