Kitchen cabinet refacing cost dataset

Refacing against new cabinets, at every grade

National figures, 20 doors and 9 drawer fronts, painted MDF, new soft-close hinges, against a 20 linear foot kitchen of new cabinets including taking the old ones out.

The industry says refacing saves half. Against the grade most people would actually buy — assembled stock — this model says it saves 1%, and against flat pack it costs more. The half is real against semi-custom and custom, which is what the brochure is comparing with. Neither claim is dishonest; only one of them is the comparison you are making.

And the money is not the whole decision. Refacing keeps your countertop, never touches the plumbing, and leaves you a working kitchen through the three or four days it takes rather than losing it for a fortnight. Those are worth something real, and they are worth it at any of these four ratios.

Four kitchens, counted in fronts

Against new assembled stock cabinets in each case. Go and count your doors and drawers — it takes two minutes and it is the number a refacer quotes from.

The costs the brochures call optional

Taking the three that apply to any house together moves this kitchen from $8,399 to $11,530 — about 37% more, and enough to change the answer to whether refacing is worth it.

Door materials

A drawer front is priced at 0.6 of a door, because it is the same material and the same finishing in a smaller piece. The hours are 0.9 a door, 0.6 a drawer front and 0.5 per linear foot of veneer, and they are our estimate.

Line items

The reasoning behind each figure

Written out so a refacer can point at the exact assumption that is wrong.

Take off the old doors and prepare the frames

• A fifth of an hour per front plus a fifth per linear foot of frame: doors and fronts off, old hinges out, and the face frames cleaned and abraded so the new veneer will stick.
• ⚠️ That abrading is sanding, and OSHA states that wood dust is considered a human carcinogen, classified by the NTP as known to be one. It happens inside your kitchen rather than in a shop, which is why containment and extraction belong in the quote.

Lead-safe setup and cleaning verificationestimated, ±47%

• ⚠️ Only where the house predates 1978. Sanding painted cabinetry disturbs far more than the federal minor-repair threshold, so paid work has to be done by an EPA lead-safe certified firm with containment, HEPA cleaning and a cleaning verification.
• This is the single most commonly omitted line in a refacing quote for an older house, and it is not optional. A firm that does not mention it in a pre-1978 property is telling you something.

Thermofoil doors and drawer frontsestimated, ±42%

• A vinyl film heat-pressed onto an MDF core. Much the cheapest, wipes clean, and it delaminates at the corners if it lives beside an oven or a kettle. Fine away from heat and a false economy next to it.
• Priced in door equivalents: a drawer front counts as 0.6 of a door, because it is the same material and the same finishing in a smaller piece. Doors and fronts are how a refacer quotes, in the same way linear feet are how a cabinet fitter quotes.
• Made to measure from the openings you already have, so every one is a different size and none can be reordered from a catalogue if it arrives wrong.

Painted MDF doors and drawer frontsestimated, ±42%

• A sprayed finish on a stable core that will not move with the seasons the way timber does, so the paint does not crack at the joints. The commonest choice for a flat or shaker door today.
• Priced in door equivalents: a drawer front counts as 0.6 of a door, because it is the same material and the same finishing in a smaller piece. Doors and fronts are how a refacer quotes, in the same way linear feet are how a cabinet fitter quotes.
• Made to measure from the openings you already have, so every one is a different size and none can be reordered from a catalogue if it arrives wrong.

Wood veneer doors and drawer frontsestimated, ±41%

• Real timber over a stable core, so it takes a stain and shows a grain without the movement of solid wood. It is what the matching face-frame veneer is made of, which is why the two blend so well.
• Priced in door equivalents: a drawer front counts as 0.6 of a door, because it is the same material and the same finishing in a smaller piece. Doors and fronts are how a refacer quotes, in the same way linear feet are how a cabinet fitter quotes.
• Made to measure from the openings you already have, so every one is a different size and none can be reordered from a catalogue if it arrives wrong.

