Cabinet Refacing vs. Painting: Which Is Right for You?

Have the cabinets in your kitchen seen better days? Then you might be thinking about ripping them all out and replacing them with new ones.

The only problem with this is that replacing kitchen cabinets can cost a lot of money. You might be looking at spending tens of thousands of dollars to have new kitchen cabinets installed.

So rather than replacing your kitchen cabinets, why not consider cabinet refacing or cabinet painting? Both options will cost just a fraction of what replacing kitchen cabinets will.

You’ll need to understand the differences between cabinet refacing vs painting before you decide which option is the right one for you, though. You should learn all about them prior to doing any cabinet treatments.

We’ve created a cabinet refacing vs painting guide that will break down each option and make it easier for you to decide which one to go with. Continue reading to check it out.

The figures below are for an average-size kitchen in the Tampa Bay area — roughly 25 to 40 doors and drawer fronts. A larger kitchen, or one with islands and exposed end panels, moves every column up.

Cabinet refacing vs. painting vs. replacing, at a glance

	Painting	Refacing	Replacing
What changes	Color and finish; every door and box you already have is refinished	New doors and drawer fronts; boxes painted to match, or veneered for a stained look	Everything is torn out and rebuilt
Keeps your existing doors	Yes	No — doors are removed and replaced	No
Typical cost	$3,500–$6,500 for a kitchen	$7,000–$12,000	$12,000–$25,000+
Time on site	3–5 days	A few days	Weeks
Best when	The doors are sound and the color is dated	You want a different door style, boxes are sound	Boxes are failing or the layout has to change
Waste created	None	The old doors	The entire kitchen

The rest of this guide covers each option in detail, starting with what refacing actually involves.

What Is Cabinet Refacing?

If you’re no longer in love with the way that your kitchen cabinets look but you don’t necessarily want to break the bank while replacing them, cabinet refacing is the first good option that you’ll have. It’s also sometimes referred to as cabinet refinishing or cabinet resurfacing.

When you have cabinet refacing done, a cabinet company will come in and work its way through these steps:

1. They’ll remove all of the doors from your current kitchen cabinets and get rid of them
2. They’ll clean all your kitchen cabinet boxes and sand them down before applying a high-quality veneer to them
3. They’ll install new cabinet doors, drawers, knobs, and hinges and add the same veneer to them to make them match your cabinet boxes

As you can clearly see, doing cabinet refacing will require a lot less work than replacing cabinets altogether. But when the job is done, it will look like you had new kitchen cabinets installed.

What Are the Benefits of Cabinet Refacing?

There is a reason why so many homeowners in the Tampa, FL area have chosen to do cabinet refacing over cabinet replacement in their kitchens. They love all the benefits that come along with choosing cabinet refacing vs painting.

We’ve compiled a list of these benefits so that you can see what makes cabinet refacing such a strong option. We’ve included the biggest benefits below.

Saves Money

We’ve already touched on this a little bit, but it’s definitely worth repeating. When you do cabinet refacing instead of cabinet replacement, you’re going to save yourself a whole lot of money.

The exact amount of money that you’ll save will depend on which materials are used during cabinet refacing and which cabinet company you hire to help you out. But it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for you to save thousands of dollars when you reface cabinets rather than replacing them.

Provides a Wide Range of Options

You aren’t going to be limited in the slightest when you reface the cabinets in your kitchen. You’ll be able to make your kitchen cabinets look like whatever you want.

You’ll be able to choose from a whole lot of options when it comes to:

• The style of your kitchen cabinet doors
• The stains used on your cabinets
• The hinges and knobs put on your cabinets

This is a big part of the reason why your kitchen cabinets will look brand-new when they’re refaced. You can completely alter their style based on which options you go with.

Takes Very Little Time

Replacing the cabinets in a kitchen can take a long time. You’ll need to begin by tearing your kitchen apart before you can slowly put it back together, and it will often take weeks for this process to play out.

The kitchen cabinet refacing process, on the other hand, will only take a matter of a few days in most cases. You won’t have to worry about waiting for too long to see the finished results.

Increases a Home’s Value

You should be able to get a good return on investment regardless of whether you choose to reface or replace kitchen cabinets. But since you’ll be spending less money on cabinet refacing, it could provide you with a better ROI in the end.

You should crunch the numbers to see how much of a difference your ROI will be when you reface cabinets as opposed to replacing them. You may be surprised to see what a big difference refacing them will make.

Creates Very Little Waste

You’re obviously going to be creating a little bit of waste when you reface kitchen cabinets. You are going to be getting rid of the doors for your cabinets in most cases.

