This is one of those fundamental questions that comes up all the time.
Not only that, but we want our customers to understand when it’s appropriate to reface their kitchen, when they’ll see the most impact/highest return AND when refacing is actually a bad idea.
For those who may be investigating refacing for the first time, let’s start by defining what cabinet refacing is.
What is Cabinet Refacing?
At it’s core, refacing is a cosmetic upgrade for your kitchen.
Your current cabinet doors and drawer fronts are removed. The existing boxes stay in place. We apply new refacing stock to your cabinet boxes, and finally we install new doors, drawer fronts, moldings, and optional drawer boxes and organizers.
All of the new doors will come as soft close standard. You have the option to replace your drawer boxes and soft close undermount glides.
One of the main benefits of refacing is that you’re not limited to paint colors either. You can choose from a variety of stains on multiple hardwoods.
ALL of the exterior, visible surfaces on your cabinets get RE-Faced with new, factory finished materials. Our process comes with a lifetime warranty on our products.
Ok, But WHY Should I Reface?
Great question – and the answer is maybe you shouldn’t until we understand what’s going on with your kitchen.
As great of a cost savings that cabinet refacing can provide, there are some drawbacks.
- We CANNOT dramatically change the layout
Refacing is the most impactful for people that ALREADY like their kitchen layout. And that doesn’t mean just the overall shape of the kitchen. That includes details such as the following:
- Height of the wall cabinets
- The soffit (or lack thereof) above the wall cabinets
- The shape of the peninsula/island
- Location of appliances
- Amount of overall storage – such as where and how many pantries you have
- Prep space
In refacing projects, we take the layout that’s already there and give it a facelift. Sure there are times when we replace a cabinet or add a small coffee bar/island but for the most part our customers are happy with their current layout. All of it.
I recently had a customer inquire about cabinet refacing. After a short conversation it became apparent that cabinet refacing was not a good fit:
“Well I really want the new cabinets to go to the ceiling( A foot above the existing). I also want to replace the cabinets on the sides of the fridge with pantry cabinets. We also want new countertops and backsplash. Oh and we’re going to redo all of the flooring”
After looking at pictures of her kitchen, if we replaced all of the wall cabinets and cabinets next to the fridge we’d be left with a grand total of 4 cabinets to re-face.
Cabinet refacing is less expensive than a full remodel. At the same time, it’s still labor intensive and it would take an extra 3 days on that project to re-face those cabinets. When 4 new cabinets could probably just be replaced in about an hour or two.
This customer had basically the entire scope of a full remodel except 4 cabinets they could live with. We would definitely not recommend refacing in this situation.
On the other hand, if the conversation would have been something like:
“We like our layout, the cabinets are in decent shape I just hate the door profile and that ugly golden oak color”
That would be an example of a perfect candidate for refacing.
Bottom line, for refacing to be a viable solution for you, you MUST like your currently layout (or at least 90% of it).
2. The interiors of your cabinets stay the same (mostly)
Often we see kitchens that have been painted over the years. Sometimes, they even paint the interior of these cabinets along with the shelves.
While we can perform simple upgrades like replacing worn out shelves, we do not refinish the interiors of cabinets. We will occasionally if there is a cabinet that is getting glass doors but those are not very common in our refacing projects.
The primary reason we leave the insides of the cabinets alone is because of the cost. Finishing the interior of cabinets is difficult and time consuming. We estimated that it would nearly triple the cost on a standard kitchen reface. So to most clients, it’s just not worth it.
Now on the flip side of that – we can and do often add cabinet organizers such as trash pullouts and roll trays. These can make your kitchen much more functional in the long run and help you feel more of a benefit from refacing. But again there is a bit of a drawback here too. While we can do a lot of different organization retrofits with refacing, we are limited to what the dimensions of the cabinets currently are.
For example, I constantly see people with blind corner cabinets (you know, the corner cabinets where you have to crawl around inside of them just to get to the back). Now, these cabinets are often built too small to add retrofit trays and pullouts. Manufacturers just don’t make pullouts small enough.
So there are some limitations to the organizers we can add and they’re all based on what your current setup will allow.
Finally – Why SHOULD I reface?
With those two major drawbacks in mind, let’s turn to why you SHOULD consider refacing.
1. Major cost savings.
It’s no secret that full kitchen remodels are complicated and expensive. Lot of moving parts, trades to coordinate, hidden items behind the walls.
For us, we normally don’t do full kitchen remodels for under $50,000. Even small kitchens reach this mark because of all the trades and materials involved in a full remodel. Most Moderate sized kitchens average around $80k and more complex/larger sized kitchens can reach $150 – $200k.
With cabinet refacing, the majority of our tickets are under $20,000 for the refacing portion.
Now adding items such as countertops and backsplash can push you closer to the $40k mark BUT even then we’re still $10k shy of a full remodel. $10k is nothing to skip over! That’s a decent vacation.
If you like your current layout, cabinet refacing offer serious savings.
And with all of that, it doesn’t capture the whole story.
2. Time savings.
I don’t have a single kitchen remodel in my records that took less than 6 weeks. And in those few cases they were very small kitchen remodels indeed.
Cabinet refacing is often done in 5 days or less. 2 weeks if we’re also doing countertops.
This is truly underrated.
Most homeowners can live without their kitchen for a week. It’s even kind of fun to eat out at different places and have a change in routine.
6-12 weeks is grueling. 6-12 weeks is total routine disruption. People are happy with the final results but there’s a reason people remodel every 20 years or so!
Cabinet refacing also works great around the holidays. We can fit in a project between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There’s no way you’re getting a full remodel done in that timeframe.
3. Environmental savings
I’m not going to pretend like you’re saving the world by refacing your cabinets. BUT, if your cabinets are in decent shape, it saves that wood from going in the landfill and gives those solid boxes new life.
That’s something you can feel good about.
- A Total Transformation
I often get asked things like “You include the toe kicks right?” or “You’re going to reface the side panels, right?”
…Yes. Do you really think people would pay if their kitchen looked like a mishmash of finishes? LOL
Cabinet refacing is a total appearance transformation. All of the visible surfaces on the outside of your cabinets will be brand new, factory finished components. You can choose shaker doors, flat panel doors, raised panel doors. You can choose painted finishes, stained finishes, or a combination of the two.
4. Lifetime warranty
This is unique to our business. Not a lot of refacing companies offer a lifetime warranty. We can do so because we use suppliers that offer lifetime warranties (pretty simple) and we use industrial strength adhesives and methods of installation. Your refacing project will last. Period. If I had to summarize why you should reface your cabinets in two sentences I’d summarize it like this:
If you like your layout, and your cabinets are in good shape, reface – don’t replace. Projects are done in 5 days or less, at a fraction of the time and cost of a full remodel, all backed by a lifetime warranty.