Solid wood doors and drawer frontsestimated, ±44%

• The dearest and the only one you can sand back and refinish in ten years. It moves with humidity, which is why a solid raised panel is built to float in its frame rather than be glued into it.
• Priced in door equivalents: a drawer front counts as 0.6 of a door, because it is the same material and the same finishing in a smaller piece. Doors and fronts are how a refacer quotes, in the same way linear feet are how a cabinet fitter quotes.
• Made to measure from the openings you already have, so every one is a different size and none can be reordered from a catalogue if it arrives wrong.

Matching veneer for the face frames and end panelsestimated, ±45%

• Self-adhesive or contact-bonded veneer in the same finish as the doors, over every stile, rail and exposed cabinet end.
• This is the part that decides whether a refaced kitchen reads as new or as covered up. The veneer has to wrap the frame edges cleanly and meet the door with an even shadow line, and there is no way to correct it later without doing it again.

Fit the veneer, hang the doors and set the gaps

• 0.9 hours a door, 0.6 a drawer front and 0.5 per linear foot of veneer. The hanging is the slow part: new doors on new hinges have to be adjusted in three axes until every gap in the run matches.
• It is entirely on-site work in a kitchen you are living in, typically three or four days. That is the practical argument for refacing over replacing — the kitchen keeps working throughout — and it is worth more to most people than the money.

New soft-close hingesestimated, ±47%

• ⚠️ This is the first of the hidden costs, and it is barely optional: new doors are bored for the hinge they were made for, and the hinges that came out of the old ones will usually not fit. The choice is a new standard hinge or a new soft-close one, and the gap between them is small.
• It is the one upgrade in a refacing job that people notice every day afterwards.

New drawer boxesestimated, ±48%

• ⚠️ The second hidden cost, and the one most likely to be discovered after the job starts. Refacing replaces the drawer front, not the box behind it. A stapled particleboard box that is already sagging gets a beautiful new face and carries on sagging.
• Dovetailed plywood boxes on undermount runners are inside this band and they are the single biggest functional improvement available on this page. Check the boxes before deciding, not after.

Fit the new drawer boxes and runners

• Three quarters of an hour each. Undermount runners need the box built to a tight tolerance against the opening, so this is measuring work rather than fitting work.

New shelves inside the existing boxesestimated, ±50%

• ⚠️ The third hidden cost. Refacing does not touch the inside of a cabinet, so a kitchen with new doors can open onto shelves that are bowed, stained or edged in a finish that no longer matches anything.
• Costed as one shelf per door, which is roughly what a kitchen carries. It is cheap relative to everything else here and it is the difference between a kitchen that is new when closed and one that is new when open.

Knobs and pullsestimated, ±69%

• New doors arrive undrilled or drilled to a new pattern, so the old handles rarely go back. Priced per piece, and a kitchen of twenty doors and nine drawers takes twenty-nine of them.

Drill and fit the handles

• About seven minutes each with a jig, and done on a bench before the doors are hung rather than on the wall afterwards.

Dust protection, caulk and final cleanestimated, ±50%

• Sheeting, a zip wall at the doorway and a vacuum at the end. All the sanding happens in a room you cook in, so this is not a token line.

Not included in this dataset

Any change to the layout

This is the defining limit of refacing rather than a footnote. The boxes stay exactly where they are, at exactly the sizes they are. Moving a cabinet, widening one for a new appliance, or turning two small ones into a pan drawer are all impossible without replacing them.

The condition of the boxes

Refacing puts new faces on the cabinets you have and does not extend their life. Particleboard boxes swollen under the sink, shelves that have bowed, or a carcass racking out of square are all reasons to price replacement instead — and none of them shows until the doors come off.

Countertops, sink and appliances

Refacing does not disturb the countertop, which is one of its practical advantages: an existing stone top can stay. Replacing the top, the sink or the appliances is separate work.

Painting the cabinets instead

Spraying the existing doors is a third option that sits below refacing in price and above it in risk, and it depends entirely on what the existing doors are made of. Thermofoil cannot be painted usefully at all. It is a different job and it is not priced here.

Asbestos and lead beyond the cabinets

The lead-safe line covers the cabinetry itself in a pre-1978 house. Flooring and mastic from before the eighties can contain asbestos, and that requires testing before anything is lifted.