Reface or Replace Your Kitchen Cabinets? Start With the Boxes
By Ratan Sharma, Founder and President, New Look Kitchen Refacing ·
If you're keeping your layout, look at the cabinet boxes. If they're sound, replacing them buys you new wood that ends up hidden behind the doors. Refacing gives you new doors, drawer fronts, hinges, handles and veneered frames on the boxes you already have, from $250 to $450 per door, in 3–5 days. If the boxes are failing, replace them.
What's the difference between refacing and replacing cabinets?
Replacing means the cabinets come out, boxes and all, and new ones go in. Refacing keeps the boxes and replaces everything you see on them. If your layout stays the same either way, the only real difference is the boxes.
When you replace, the old cabinets are torn out and new cabinet boxes get built or ordered to fit the same walls. Then new doors, drawer fronts and hardware go on them. Since the countertop sits on top of the boxes, it has to come off too.
When you reface, the boxes don't move. We take the old doors and drawer fronts off, cover every exposed frame with a veneer that matches the new doors, and hang new doors and drawer fronts made to fit the boxes you have. New hinges and handles go on too. Your countertop can stay where it is.
Stand in your kitchen and look around. Almost everything you can see is a door, a drawer front, a handle or a frame edge. Refacing replaces all of it. What replacing adds is new boxes, which you mostly can't see.
If you like your doors and it's only the color that bothers you, that's a different question, and I've answered it in cabinet refacing vs. painting.
When is replacing the right call?
Replace your cabinets when the boxes are failing or when you want the layout changed. New doors can't save a bad box. And refacing can't move a sink or open up a wall. In those two situations, refacing is the wrong job, and I'll tell you so at the estimate.
A failing box looks like this: the bottom under the sink is swollen from a leak, or the shelves sag and won't stay level. The box is the part refacing keeps, so if it's gone, new doors would be dressing up a problem. I'd rather lose the job than sell you that.
A layout change is anything that moves where things sit: the sink, the range, a wall, an island that isn't there now. That's a remodel, not replacement and not refacing. The comparison for it, with real numbers, is on our cabinet refacing page.
Everything else is refacing territory. That covers dated doors, a finish you're sick of, handles in the wrong place, and oak you've looked at for thirty years, all on boxes that are solid and in a layout you'd keep.
What I look at when someone says the cabinets are old
In 20 years of estimates, "our cabinets are old, so we have to replace them" is one of the most common things I hear. Age isn't the question, though. Condition is.
A lot of the kitchens I walk into on Long Island have boxes that have held up for decades without complaint. What looks old is the doors, the finish and the hardware. That's the whole kitchen as far as your eye is concerned, and none of it tells you anything about the boxes.
So at the estimate I open the doors and look past them. I check under the sink, where a slow leak does its damage, and at the shelves, to see whether they sag. If the boxes are sound, I'll tell you that replacing them means paying for new wood that ends up behind new doors. If they aren't, I'll tell you that too.
What does each option change, side by side?
This is the comparison with the layout staying the same, which is the comparison most people are actually making:
| Refacing | Replacement, same layout | |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet boxes | Kept | Torn out and replaced |
| Doors and drawer fronts | New, in one of five styles, made in North America | New |
| Hinges and handles | New, included | New |
| Exposed cabinet frames | Veneered to match the new doors | New with the boxes |
| Countertop | Can stay where it is | Comes off with the boxes |
| Soft-close and pull-outs | Available, priced separately | Depends on the cabinets you buy |
| Price | $10,000–$18,000 for a typical 10×10 | We don't sell it, so we don't price it |
| Time in your house | 3–5 days, our own crews | Ask whoever installs it |
Three of those rows are the ones people ask me about most.
Price. We price refacing 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 come in between $10,000 and $18,000. I won't give you a number for new cabinets, because we don't sell them and I'd be guessing. What I can say is that replacing costs more, because you're paying for the boxes as well as everything refacing already replaces. The full breakdown of our price is on the cost page.
Soft-close. Plenty of people who ask about replacing really want drawers that close quietly and shelves that pull out. You don't need new boxes to get those. Soft-close hinges and drawer glides, and pull-out shelves, can be added to a refacing job. They aren't included in the per-door price, and each one is priced separately.
The countertop. A countertop sits on the boxes, so replacing the boxes means taking it off. With refacing, a countertop you like stays put. If you'd rather have a new one, we install those too. Here are the four materials we offer.
Does it matter where the kitchen is?
On Long Island, not much. The choice comes down to the same thing it does anywhere: whether the boxes are sound. The local questions, like permits, HOAs and how far east we go, are answered on the county pages. You can see kitchens we've done on the Nassau County and Suffolk County pages.
In Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, replacing has an extra cost that never shows up on the quote: the building. In an apartment, every old box has to be carried out through the halls and every new one carried back in. With refacing, the boxes stay where they are. What comes into the building is doors, drawer fronts and hardware.
Our shop is at 30 Commerce Drive in Farmingdale. We're licensed in Nassau, Suffolk and New York City, and our own crews do every installation. Nobody gets subbed out.
What does a customer who did it twice say?
“I've had 2 kitchens refaced from New Look in 2 different houses years apart. If I wasn't truly satisfied, I would have never used them again. They are remarkably professional and magical. They transformed our outdated kitchen at an unbelievable cost without any mess.”
Two houses, and he refaced both kitchens instead of replacing either. You can read more of our reviews here.
The bottom line
If you'd keep your layout and your boxes are solid, replacing them means paying for the one part of the kitchen you'll never look at. Refacing replaces everything you do look at, on the boxes you already own.
If the boxes are failing, or you'd move the sink, replace or remodel, and I'll say so when I'm standing in your kitchen. Either way, the estimate is where you find out which one you need. It's free, and if replacing is the right call, I'll tell you.
