Cabinet Refacing vs. Replacement: How to Tell Which One You Need
Refacing keeps your existing cabinet boxes and replaces the doors, drawer fronts, hardware and the visible veneer on the box faces. It costs far less than new cabinets and usually finishes in a few days instead of a few weeks.
It is also the wrong choice for plenty of kitchens. Here is how to tell which one you are in.
Check the boxes yourself in ten minutes
Open a door and look at the shelf. Is it sagging in the middle? A little bow is fine and can be fixed with a new shelf. A shelf that has separated at the edges means particleboard that has absorbed moisture.
Look under the sink. This is where kitchens die. Run your hand along the cabinet bottom. If it is soft, swollen, crumbling or discolored, that box has been wet for a long time.
Pull a drawer all the way out. Are the corners still tight, or is the box racking side to side? Loose joints in several drawers is a bad sign.
Push on a cabinet side panel. Solid plywood feels dead. Particleboard that is failing feels spongy and may flake at the edges.
Look at the face frames. Cracks, splits or gaps where the frame meets the box mean the structure is moving.
If most of that checks out clean, you are a refacing candidate. If several fail, especially under the sink, refacing is money spent on a bad foundation.
The other question: does the layout work?
This one gets overlooked. Refacing keeps your cabinets exactly where they are. If your real complaint is that the kitchen is laid out badly, that there is no counter next to the range, that the corner cabinet swallows everything you put in it, refacing will not fix any of that. You will have a better-looking version of a kitchen that still annoys you.
Ask yourself whether you dislike how the kitchen looks or how it works. Refacing solves the first. Only new cabinets and a new plan solve the second.
What refacing gets you
- New doors and drawer fronts in your choice of style and finish
- Matching veneer over the exposed box faces so the whole thing reads as new
- New hinges, slides, pulls and knobs
- Soft-close as an upgrade, which is worth it
- Typically a few days of work, and you keep your sink and stove for most of it
What it does not get you
- A different layout
- Deeper or taller cabinets
- New interior organization beyond what fits the existing boxes
- A fix for water damage, sagging or failing particleboard
The honest answer
A contractor who recommends full replacement in every kitchen is selling the bigger ticket. A contractor who recommends refacing in every kitchen is selling the easy job. The right answer depends on your boxes and your layout, and it takes about ten minutes to determine in person.
We will look at yours and tell you which one you need, including when that answer costs us the larger job. Call (484) 944-6441.