Cabinet Painting › Comparisons
Cabinet Painting vs Refacing
Cabinet painting vs refacing comes down to how much gets replaced: painting keeps your existing doors and boxes and gives them a new sprayed color, while refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts and covers the boxes in new veneer. Painting usually costs less, with most average Bay Area kitchens at $2,500–$4,500, and takes 3–4 days. Refacing makes sense mainly when you want a different door style.
Both options keep your cabinet boxes and layout, so neither one means tearing out counters or plumbing. The difference is how much of the cabinet gets replaced. With painting, nothing is replaced. With refacing, everything you see is.
We paint and restain cabinets and do not offer refacing, so this is an honest look at cabinet painting vs refacing and when each one wins.
What refacing involves
Refacing has three parts:
- New doors and drawer fronts, made to fit your openings, in a new style and finish.
- New veneer or laminate applied over the face frames and exposed cabinet sides so they match the doors.
- Usually new hinges and pulls, and sometimes new drawer boxes.
Ordering made-to-fit doors adds lead time before any installation starts. The boxes, shelves and layout stay as they are, so refacing has the same structural limits as painting. If the sink base is swollen, refacing covers the outside but does not fix it.
Cost side by side
Our cabinet painting prices:
- Small kitchen, under 20 doors and drawers: from $2,000
- Average kitchen, 20–35: $2,500–$4,500
- Large kitchen, 35+: $4,500 and up
- Per piece: $80 per door and $50 per drawer front, with frames, end panels and trim on top
On cabinet painting vs refacing cost, refacing usually costs more, because you are buying a new door or drawer front for every opening plus the veneer and the labor to apply it. Get refacing prices from a company that does that work, and compare total job costs rather than per-door figures.
Cabinet refacing vs refinishing follows the same pattern. Restaining your existing wood doors is $80 per door with us, with drawer fronts quoted per job, and you keep the doors you already have. The full cabinet painting cost guide shows how our quotes are built.
Get your cabinet price
$2,500–$4,500 for an average kitchen, 3–4 days, 2-year warranty. Send photos and we reply the same day.
Get a free quoteWhen painting is enough
- Your door style is one you like or can live with, such as shaker, flat slab or a simple raised panel.
- The doors are solid and flat, with no warping or delaminating.
- You want a new color, not a new shape.
- Your surfaces are wood, MDF, laminate, melamine or already painted. A bonding primer lets paint grip all of them.
- You want the work done in 3–4 days without waiting on a door order.
A lot of kitchens look dated mostly because of color. A raised-panel door in honey oak looks very different in a soft white or a deep green, and a hardware swap adds to the change for little cost. Painting also comes with our 2-year warranty.
When people weigh cabinet refacing vs painting, door shape is usually the deciding factor. If you would keep your current door style given the choice, painting gets you most of the way there for less money and less waiting.
When refacing makes sense
- You strongly dislike the door shape, for example ornate arches when you want flat slab, and no color will fix that.
- Doors are warped, cracked or delaminating and would need replacing anyway.
- Most doors are peeling thermofoil, which cannot just be painted over. Thermofoil that is still intact depends on its condition, so send photos and we will tell you.
- You want a wood species or a door profile you do not have now.
If your boxes are failing or the layout does not work, neither refacing nor painting is the fix. Read refinish or replace kitchen cabinets to check. If painting looks like the right fit, start with photos on our cabinet painting page.
Common questions
Is painting cheaper than refacing cabinets?
Usually, yes. Painting reuses your doors, while refacing buys new doors and drawer fronts and adds veneer. Our painting runs $2,500–$4,500 for an average kitchen.
Does Proper Reglazing do cabinet refacing?
No. We paint and restain existing cabinets. If you need new doors in a different style, a refacing company is the right call.
Can refacing fix water-damaged cabinets?
Not really. Refacing covers the outside of the boxes, so swollen or soft particleboard underneath is still there.
Which is faster, painting or refacing?
Painting takes 3–4 days with no ordering. Refacing has to wait for new doors and drawer fronts to be made before installation begins.