Is Cabinet Refacing Worth It? Why New Cabinets Usually Win

For most kitchens, cabinet refacing is not worth it. Refacing puts new doors and a veneer skin on the cabinet boxes you already own, so the interiors, drawer boxes, shelves and layout all stay the same age they are today. When a refacing quote lands in the same range as a complete set of new cabinets, new cabinets are the better buy. A new Fabuwood 10x10 kitchen starts at $2,899 (our price as of September 2026).

The short answer

Refacing changes what you see from across the room. New cabinets change the whole kitchen: the boxes, the drawers, the hardware and, if you want, the layout. For the money most refacing jobs cost, you can own the second one.

Here is the math. The Fixr cabinet refacing cost guide puts professional refacing at $3,000 to $13,500, with a national average of $8,250, as of 2026. Our price for a complete Fabuwood 10x10 kitchen starts at $2,899 in Quest Metro Frost, $3,199 in Value Premium Hallmark Frost and $5,149 in Allure Galaxy Cloud White, as of September 2026. Those are all-new plywood cabinets with solid wood dovetail drawers and Blum soft-close hardware.

What cabinet refacing is, and what it leaves alone

A refacing crew takes off your doors and drawer fronts, covers the exposed face frames and end panels with wood veneer or laminate, and then hangs new doors and fronts with new hinges and pulls. Fixr describes the job as new doors, drawer fronts and hardware plus a new face over the existing cabinet boxes.

The boxes stay on the wall. Refacing is a surface job, and Fixr notes that it will not let you change your kitchen's layout. New drawer boxes, roll-out shelves and other interior upgrades are add-ons when a company offers them, so read each quote line by line to see what is included.

It also helps to separate refacing from refinishing. Refinishing keeps your current doors and paints or stains them. Refacing replaces the doors. Replacing the cabinets replaces everything.

What stays old when you reface

Keep this list next to any refacing quote. Every item on it is part of the cabinet you keep:

• The cabinet boxes. Sides, backs and bottoms stay, along with whatever they are made of. Particleboard boxes stay particleboard.
• The interiors. Scuffed shelf surfaces, stains and worn finish inside the cabinets are what you see each time you open a new door.
• Sagging shelves. A shelf that has bowed under dishes keeps its bow.
• Drawer boxes and glides. New drawer fronts are fastened to the old drawer boxes. New boxes and soft-close glides are often an extra cost, and some jobs leave them out.
• The sink base. Swelling, stains or a soft floor panel from an old leak stay behind a new door.
• Worn edges. The veneer covers the face frame, while the box edges and corners inside keep their wear.
• The layout. Every cabinet stays the same size in the same spot, with the same storage it has today.

New doors on old boxes look new from the doorway. Up close, the kitchen still shows its age every time a door or drawer opens, and that is the part you use every day.

Veneer over old face frames

Refacing depends on veneer or laminate bonded to face frames that may have absorbed years of cooking steam and cleaning products. The bond is only as good as the surface underneath and the crew applying it. Edges near the dishwasher, sink and range see the most heat and moisture, so ask any refacing company how its warranty handles lifting or peeling edges. On a new Fabuwood Allure cabinet the face frame is solid wood, finished at the factory, with no applied skin to lift.

The layout stays locked

If your kitchen needs more drawers, a pantry, an island or a better corner, refacing cannot get you there. It keeps every door where it is. Many kitchens that feel tired are really kitchens with the wrong storage: deep base cabinets where drawers would work better, a blind corner nobody can reach, no place for trays or a trash pull-out. New cabinets let you fix that in the same project.

Refacing vs new Fabuwood cabinets: cost comparison

A 10x10 kitchen is a common yardstick for cabinet pricing: an L-shaped layout with two 10-foot walls, which gives about 20 feet of wall to fill with cabinets. The table applies Fixr's 2026 per-foot figures to those 20 feet, next to our cabinet prices for the same kitchen.

