Kitchen Cabinet Refacing: The Facts

Sooner or later, there comes a time when the cabinets that are in your kitchen start to look old and worn out.  Quality cupboards can last quite a while, but eventually even the best of them start to deteriorate from wear and tear and old age.  When this happens, you pretty much have three choices.  First, and most expensive, you can tear out all of the cabinets and install new ones.  The second way to do it is called kitchen cabinet refacing, which involves removing the doors and replacing them with new ones, along with other exposed areas.  The third method is called cabinet refinishing, which involves placing a new layer of material on top of the visible parts of the cabinets.  For this article, I’m going to explain the ins and outs of kitchen cabinets refacing so you can make an informed decision about whether this is something you want to do.

Kitchen Cabinet Refacing Cost

If you are trembling at the thought of dishing out tens of thousands of your hard earned dollars (or whatever currency you use), here is some good news for you:  Refacing kitchen cabinets cost about one-third of the cost of a full replacement.  In many cases, the structural integrity of your cabinets is fine, but the outside looks worn.  If you fall into this category, you really only need to replace the visible parts, which are the doors.  While a full cabinet replacement might cost $20,000 to $30,000 dollars, if you choose to reface kitchen cabinets, you might spend $5,000 to $10,000.  The reason why I can’t give you a specific price is because there are so many variables that affect the cost of the cabinets, including the type of material used the quality, and whether you pay someone to do it or try to tackle the job yourself.  If you are working on a very low budget and are either handy with tools (or are willing to give it a go anyway!), you can save yourself a heap of cash on the kitchen cabinet refacing price.

Additional Kitchen Cabinet Refacing Information

In addition to kitchen cabinet door refacing, which happens to be fairly easy to do, there is another step that many people find tricky.  The kitchen cabinets have lots of other surfaces that are visible, and you need to put a new finish on these so that they match the new doors.  You will need to put a new, thin material on these visible areas.  For this step, you generally have three choices as to materials that you can use.  All of them are designed to match the wood finish of your cabinets, but they differ in material and price.  Your choices are RTF’s, which stands for rigid thermofoils, laminates made of plastic (think of those fake wood floor panels), and wood veneer.  All of these are made to look like real wood, and while you can tell the difference right up close, from a distance they do the job quite well.  If you think you might want to tackle this job yourself, I highly recommend getting one of these books to show you the step by step methods involved in this renovation.

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