Shop notes · 2026-08-05

Cabinet refacing vs replacing: which does your kitchen actually need?

Refacing has a bad reputation it does not deserve and a sales pitch it sometimes does. It is the right call in one specific, common situation, and the wrong call outside it.

What refacing actually is

Refacing keeps your cabinet boxes on the wall and replaces everything you see: new doors, new drawer fronts, new hinges, and matching veneer or paint on the face frames and end panels. Done by a shop that builds its own doors, the result reads as a new kitchen - because visually, nearly everything IS new.

What refacing cannot do is change the layout, fix failing boxes, or add storage the boxes never had.

The box test

Open a base cabinet and check three things:

• Material first. Plywood sides (visible layers at the edges) reface beautifully, and particleboard that has stayed dry is acceptable. Particleboard swollen at the bottom edges - from a sink leak, usually - has failed, and new faces cannot save it.
• Then squareness. Doors that hung straight until recently mean square boxes. Boxes visibly racked or pulling off the wall are done.
• Last, the layout question. Would you keep this kitchen’s arrangement if it looked new? If the answer is “yes, I just hate how it looks,” you are the refacing case. If the answer involves the words island, pantry, or wall, you are shopping for a new kitchen.

The money difference

A typical whole-kitchen reface runs $4,500-$12,000 depending on door count and door style. Replacing the same kitchen with new custom cabinetry runs roughly double that or more. The gap is real, and it is why refacing exists: when the boxes are sound, replacing them means paying again for carcasses that were doing their job fine behind doors you were tired of.

Refinishing - keeping your existing doors and renewing the finish - runs cheaper still, and suits kitchens where the style is right but the surface is worn.

Where the sales pitch goes wrong

National refacing franchises sometimes pitch refacing onto kitchens that fail the box test, because refacing is the only product they sell. A shop that builds cabinets has no such bias. Replacement pays us more, so when we tell you to reface, the boxes earned it.

Open a base cabinet and run the box test, then count your doors and drawer fronts. Call with what you found - that is everything a shop needs to give you a straight answer on the phone.