Renovation & repair · decision guide
Refacing, Refinishing, or Replacing?
These get used interchangeably online and they are not the same job. Each keeps a different amount of your existing cabinets, and that — not the marketing term — is what actually decides the price.
Refinishing recoats the doors and boxes you already have. Refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts and veneers the visible box faces, keeping the box structure. Replacing tears everything out for new cabinets. Each keeps progressively less of what you started with, and costs progressively more.
Three different jobs
Refinishing
Sand and recoat what's already on the wall — paint, restain, or reglaze the existing doors and boxes. Nothing is replaced. The fastest and cheapest of the three, and the right call when the doors and boxes are structurally fine and you just want a different color or finish.
Refacing
The doors and drawer fronts come off entirely and are replaced with new ones. The visible faces of the box — the parts you actually see — get a matching veneer applied over them, while the box structure itself, and usually the layout, stay exactly where they are. You get a genuinely new look without gutting the kitchen.
Replacing
Everything comes out — boxes included — and new cabinetry goes in. This is the only option that changes the layout, and it is the most disruptive and expensive of the three, but it is also the only fix for boxes that are damaged, warped, or simply not what you want anymore.
What each one costs
We publish our own cost datasets for refinishing and full replacement — the figures below for those two are the same numbers behind their calculators. We do not publish a refacing dataset, so the refacing figures here are cited to third-party industry pricing rather than derived from either of our own datasets.
| Job | Typical kitchen | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Refinishing | $1,500–$5,000 | RealCostIQ dataset |
| Refacing | $3,000–$13,500* | Fixr, Jan. 2026 (external, cited) |
| Full replacement | $4,500–$15,000 | RealCostIQ dataset |
*Refacing: national average near $8,250, per Fixr's January 2026 cost guide, roughly $100–$450 per linear foot depending on door material (laminate/thermofoil cheapest, solid wood highest). This figure is an external citation, not a number derived from our refinishing or installation datasets — neither carries a refacing variant.
Price your own refinish or replacement with our cabinet refinishing calculator or cabinet installation calculator. We do not currently offer a refacing calculator — the third-party ranges above are the honest ceiling we can give you for that job.
Which one does your kitchen need?
- Boxes and doors are sound, you just want a new color. Refinish — the cheapest fix that keeps everything.
- Boxes are sound, but you want a real style change — new door profile, different material look. Reface — you get new doors and a new surface without tearing out the boxes.
- Boxes are damaged, warped, or you're changing the layout. Replace. Neither refinishing nor refacing fixes a structural problem or moves a wall.
A quick structural check settles most of this: open a few doors, check the boxes for water damage or sag, and confirm the layout you have is the layout you want to keep. If both check out, refacing or refinishing gets you most of the visual change of a full remodel at a fraction of the cost and disruption.
Run your numbers
Price your cabinets
Refinish, paint, or full installation — pick the job that matches what your boxes actually need.
Keep reading
- Kitchen Remodel Costs: Line by LineCabinets are 30–40% of a typical kitchen budget — where the rest of the money goes.
- Home Renovation Costs in 2026Whole-house and room-by-room costs, cost drivers, and contingency norms.
- How to Read a Contractor's QuoteWhat to check before signing for any refacing, refinishing, or replacement bid.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between cabinet refacing and refinishing?+
Refinishing recoats what you already have — the existing doors and boxes are sanded and repainted, restained, or reglazed. Refacing goes further: the doors and drawer fronts are replaced entirely with new ones, and the visible box faces are covered in a matching veneer, while the box structure itself stays. Refacing changes the look more completely than refinishing but costs less than full replacement.
How much does cabinet refacing cost?+
Third-party 2026 industry pricing puts cabinet refacing at roughly $100 to $450 per linear foot depending on door material, or about $3,000 to $13,500 for a typical kitchen, with a national average near $8,250, per Fixr's January 2026 cost guide. Laminate or thermofoil doors run cheapest; solid wood runs highest. RealCostIQ does not publish its own refacing dataset — these figures are cited externally, not derived from our refinishing or installation calculators.
Is cabinet refacing cheaper than replacing cabinets?+
Generally yes. Full cabinet replacement typically runs $4,500 to $15,000 installed for an average kitchen per our own installation dataset, while third-party guidance puts refacing at roughly $3,000 to $13,500 for the same scope — refacing avoids tearing out and rebuilding the box structure, which is where much of replacement's cost and disruption comes from.
When does refacing not make sense?+
When the box structure itself is the problem — water damage, warping, or a layout you actually want to change. Refacing keeps the existing boxes in place, so it only works when those boxes are structurally sound. If you're moving a sink, changing the footprint, or the boxes have failed, replacement is the honest answer regardless of the lower price tag refacing offers.
How much does cabinet refinishing cost compared to refacing?+
Refinishing is the cheaper of the two: our own dataset puts a full kitchen refinish at $1,500 to $5,000 depending on method (paint is cheapest at $400–$1,500, staining and glazing cost more), against $3,000-plus for refacing per third-party pricing. Refinishing keeps the existing doors; refacing replaces them, which is most of the price difference.
Methodology
Refinishing figures ($1,500–$5,000) and full replacement figures ($4,500–$15,000) are our own published cost datasets — the same numbers behind the refinishing and cabinet installation calculators, so this guide and those calculators cannot disagree. Refacing has no RealCostIQ dataset behind it and none is introduced here: the $3,000–$13,500 figure and the $100–$450-per-linear-foot range are cited directly to Fixr's January 2026 cost guide, not derived, averaged, or interpolated from our own refinishing or installation data. If you cannot find a refacing figure sourced this way elsewhere on this site, that is intentional — we do not publish a number we cannot stand behind.
Sources
- Fixr — How Much Does Cabinet Refacing Cost? (January 26, 2026) — accessed 2026-08-04
- HomeGuide — Cost to Refinish Cabinets (2026) — accessed 2026-07-13
- Angi — Cost to Refinish Cabinets (2026) — accessed 2026-07-13
- HomeGuide — Cabinet Installation Cost (2026) — accessed 2026-07-13
- Angi — Wood Kitchen Cabinets: Types, Costs & Installation (2026) — accessed 2026-07-13