Search this question and you will find answers from under a thousand dollars to well over six thousand, for what sounds like the same kitchen. Both numbers are real; they are just measuring different things. This post explains the gap, gives you a way to size your own kitchen, lists what should be in any quote you accept, and covers the Oklahoma-specific factors that move the price in Tulsa and Oklahoma City kitchens. Danco does not publish prices because no two kitchens cost the same; every one is quoted in person, in writing, after looking at the doors.
Cost guides pull from two different kinds of data. Survey sites that average what homeowners reported paying, like the figures Forbes Home and Bob Vila cite (averages around $775 to $895), are dominated by small jobs: a touch-up, a brush-and-roll refresh, a DIY weekend with the materials counted but not the labor. Guides built from contractor pricing, like Fixr (typical range $2,500 to $6,500, average about $4,000) and HomeGuide ($2,000 to $6,500), describe a full kitchen done by a professional with the doors off, sprayed, and rehung.
If you want the second thing, a finish that looks like it came from a factory and does not chip in a year, use the second set of numbers as your frame of reference. Locally, the aggregator HomeBlue has published Tulsa and Oklahoma City figures in the $60 to $80 per door range at the low end, while a national franchise quotes $125 to $185 per piece for doors sprayed on both sides. That spread, from roughly $60 to $185 a door, is the real market, and the rest of this post is about what moves a kitchen from one end to the other.
Painters price cabinets by the piece because every door and drawer front has to be removed, cleaned, sanded, primed, sprayed on both sides, and rehung, no matter how big the room is. Count yours. Most published guides and most quotes land in these bands:
| Kitchen size | Doors and drawer fronts | Typical of |
|---|---|---|
| Small | Under 20 pieces | Galley kitchens, condos, many pre-1960 homes |
| Medium | 20 to 40 pieces | The standard 1980s to 2000s suburban kitchen in Edmond, Broken Arrow, and south Tulsa |
| Large | 40 pieces and up | Kitchens with an island, a pantry wall, or a built-in hutch |
Drawer fronts usually count as a fraction of a door. Islands, glass-front doors, open shelving, and interiors are priced separately, which is why two kitchens with the same door count can quote differently.
This is the list that separates a finish that lasts from one that chips in eighteen months. If a quote does not spell these out, ask.
More pieces, more labor. Raised-panel and detailed doors take longer to sand and spray evenly than flat slab doors.
A huge share of kitchens in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metros were built or remodeled in the honey oak years, roughly the 1980s through the early 2000s. Oak has an open grain that shows through paint as a faint texture. Some people like it; it reads as real wood. If you want a smooth, modern finish, the grain has to be filled before primer, which adds a step and real labor. Danco will show you a filled and an unfilled sample on one of your own doors so you choose with your eyes.
Thermofoil (the vinyl wrap on many 1990s and 2000s builder cabinets) and laminate are the other common materials here. Peeling thermofoil cannot be painted reliably; the wrap has to be removed or the doors replaced. MDF paints well but needs sealing at any cut edge. A good painter tells you up front if your doors are not candidates.
Water damage under the sink, doors warped from a dishwasher leak, and heavy wear around the handles all add repair time. So does a previous bad paint job that has to be stripped.
Going from dark stain to white takes more primer and coats than a light-to-light change. Dark finishes show every imperfection, so they take more prep.
Spraying costs more in setup and masking but gives the smooth factory look. Brushed cabinets show brush marks and are usually quoted lower. For most kitchens, spraying is worth the difference.
Box interiors are usually excluded unless you ask. Islands, hutches, pantries, and bathroom vanities are priced as additional pieces. New hardware installation and filling the old holes is a line item.
Painting changes the color and hides the grain partly or fully; it is the most common choice for the oak kitchens above. Refinishing (restaining) keeps the wood look and works on solid wood doors in good shape that you want darker or richer; HomeGuide puts it in a similar or slightly lower range than painting. Refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts and veneers the boxes; the same guides put it at roughly two to three times the cost of painting. Replacing is the most expensive and is the right call only when the boxes are failing or the layout is wrong. If your boxes are sound and you like your layout, painting is the best value in the kitchen.
A quote well under the market usually left something out. The usual suspects: no degreasing or deglossing (the doors will chip), brushing instead of spraying, wall paint instead of cabinet enamel, one coat, doors painted in place with the hinges on, or no written list of what is included. None of those are illegal; they are just a different job than the one you think you are buying. Ask what is on the list above and the quote will explain itself.
The materials for a DIY cabinet job run a few hundred dollars according to every guide, and the labor runs thirty to sixty hours of your weekends. The result depends almost entirely on whether you degrease and degloss properly and whether you can spray. Brushed DIY cabinets are fine for a rental or a laundry room. For the kitchen you look at every day, most people find the sprayed finish and the week of downtime, rather than a month of it, worth hiring out.
With a proper system (degrease, degloss, bonding primer, sprayed cabinet enamel) they hold up to many years of daily use. The painted cabinets that chip within a year or two almost always skipped the prep.
About a week from doors-off to doors-on for a medium kitchen. You can cook the whole time with the doors off; plan around a day or two when the boxes are being sprayed. The finish keeps hardening for a couple of weeks, so be gentle early on.
If the boxes are sound and you like the layout, yes. It is a fraction of replacement and it is the single biggest visual change you can make in a kitchen for the money.
Yes. The decision is whether to fill the grain for a smooth look or leave it for a wood texture. See the cabinet painting and staining page for the full process, then request a free estimate and Danco will show you both options on your own door.
Danco handles cabinet painting and staining across the Tulsa and Oklahoma City metros. Danco looks at the job in person and puts the scope and price in writing. 10% off qualifying jobs of $2,500 and up.
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