The one question that settles it
Almost every kitchen we are called to look at gets decided in the first ten minutes, and not by looking at the doors. The question is simpler than that: would you change where anything sits? If the sink, the range and the fridge are where you want them, and the boxes holding them up are sound, then what you dislike is every surface you touch and see. That is exactly what cabinet refacing replaces.
If the answer involves moving something, the conversation changes. Widening a run for a new range, shifting a sink to a different wall, or opening into the next room all need new boxes, and that means custom cabinets rather than a reface. No door style will fix a plan you do not like.
What each route actually costs
Refacing is commonly quoted at 40 to 60 percent below full replacement, because the boxes, the plumbing and the layout all stay where they are. Both are priced by the linear foot of cabinet run rather than per door, which is the fairer unit: two kitchens with the same door count can have very different amounts of frame and end panel to cover. Our refacing cost page breaks down what moves a quote.
Material moves the number more than kitchen size does. Rigid thermofoil sits at the bottom of the range, laminate cabinets in the middle, and hardwood veneer at the top. Choosing real wood over thermofoil can roughly double the cabinetry line on the same kitchen.
- Refacing: 3 to 5 days on site, kitchen usable most evenings
- Full replacement: 3 to 8 weeks, depending on stock, semi-custom or built to order
- Both carry a build lead time before that, because doors are made to your openings
Four things refacing cannot fix
It cannot move anything, so the sink stays on its plumbing and the fridge stays in its opening. It cannot widen a run, so a range needing an extra three inches means new boxes. It cannot rescue failed board, meaning particleboard that has swelled under a slow leak or shelves that have already sagged. And it cannot clear a smell, because the smell is in the material rather than on it.
Any one of those points toward replacement, but it is usually one run rather than the whole kitchen. Where a single run under a window or beside a dishwasher has gone, that run gets new boxes and everything else is refaced to match. Done properly the join is invisible, and it costs far less than starting again. The comparison page sets the two side by side.
If your doors are already peeling
Peeling is the most common reason people call, and it almost always starts at a heat source: the door beside a wall oven, the one next to a dishwasher left open to steam dry, or the cabinet above a kettle. On thermofoil and MDF doors the vinyl film lets go while the board underneath stays perfectly sound.
One or two doors curling at an edge is a repair. Once several have started, the rest are on the same clock, because they were pressed at the same time and have lived in the same kitchen. At that point new doors on your existing boxes costs less than repairing a few each year. If the doors themselves are solid and only the colour is dated, cabinet painting is the cheaper answer again.
The cheapest moment to fix everything else
Whatever you decide, the install week is when the annoying things get cheap to fix. With the doors off, adding pull-out shelves to a base cabinet is straightforward and a blind corner can finally be made reachable. Older hinges are being replaced anyway, so upgrading them costs very little at that point.
Door style is the other decision worth taking time over, because it changes the look more than the colour does. Shaker doors suit most kitchens, but overlay matters as much as style: changing from partial to full overlay changes every door size and every reveal in the room.
Whichever way it goes, ask for the quote by the linear foot and itemised, with any replacement run shown separately. A single number is impossible to compare against another single number.