Kitchen Cabinet Paint Calculator

How this is calculated

A KITCHEN IS COUNTED IN DOORS, NOT IN FEET. Cabinet runs are quoted in linear feet, but paint goes onto faces - so count the door fronts and the drawer fronts, measure a typical one of each, and add the face frames. ⚠️ DOORS GET TWO FACES. DRAWER FRONTS GET ONE. A door is seen from both sides every time it opens, so both faces are painted. A drawer front is attached to the box and its back sits inside the cabinet where nobody will ever see it - one face and the edges. Getting this backwards in either direction is the commonest arithmetic mistake here, and on a typical kitchen the doors' second face alone is 62.5 square feet. THE ARITHMETIC: (doors x width x height / 144 x 2) + (drawers x width x height / 144) + face frames, times coats, divided by coverage. THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS SMALLER THAN PEOPLE EXPECT. A twenty-door kitchen with eight drawers is about 156 square feet, which is 0.89 gallons for two coats - one gallon buys the job. Sherwin-Williams' data sheet for Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel quotes 350-400 square feet per gallon at 4 mils wet, 1.2 mils dry, and cabinets are smooth surfaces, so the top of that range is realistic. The doors are roughly 80% of the total area. ⚠️ SO THE PAINT IS NOT THE COST OF THIS JOB. Labour is. Twenty-eight pieces have to come off, be labelled, be degreased, be sanded, be primed, be coated twice per side, and dry somewhere without touching each other. The calculator tells you how many pieces that is, because drying space is the constraint that actually decides whether this fits in a weekend, and it never does. DEGREASING IS THE STEP THAT DECIDES WHETHER IT LASTS. Kitchen cabinets carry cooking grease - an invisible film, worst above the hob and beside the extractor. Paint does not stick to it. No primer fixes it. Wash with a degreaser, rinse, and let it dry before any abrasive touches it, or you will sand the grease into the wood. PRIMER IS NOT OPTIONAL HERE. The Emerald data sheet is explicit that the recommended P-Shade primer should always be used to optimise hide and colour development. Two separate wood problems make it matter more on cabinets than on walls: some species - the data sheet names redwood and cedar, and knots in general - carry enough tannin to bleed a brown stain up through the finish, which needs a stain-blocking primer to stop. OAK IS A DIFFERENT PROBLEM: its open grain is not a stain, it is texture, and it telegraphs through paint as visible pores. Priming does not hide it; grain filler does, and only if you want a slab-smooth finish. RECOAT IS 4 HOURS AT 77F, per the data sheet, with touch dry at 1 hour. That is the recoat figure, not a licence to reassemble - hang doors back too early and the hardware prints into the film. Give the last coat far longer than the recoat time before anything is screwed through it. SPRAYING USES MORE PAINT THAN BRUSHING. Coverage figures assume a brush or roller; overspray and the material left in the gun and hose are real losses. If you are spraying, buy the next size up rather than the exact figure.

Common questions

How much paint do I need for kitchen cabinets?

Far less than people expect. A twenty-door kitchen with eight drawer fronts and 25 square feet of face frames comes to about 156 square feet of surface - which is 0.89 gallons for two coats at 350 square feet per gallon. One gallon buys the whole job. The reason it feels like it should be more is that a kitchen looks big, but cabinet doors are small and there are only so many of them.

Do I paint both sides of the doors?

Yes, both faces of every door - you see the inside face every time it opens. Drawer fronts are the opposite: only the face you can see, because the back of a drawer front sits inside the cabinet box where nobody will ever look. This one distinction is most of the arithmetic. On a typical kitchen the doors' second face alone is 62.5 square feet, so getting it wrong in either direction throws the answer out badly.

What proportion of the work is the doors?

About 80% of the painted area on a typical kitchen - 125 square feet out of 156. That is why the both-faces rule matters more than any other input in the calculator, and why the face frames, which feel fiddly and endless while you are cutting them in, are actually a small fraction of the paint. They take a disproportionate amount of TIME, but not much material.

Why does everyone say cabinets are such a big job then?

Because the paint is not the cost - the labour is. Twenty-eight pieces have to be taken off, labelled, degreased, sanded, primed, coated twice on each side, and then dried somewhere they are not touching each other. The calculator reports the piece count for exactly that reason: drying space is the constraint that decides whether this fits in a weekend, and it almost never does. Budget the time, not the tins.

Do I have to degrease them first?

Yes, and it is the step that decides whether the finish lasts. Kitchen cabinets carry an invisible film of cooking grease, worst above the hob and beside the extractor, and paint does not stick to it. No primer solves it either. Wash with a degreaser, rinse properly, and let it dry BEFORE any sandpaper touches the wood - otherwise you sand the grease down into the grain and seal it under the finish.

Do I need primer?

Yes. Sherwin-Williams' data sheet for Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel says to always use the recommended P-Shade primer to optimise hide and colour development. Two wood problems make it matter more here than on a wall. Some species - the data sheet names redwood and cedar, and knots generally - carry enough tannin to bleed a brown stain up through the finish, and that needs a stain-blocking primer to stop. Oak is a different problem entirely: its open grain is texture, not a stain, and it telegraphs through paint as visible pores. Primer will not hide that; grain filler will, if you want a slab-smooth look.

How long between coats?

The data sheet gives touch dry at 1 hour and recoat at 4 hours at 77F. But recoat is not the same as ready to use. Hanging doors back on too early lets hinges and handles print into a film that has not hardened, and that damage is permanent without sanding back. Give the final coat considerably longer than the recoat time before anything is screwed through it, and expect the finish to keep hardening for weeks after it looks finished.

Does spraying change how much I need?

Yes, buy more. Coverage figures on a data sheet assume brush or roller application. Spraying loses material to overspray and leaves a meaningful amount in the gun, the hose and the pot. If you are spraying, either drop the coverage input or simply buy the next size up rather than the exact figure - running out mid-kitchen with a tinted colour is a genuinely bad afternoon.

Take it further with AI

Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude with your own numbers filled in. It hands over the figures this calculator worked out, so the answer is built on real arithmetic instead of a guess.

I used the Kitchen Cabinet Paint Calculator at https://www.bfcbrilliance.com/tools/cabinet-paint-calculator.

What I entered:
- Number of doors: ___
- Typical door width (in): ___
- Typical door height (in): ___
- Number of drawer fronts: ___
- Typical drawer width (in): ___
- Typical drawer height (in): ___
- Face frames and end panels (sq ft): ___
- Coats per side: ___
- Coverage (sq ft/gal): ___

What it calculated:
- Paint to buy: ___
- Exact gallons needed: ___
- Surface to paint: ___
- Doors, both faces: ___
- Doors as a share of the job: ___

Use those figures as given — they are already worked out, so please don't recalculate or estimate your own. Help me turn them into a plan: what to buy or do, in what order, roughly what it should cost, and the mistakes people most often make with this job.

Where the job touches structure, gas, or electrics, tell me to check local building code and whether a permit or a licensed trade is required.

More painting & decorating tools