How Much Does a Kitchen Respray Cost in 2026? (Real UK Prices, No Guesswork)

Three weeks ago a woman in Sale rang up convinced she needed £14,000 to fix her kitchen. The doors were fine. The carcasses were fine. The layout worked. The only problem was the colour — a tired magnolia from 2009 that made the whole room look apologetic. We sprayed it the following Tuesday for £1,450. She rang back on the Friday to say her husband thought she'd had the whole kitchen replaced.

This is what kitchen respraying actually is in 2026: a fraction of a new kitchen, done in one to five days, with a finish that — done properly — outlasts most paint jobs by a decade. The catch is that prices online vary from £500 to £3,500 with very little explanation of why. So here's the honest version.

The two pricing tiers explained

There are two genuinely different ways to spray a kitchen, and they're priced differently because they involve different amounts of work. Anyone quoting a single fixed price without asking which one you want is either guessing or doesn't know the difference themselves.

Standard Respray (£999–£1,500) is the in-situ option. The team arrives at your home, masks everything off, sands and keys the existing surfaces, sprays the cabinets, doors and drawer fronts where they hang, and leaves the same day. You're back in the kitchen by tea time. This works brilliantly when the existing finish is sound — sealed wood, painted MDF in good condition, melamine that hasn't been damaged — and you want a colour change rather than a full restoration. Industrial-grade 2K paint is used and the finish typically lasts 5–7 years.

Premium Respray (£1,650–£3,500) is the workshop option. The doors and drawer fronts are removed and taken to our Denton workshop. Any vinyl wrap is fully stripped, the MDF is properly sealed, every face is sanded back to a uniform surface, and the doors are sprayed in a controlled environment with multiple coats and proper drying time between each. The carcasses (the boxes) get sprayed in-situ. Doors come back 5–10 days later and are refitted. The finish typically lasts 10+ years and is indistinguishable from a brand-new factory-finished kitchen.

Which one is right for your kitchen depends mostly on what the doors are made of and what condition they're in. Vinyl-wrapped doors that are starting to peel must have Premium — spraying over peeling vinyl is the single biggest reason cheap resprays fail.

What actually drives the cost

Six things move the price, in roughly this order of impact:

1. Door count. A 12-door kitchen and a 32-door kitchen are very different jobs. We charge per face, not per “kitchen” — anyone giving you a price without counting doors is using rough averages.

2. Service tier (Standard vs Premium). As above. The same kitchen sprayed Standard might be £1,250; sprayed Premium might be £2,400. Different jobs.

3. Existing finish condition. A sealed painted kitchen in good condition needs minimal prep. A vinyl-wrapped kitchen with three peeling doors needs full vinyl strip and reseal, which adds 6–12 hours of labour. A high-gloss kitchen that's been knocked about needs filling and serious sanding before any paint can be sprayed.

4. Number of colours / two-tone finishes. A single colour is simpler. A two-tone (different upper and lower cabinets, or a contrasting island) adds £200–£500 because every join must be masked and sprayed in separate passes.

5. Hardware changes. If we're replacing or refilling handle holes, that's an extra £8–£15 per door. New handles supplied by us add cost; supplied by you adds nothing.

6. Special finishes. Plain matt and satin in standard colours are at the base price. High-gloss, metallic, custom RAL colours, or Farrow & Ball / Little Greene tints add £100–£300 because of paint cost and additional coats.

Standard vs Premium — full price comparison

This is the breakdown most quotes don't give you:

The £1,650 floor on Premium isn't an arbitrary number — it's the actual cost of taking off, transporting, stripping, prepping, spraying, lacquering and refitting a smaller kitchen properly. Anyone offering “premium” results for £1,200 is either skipping steps or about to be very late.

Real pricing examples from recent jobs

To make this less abstract, four jobs we've quoted in the last month:

1. Wilmslow, 18-door Howdens kitchen, satin off-white. Wood-effect doors in sound condition. Customer wanted a fresh modern off-white. Standard respray, single day in situ. £1,150.

2. Didsbury, 24-door vinyl-wrapped kitchen, hague blue. Three doors already peeling at the bottom. Vinyl needed full removal. Premium workshop respray with full vinyl strip and re-seal. £2,650.

3. Salford Quays apartment, 14-door white gloss kitchen, sage green. White gloss in good condition, no damage. Customer wanted high-end sage finish. Standard respray with extra coat for colour depth. £1,295.

4. Altrincham, 32-door painted shaker kitchen, two-tone (charcoal lowers, off-white uppers, island in burnt umber). Three colours, full filling of handle holes for new brushed brass hardware. Premium workshop respray. £3,200.

Quotes vary because kitchens vary. Anyone giving you a price over the phone before counting doors is making it up.

Why some quotes are suspiciously cheap (and what's wrong with them)

You'll see kitchen respray prices online as low as £500. Worth understanding what that actually buys you.

At £500 you cannot get:

• 2K industrial paint (it's £80–£200 per litre at trade pricing and a kitchen takes 2–4 litres)
• Proper prep — sanding, degreasing, masking, filling takes 6–10 hours minimum
• A skilled sprayer's day rate (£250–£400 for someone with real experience)
• Insurance, fuel, equipment, business overhead

What you get at £500 is usually a single-coat job in cheap eggshell wall paint, applied with a roller or budget HVLP gun, by someone uninsured working out of a van. It looks alright for 3 months, starts chipping around the handles by month 6, and looks worse than the original kitchen within 18 months. We re-do roughly 4–5 of these every month — they always end up costing more than getting it done properly first time.

The honest signal of a real respray business: a workshop address, proper insurance, photographable real-job evidence (not stock images), and a price that reflects the actual cost of materials and time.

Respraying vs replacing — the real cost difference

This is the comparison most homeowners are actually trying to make:

A Premium respray on a 24-door kitchen costs roughly 12–15% of a comparable new kitchen and delivers the same visual transformation if the existing layout works. Where it doesn't make sense: if the layout is wrong, if the carcasses are water-damaged or falling apart, or if you genuinely need different cabinet sizes.

If the existing kitchen is structurally sound but visually tired — and 80% of the kitchens we see are exactly this — respraying makes overwhelming sense. The maths is hard to argue with.

Hidden costs to ask about before booking

Things that should be in a proper quote but sometimes aren't:

• Handle hole filling and repositioning — £8–£15 per door if you're changing hardware
• Worktops — usually not included in a cabinet respray. Worktop refinishing is a separate process (and not always recommended)
• Splashbacks — can be sprayed if they're tile or sound metal, usually £150–£400 extra
• Appliance fronts — fridge/dishwasher integrated doors are normally included if they're standard kitchen doors; American-style fridge fronts are extra
• Plinths and cornices — should be included as standard; check it is
• Travel charges — most reputable Manchester sprayers don't charge travel inside Greater Manchester
• Disposal — if removing existing handles or hardware
• Touch-up bottle — a small pot of the exact paint for future scratches; we include this as standard, not everyone does

If a quote is more than £200 cheaper than the next one and missing two or more of the above, that's where the difference is.

Frequently asked questions