Cabinet refacing

What cabinet refacing replaces

Cabinet refacing keeps your boxes and replaces what you see: the doors, the drawer fronts, the exposed ends of a run and the handles. Every door is made to the opening it covers, so it's a made-to-measure order, one wrong number is one wrong part.

The face frames, the strips the doors close against, get a new face to match, that's paint, veneer or solid facing stock. The hinges go too, new doors on tired hinges is where a refaced run starts to feel second-hand again.

• The boxes stay, the doors and fronts change
• New hinges, handles and soft close
• Done in days rather than weeks

How much frame shows, the interiors and the slides

First, how much frame stays showing, the overlay. Keep the old reveal, or go full overlay so the doors nearly meet. A bigger door swings wider, in a corner it can hit what's next to it, and a hinge limiter is the fix.

Second, the inside. Refacing is the outside of a box, open a door and your shelves are the colour they were, so say if the interiors are in the job. Third, the slides. Soft-close undermount slides want your drawer bottom set up about half an inch from the bottom edge of the side, and a box the right width. If your old boxes aren't built that way, it's new drawer boxes, side-mount soft close, or a spacer at the frame.

How cabinet refacing gets measured and fitted

Kitchen cabinet refacing starts with somebody going over your boxes, one that's out of square gets noted, the door has to hang square. Then every opening gets measured, each front sized to the one it covers, and your style, overlay and finish chosen. The parts get made, one per opening.

Nothing comes off until the new doors are here. Then the old ones come off, your frames and ends get their new face, the doors go on. Cup hinges adjust three ways, so every door gets set to its neighbour.

Framed or frameless, and what keeps the old colour

Framed or frameless? A face-frame box has a frame your door sits against, a frameless one has just the front edge of the box, which gets edgebanded to match. Two jobs, one word.

Open a door and look at the hinge plate and the bottom of the box. Swollen board or a soft base means water has been in there, a new front on a wet box buys you a year. Ask about your toe kick, crown and light rail, they get redone or they stay the old colour.

Matching the door finish to the frame finish

Your door is finished before it arrives, your frame gets finished where it stands, and the two have to keep matching. Paint beside a painted door is one match, veneer beside a stained door another, and they age at different rates.

Veneer holds or lifts on the backing and the prep. A paper-back on a frame nobody cleaned lifts, a phenolic-back on a clean, flat one stays put. Your frame often stands a quarter inch proud of the box, so the end panel gets packed out to sit flush.

Refacing, refinishing or new cabinets

Like the layout, hate the look? That's this job. Cabinet refinishing keeps your doors and changes the finish, refacing takes them off. If the doors are sound and just the colour is tired, it's refinishing you want.

If a run has to move or the openings change, that's new cabinets, refacing adds no drawer and no room. Your countertop stays put through a reface, in older Hillsborough homes it's usually a post-formed top scribed to your wall. If that's the part that bothers you, that's countertops.