Direct Cabinet Deals sells the cabinets, and installation is arranged with the local installer or contractor of your choice. To compare fairly, add labor to our prices. The Fixr cabinet installation cost guide puts cabinet installation labor at $50 to $200 per linear foot as of 2026, or roughly $1,000 to $4,000 for 20 feet. That puts a new Quest Metro kitchen at about $3,900 to $6,900 installed, and Allure Galaxy Cloud White at about $6,150 to $9,150.

Put those next to the refacing column. A mid-range refacing job and a new Fabuwood kitchen cost about the same, and only one of them gives you new boxes, new drawers and a manufacturer's warranty on the whole cabinet. Fixr's $8,250 national average reflects a medium kitchen of 25 to 30 linear feet, so bring your own measurements to both quotes.

You pay for skilled labor either way. With refacing, most of the bill is the crew. With new cabinets, the installer's time goes into a kitchen that is new from the wall out. For a full breakdown by line and door style, see our Fabuwood cabinets price list.

What you gain with new Fabuwood cabinets

The Fabuwood spec books list exactly what comes in the box, and you can read them yourself on our spec books page. Here is what a new kitchen gives you that a reface does not:

• An all-new cabinet box. Allure uses 1/2 inch veneered plywood sides dovetailed into a 3/4 inch solid wood face frame, a plywood back and 3/4 inch plywood adjustable shelves. Quest and Value Premium also build with plywood sides and backs.
• Dovetail drawers. Allure, Value Premium and Quest drawers are 5/8 inch solid wood dovetail boxes with a 3/8 inch plywood bottom.
• Soft-close hardware. Blum hinges with Blumotion soft-close and Blum Tandem plus Blumotion concealed drawer runners. Allure and Value Premium runners are full extension.
• A limited lifetime warranty. Fabuwood's limited lifetime warranty covers Allure, Illume, Value Premium and Quest cabinets purchased on or after October 1, 2024, for the first residential purchaser for as long as they own the home.
• A new layout. Add a drawer base, a pantry, an island or a better corner cabinet while you are already changing the kitchen.

You also get more choice than a refacing catalog usually offers. Allure Galaxy alone comes in 30 colors, and the full Fabuwood lineup covers framed shaker and slab doors plus frameless lines like Illume and Ovela. Our guide to Allure vs Illume vs Quest walks through which line fits which budget.

When refacing can make sense

Refacing is a reasonable choice in a narrow set of kitchens:

• The boxes are solid and dry. Plywood boxes with no water damage, square corners and shelves that sit flat.
• You are happy with the layout. The storage works and you only want a new look.
• You are selling soon. A short-term cosmetic update before a listing can be enough when you will not live with the interiors.

If you recently installed stone countertops you want to keep, that also leans toward keeping the boxes under them. Outside those cases, most buyers are better off replacing. A kitchen you plan to stay in for years deserves drawers that glide, shelves that sit flat and a warranty that covers the whole cabinet. And if the refacing quote is anywhere near the installed cost of new cabinets, the new kitchen is the better value on day one.

How to price a new kitchen before you decide

Get a real number for new cabinets first, then read the refacing quote against it. Three steps get you there:

• Measure your walls. Our guide on how to measure a kitchen for cabinets shows what to record, including windows, doors and appliance openings.
• Request a free 3D kitchen design. Send your measurements through our free 3D kitchen design page and we will lay out the kitchen in the Fabuwood line and color you choose, with a quote you can hold next to any refacing bid.
• See the finish in person. Order door samples of the colors you are considering so you can check them in your own light.

To start with a quick benchmark, compare complete layouts with live prices on our 10x10 kitchens page. You can also browse every Galaxy color with live prices on the Allure Galaxy page. If you find the same Fabuwood cabinets priced lower at another authorized dealer, our price match page explains how we handle it.

Direct Cabinet Deals is an authorized online dealer for Fabuwood, Jarlin, Kitchen Cabinet Distributors (KCD), CNC Cabinetry and Eurocraft. We sell cabinets online and help you plan, price and order your kitchen. Prices shown are our prices as of September 2026 and can change; the product page always shows the current price. Product details come from Fabuwood.