Why nobody can quote you from a web page
Search this and you will find ranges. They are averages taken across kitchens that have nothing in common: a galley with twelve doors and a fourteen-foot run sits in the same average as an open-plan kitchen with an island, a tall pantry bank and forty pieces. One of those is a day. The other is not.
A range wide enough to contain both is too wide to plan with. That is why the measure is free here and why the estimate comes in writing afterward, built on the actual count in your actual kitchen.
The five things that actually move the number
Piece count. Refacing is priced on doors and drawer fronts, not on square footage of kitchen. Two kitchens of identical floor area can differ by fifteen pieces depending on how the storage was originally divided up. Count yours before you call anyone: every door, every drawer front, including the ones on the island and any tall pantry. It takes two minutes and it makes every conversation afterward sharper.
Door style and material. A flat slab and a five-piece raised panel are different amounts of work to make, and the material underneath them ranges widely. This is usually the single largest lever you control.
Hardware. Hinges and glides are where quotes quietly differ. Soft-close hinges and soft-close glides throughout are part of the specification here, so they are in the number rather than added to it later. Pulls and knobs in solid steel and aluminum sit on top of that, and you can spend a little or a lot.
Box condition. Refacing assumes the boxes are sound. If a cabinet floor under the sink has swollen, or a box has pulled off the wall, that gets addressed rather than covered over, and it is better to find that at the measure than on install day.
Layout complexity. Blind corners, tall runs that need a lift, appliance surrounds and anything that has been modified since the kitchen went in all add time.
How to compare two quotes properly
Quotes for the same kitchen can look far apart and turn out to be for different work. Ask all of these, of everyone:
- Are new hinges included, and are they soft-close?
- Are new drawer glides included, and are they soft-close?
- Are pulls and knobs in the number, or an extra line?
- Does the price include removing and disposing of the old doors?
- Was the quote produced from a site measure, or from a phone call?
- Is it written down?
A quote built without a measure is a guess that can be revised later, which is the one thing you were trying to avoid by getting a quote.
When refacing stops being the cheaper option
Refacing is usually the lower-cost route to a kitchen that looks new, because the boxes, countertops, sink and plumbing all stay. But it only replaces what you see. If the layout is the thing that frustrates you, refacing spends real money without fixing it, and you will still want the layout changed afterward.
That is the expensive version: paying for refacing, living with the same awkward corner, and then paying again. If two or three things about how the kitchen works annoy you daily, price custom cabinetry or a full remodel alongside it before deciding. We would rather tell you that at the measure than sell you the smaller job twice.
What to do next
Count your doors and drawer fronts. Take a photo of the run, and open the cabinet under the sink and look at the bottom of the box. With those three things you can have a useful conversation with anybody.
Then book the measure. Both the in-home consultation and the 3D estimate cost nothing, and one visit gets you a real number instead of a range.