But your cabinet boxes are what make up most of your kitchen cabinets. So by refacing your cabinets, you’ll scale way back on how much waste you’re creating. This will be ideal for those who are all about being as eco-friendly as possible when pulling off home improvement projects.

What Is Cabinet Painting?

Cabinet painting is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Instead of removing your cabinet doors and replacing them with new ones like you’ll do with cabinet refacing, you’ll keep all the parts of your cabinets intact and paint them.

Painting cabinets can be a little bit tricky at times. You’ll need to bring a cabinet company on board to paint them correctly so that the paint on them doesn’t wear away after just a year or two since you’ll be opening and closing your cabinets all the time and touching them when you do. 

But as long as you take the right approach to painting kitchen cabinets, it can work wonders for your kitchen’s appearance. It could also prove to be a better option than cabinet refacing for some people.

What Are the Benefits of Cabinet Painting?

In a perfect world, everyone would be able to do cabinet refacing vs painting. But if you like the style of your kitchen cabinet doors and don’t mind hanging onto them, you might find that painting cabinets will be the right choice for you.

In this case, you’ll get the chance to enjoy lots of benefits that will accompany kitchen cabinet painting. Discover some of the biggest benefits of painting cabinets versus refacing them below.

Creates No Waste at All

While refacing cabinets in a kitchen will be more eco-friendly than replacing them, there will still be some waste that is created. It’s why cabinet refacing isn’t the most eco-friendly option of all.

That distinction belongs to cabinet painting. When cabinets are painted rather than replaced or refaced, there won’t be any waste at all that comes out of it. It makes this the go-to option for those who want to give their kitchen a new look without doing any harm to the environment.

Saves Even More Money

As we alluded to earlier, cabinet refacing is going to save you some money compared to cabinet replacement. But cabinet painting will save you even more money than that.

Painting cabinets can be challenging, so it’ll typically cost more than simply painting the walls in your house would. But even still, you should be able to cut your costs dramatically when you opt not to reface cabinets and paint them instead.

Requires Very Little Time

If you have a very large kitchen with lots of cabinets in it, it might take a few days for a cabinet company to get them all painted in the right way. But generally speaking, you should be able to have your kitchen cabinets painted in just a couple days.

The prep work associated with painting cabinets in a kitchen is usually what will take the most time. It’s important for a kitchen to be 100% ready for cabinet painting before a company begins.

Changes the Appearance of a Kitchen

It’s amazing to see what a coat of paint can do to a set of kitchen cabinets. You can instantaneously make a kitchen look so much different than it does now by painting the cabinets in it and leaving everything else untouched.

Whether you want to brighten up your kitchen or make the cabinets in it look bolder, you can accomplish these goals with little more than a can of paint.

Adds Value to a Home

In some cases painting your kitchen cabinets might not add as much value to your home as refacing. But you should still see an uptick in your home’s value when you take the time to paint your cabinets. Often times the cabinets are perfectly fine its just a dated color. 

Since your kitchen will look better when the painting is finished, people will see it as more of a selling feature than they did before. It’ll motivate them to pay top dollar for your home should you ever go to sell it.

What About Just Replacing the Cabinets?

This guide opened with replacement, because it is where most people start. It is worth coming back to, since somewhere in the comparison almost everyone has the same thought: for that money I could just get new cabinets.

On the surface, sometimes you can. The catch is that cabinets are not a finished kitchen. The price you found covers the boxes. It does not cover tearing out what is there, hauling it away, removing the countertops — which usually do not survive being taken off, so add new ones — disconnecting and reconnecting the sink and disposal, moving outlets and under-cabinet lighting, the installation itself, or patching the drywall, paint and flooring that the old cabinets were covering.

Then there is the question that matters more and gets asked far less: what are you trading? Plenty of older kitchens have solid wood or plywood boxes. Cabinets at the affordable end of new are frequently particleboard or MDF with a printed finish. New is not automatically better material. If the boxes you already own are sound, replacing them with cheaper ones is a downgrade wearing the word new.

None of which means replacement is wrong. When the boxes are failing, when water has got into the carcasses, or when the layout itself has to change, it is the only answer that actually solves the problem — and no finish or new door will. It is worth seeing the full cost comparison before you decide which situation you are in.

Cabinet Refacing vs Painting: Which Should You Choose?

Now that you know about the differences that exist between cabinet refacing vs painting, you should be able to decide which side of the fence you fall on. You should weigh the pros and cons associated with cabinet refacing and painting and make a final decision as far as what you would like to do to your kitchen cabinets.

Either way, our Tampa, FL cabinet company can help bring your kitchen back to life by providing you with cabinet refacing or painting services. We can also help explain these options to you further and put in you a better position to choose the right option.

Check out our services and pick the option that is best for you. Then get an estimate from our team.