Can You Just Replace Your Kitchen Cabinet Doors?
By Ratan Sharma, Founder and President, New Look Kitchen Refacing ·
Yes, and we can install just the doors. But the doors hang on a frame, and that frame, the drawer fronts, the hinges and the handles are all still in view. Change only the doors and those stay old. Refacing replaces every one of them on the boxes you already have, from $250 to $450 per door, in 3–5 days.
What do you actually see when the doors are closed?
Close every door and drawer in your kitchen and stand back. The doors are the biggest thing in view, but they aren't the only thing. On a framed cabinet there's a strip of frame between every pair of doors and above every drawer. There are the drawer fronts themselves. There are the hinges, where they show, and the handles on all of it. And at the end of each run, or on the back of a peninsula, there's a side panel that faces the room.
Add those up and they're a lot of the kitchen. They're also the parts that give a doors-only job away, because they're the parts nobody changed.
What happens if only the doors change?
The new doors sit against the old finish. If you're going from oak to white shaker, every strip of frame between the white doors is still oak, and so is the end panel by the fridge. The drawers are still the old drawers, in the old style, unless you buy new fronts for them too. The handles are whatever was there before.
Doors alone can look right when the frames, drawer fronts and hardware already go with the doors you're choosing. In that case we can install just the doors, and I'll tell you so. When the reason you want new doors is a different color or a different style, the frames won't go, and the eye finds the difference straight away.
That's the gap refacing fills. We take the old doors and drawer fronts off, cover the exposed frames and end panels with a veneer that matches the new doors, and hang new doors and drawer fronts made to fit your boxes, with new hinges and handles. Nothing from the old finish is left facing the room.
New doors only vs. refacing, part by part
| New doors only | Refacing | |
|---|---|---|
| Doors | New | New, in one of five styles, made in North America |
| Drawer fronts | Stay as they are | New, to match the doors |
| Hinges and handles | Stay as they are | New, included |
| Frames between the doors | Old finish | Veneered to match the new doors |
| Exposed side and end panels | Old finish | Veneered to match |
| Cabinet boxes | Kept | Kept |
| Countertop | Stays | Can stay where it is |
| Price | Quoted at the estimate | $10,000–$18,000 for a typical 10×10 |
What does refacing cost, if I was only pricing doors?
We price refacing the way you'd count a doors-only job: per door and drawer front, $250 to $450 each depending on the style and material. A typical 10×10 kitchen has around 40 fronts, so most projects land between $10,000 and $18,000. That price already covers the veneer on the frames, the new hinges and the new handles, so there's no second bill for the parts around the doors.
A doors-only job is quoted at the estimate, because it depends on what's staying and whether it will look right next to the new doors. What drives our refacing price up or down is laid out on the cabinet refacing cost page.
Can the new doors be a completely different style?
Yes, and a new style is the strongest reason to change more than the doors, because it has to show up on every front in the room, not only the doors. There are five styles to choose from, shaker, recessed panel, raised panel, flat panel and glass insert, in wood, wood veneer or thermoplastic. Here's how each style looks and which kitchen it suits.
I bring the doors, finishes and hardware to the estimate, so you see them against your own floor and counters before you choose.
When are new doors not the answer?
When the boxes behind them are failing, or when you want the layout changed. New doors, on their own or as part of a refacing, can't fix a cabinet floor that's swollen from a leak, and they can't move a sink. I wrote about how to tell whether your boxes are sound in reface or replace your kitchen cabinets.
The bottom line
If you're asking whether you can just replace the doors, you probably like your layout and you're tired of how the kitchen looks. Then you're most of the way to refacing already. The difference is everything around the doors: the frames, the drawer fronts, the hinges, the handles and the end panels. Change those at the same time and the kitchen reads as new, not as new doors on old cabinets.
If your frames already go with the doors you want, just the doors may be enough, and we can do that too. The estimate is free and happens in your kitchen. Bring the question, and I'll show you what changes and what it costs.
