Kitchen cabinet refacing cost

Refacing kitchen cabinets costs $75 to $250 a linear foot, typically around $140, which puts a 25 foot kitchen at $1,900 to $6,300. Replacing the same cabinets costs $3,750 to $16,250 in stock or semi-custom, so refacing saves roughly half.

It is the right choice in exactly one situation: the boxes are sound and the layout works. If either is untrue, refacing is money spent keeping a kitchen you wanted to change.

What it costs

What refacing actually is

The doors and drawer fronts come off and are replaced. The exposed face frames and end panels are covered with matching veneer or laminate. The boxes, the shelves and the layout stay exactly as they are.

A good job replaces the hinges and slides at the same time, because the old ones are what make an old kitchen feel old. A cheap job reuses them, and you end up with new doors that still sag and drawers that still stick.

When it is the right call

• The boxes are solid plywood or good particle board, not swollen or sagging
• The layout works and you are not moving anything
• The cabinet interiors are clean and the shelves are not bowed
• You are staying in the house and want it to look better, not different
• You are selling and want the kitchen to photograph well without a remodel

When it is not

• The boxes are failing. Water damage under the sink, delaminating particle board, shelves that bow under plates. Refacing a failing box is a new face on a bad structure.
• You want a different layout. Refacing locks it in. If the fridge is in the wrong place, this does not fix it and you will still mind in five years.
• The kitchen is being remodeled anyway. Once the countertop and the flooring are coming out, the marginal cost of new boxes is much smaller than it looks.
• The cabinets are 1970s builder grade with no drawer boxes worth keeping. At that point stock cabinets cost about the same and are better in every way.

Refacing, painting, or replacing

Painting is the cheapest at $40 to $120 a linear foot, and done properly, with degreasing, sanding, priming and sprayed finish, it looks genuinely good. Done quickly with a brush it looks like painted cabinets. It does not change the door style, and it does not work on laminate or thermofoil without specialist primer.

Refacing changes the door style and the finish and keeps the boxes. Three to five days, no demolition, no kitchen out of action for weeks.

Replacing is the only option that changes anything structural, and it is the only one that fixes a bad layout.

The honest ranking by value: if the layout is right and the boxes are sound, paint first, reface second, replace last.

Frequently asked questions

How long does refacing take?

Two to five days for a typical kitchen, and the kitchen stays usable most of that time. That is a genuine advantage over replacement, which takes two to six weeks with no worktop.

Does refacing add value when selling?

It helps a kitchen photograph and show well, which matters. It does not carry the resale return of a full remodel and it does not need to; it costs a fifth as much.

Can I reface only some of the cabinets?

Matching new doors to old ones rarely works, because wood and finish age. If part of the kitchen is being redone, do all the doors.

Will the new doors match my existing countertop?

That is worth checking before ordering. Refacing is usually done alongside a countertop replacement precisely because a new door color often makes an old countertop look worse than it did.

Is DIY refacing realistic?

Kits exist and the veneer work is the hard part: it shows every imperfection in the face frame underneath, and it does not forgive a wandering line. Replacing just the doors and hardware, buying doors to size and fitting them yourself, is the more achievable version and gets most of the effect.