The parts that change, and the parts that do not
A kitchen cabinet is two things: a box fixed to the wall or the floor, and the door or drawer front on the outside of it. Refacing replaces the second category and leaves the first alone. In practice that means new doors, new drawer fronts, new hardware, new hinges, and new glides.
The cabinet boxes stay where they are. So do the countertops, the sink, and the plumbing, which is the main reason refacing is less disruptive than a full remodel: the kitchen is never actually taken apart.
Look at a refaced kitchen afterward and every visible surface is new, because in a closed cabinet run the only visible surfaces are doors and fronts.
What refacing genuinely fixes
- A dated door style, which is usually what makes a kitchen read as old
- Doors that no longer sit flush, because the hinges are replaced too
- Drawers that stick or will not open fully, because the glides are replaced
- Hardware that has worn through its plating
- A finish that has gone patchy around the handles and above the range
What refacing cannot fix
This is the part worth being blunt about, because it decides whether refacing is the right job for your kitchen at all.
- The layout. A corner you cannot reach stays a corner you cannot reach.
- The sizes. If the cabinet run has a filler strip in it now, it still will.
- A failing box. A cabinet floor that has swollen under a leaking sink needs replacing, not covering.
- Storage that was never there. Refacing does not add drawers where there are none.
If two or three of those describe your kitchen, the honest answer is custom cabinetry or a full remodel, and any cabinet company worth talking to will tell you so at the measure rather than sell you the smaller job twice.
Refacing is not refinishing
The two words get used interchangeably online and they are different work. Refinishing treats the doors you already have: sanding, stripping, painting, or spraying them. Refacing throws those doors away and hangs new ones.
Refinishing keeps the existing door style, so a raised-panel oak kitchen stays a raised-panel kitchen in a different color. Refacing changes the style completely, because the doors themselves are new.
To be clear about what we do: Monet Interior does not refinish, strip, spray, or repaint existing cabinet doors. A refacing job here means new doors and new drawer fronts, with new hardware, hinges, and glides. If refinishing is genuinely what your kitchen needs, a painter is the right trade to call, not us.
How to tell which one your kitchen needs
Open a cabinet and push on the bottom of the box. If it is solid, and you can live with where everything is, refacing is probably the better value. If the box flexes, or you have spent years working around the layout, spend the money on cabinetry that fixes the actual problem.
The fastest way to settle it is to have someone measure the kitchen and look inside the boxes. That visit is free here, and so is the 3D estimate that follows it.