Paint, reface or replace kitchen cabinets: what the boxes tell you

Whether to paint, reface or replace kitchen cabinets is usually asked as a question about money. It is really a question about the boxes. Doors and drawer fronts are what you look at every day, but the boxes behind them carry the counter, hold the sink and take the water when something leaks. If the boxes are sound and the layout works, you have three options. If they are not, you have one.

So before asking anyone for a price, open every door, pull every drawer out, empty the sink base and look. This guide walks through what to check, what each thing you find means for each route, and what else in the room is affected when boxes come out.

What is the difference between painting, refacing and replacing?

Painting keeps everything and changes the colour. Refacing keeps the boxes and replaces what you see: new doors, new drawer fronts, a new skin on the exposed sides and face frames, usually new hinges and pulls. Replacing takes the boxes out and builds the kitchen again, which is the only route that can change where things are.

Painting and refacing both depend on the same thing: boxes that are dry, square and still holding their screws. That is what the inspection below is for.

What should you check inside the boxes?

Work through the kitchen in this order. Start where water collects, finish with the uppers. You need a flashlight, a screwdriver and twenty minutes with everything emptied out.

1. The sink base

   Empty it completely and shine the light on the floor of the cabinet, the back corners and the bottom edges of the sides. Press the floor of the box with your thumb around the drain and the supply lines. Particleboard and MDF that have been wet swell and turn soft and crumbly at the edges; plywood tends to stain and lift in layers. A dark ring, a bulge or a spot that gives under your thumb means water got in. Check whether the leak is still active before deciding anything else: a slow drip under a sink will damage new cabinets just as quickly.

2. Bottoms and shelves

   Look along every cabinet floor and fixed shelf from the side, at eye level. A bottom that dips in the middle, a shelf that has bowed under plates, or a joint where the bottom has pulled away from the side all tell you the box has stopped holding its shape. If you are not sure what the boxes are made of, the cut edges in the hinge holes will show you; our guide to plywood, MDF and particleboard cabinets explains what each material looks like and how it ages.

3. Drawers

   Pull each drawer all the way out and lift it off its runners if it will come. A drawer box with a loose or cracked bottom can be rebuilt on its own. Runners that drop, stick or have torn their screws out of the cabinet side are a sign the side panel is losing its grip on fasteners, and that matters more than the drawer.

4. Hinges and face frames

   Open every door and watch it. Doors that sag or will not stay adjusted usually mean the hinge screws have stripped the wood they sit in. If your cabinets have a face frame (a solid frame across the front of the box), check that it is tight to the box and not split. If they are frameless, with the doors covering the edges of the box, look at the front edges for chips and swelling, because new doors will sit right on them.

5. The uppers

   Hold the bottom of each upper cabinet and try to move it. It should not rock or shift. Upper boxes hang on screws into the wall, and a box that moves has either lost its screws or was never fixed properly. Look at the joint where the top of the cabinet meets the ceiling or bulkhead for cracks that have opened over the years.

Which route does each finding point to?

Most kitchens have a mix of findings: a tired sink base and seven good boxes is common. Read the table row by row, and let the worst finding that cannot be repaired decide.

A single damaged box does not condemn a whole kitchen. A sink base can be rebuilt or replaced on its own, then painted or refaced with the rest, as long as the matching work is planned together and not discovered halfway through.

When is the layout the real problem?

Sometimes the boxes are fine and the kitchen still does not work. New paint or new doors will not fix that, and it is better to find out now than after the money is spent. Stand in the kitchen and go through these questions honestly.

• Can you walk from the fridge to the sink to the cooktop without going around an island, a table or an open door?
• Is there a clear stretch of counter beside the cooktop and beside the sink to set things down?
• Are pots kept in deep base cabinets behind doors, where you kneel to reach the back? Drawers would hold them better, and adding drawers to existing boxes is often impractical.
• Does the fridge you want, or the dishwasher you have, fit the opening the current cabinets leave?
• Is the corner cabinet a space you never use?

If two or more of these are a yes, the layout is part of the answer, and that points to replacing. Our guide to choosing a kitchen layout around how you cook goes further. Installing new cabinetry does not need a building permit in Toronto; moving plumbing or taking out a wall does, so a layout change that relocates the sink is a bigger job than one that only reshuffles boxes.

What else moves when the boxes come out?

Replacing cabinets is rarely only a cabinet job. The rest of the kitchen was fitted around the old boxes, and some of it comes out with them. These are the parts to ask about before you compare replacing with the other two routes.

The counter

It sits on the base cabinets and was cut to their run. Stone and quartz tops are rarely reused on new boxes of a different size, so plan on a new counter with new bases.

The backsplash

Tile is set down to the counter and up to the underside of the uppers. Change either, and the backsplash usually changes too; see our tile and backsplash installation page for what that involves.

The floor

In many older kitchens the flooring was laid around the cabinets, not under them. When new cabinets do not cover exactly the same footprint, bare subfloor shows at the edges, which can mean new flooring in the kitchen or beyond.

Plumbing, gas and outlets

The sink drain, supply lines, dishwasher connection and counter outlets were placed for the old cabinet positions. If the new boxes put the sink or range somewhere else, these move as well, and the permit question above applies.

The wall behind

Removing old uppers often reveals unpainted wall, old wallpaper or damage from previous fixing screws, which is patched and painted before anything new goes up.

Painting and refacing leave all of this alone. That is often the biggest difference between the routes, and it is the part a quick quote for "new cabinets" can leave out.

What should you ask for when you get prices?

Quotes for three different routes are hard to compare unless each one describes the same kitchen. Put these in your request so the answers line up.

1. Say which route you want priced, or ask for two routes side by side, with your inspection notes from above attached.
2. Name any box you think needs repair or replacement, and ask that it be priced as a separate line.
3. For refacing, ask what the exposed sides and face frames will be covered with, and whether the hinges, pulls and drawer runners are new.
4. For replacing, ask whether the price includes removal, the counter, the backsplash, any flooring, and moving plumbing or outlets, or whether those are separate.
5. Ask how long the kitchen will be out of use for that route, and whether the sink can stay connected for part of it.

The fourth question matters most. Two quotes that look far apart often turn out to describe different amounts of work once the counter and backsplash are counted.

Where we fit in

Art Style Construction builds full kitchens across Toronto and the GTA, including new cabinets, counters, backsplash and lighting, as part of our kitchen renovations, and builds custom cabinetry and built-ins scribed to the room. You can see finished kitchens in our project gallery. If your inspection points to new boxes, or you would like a second pair of eyes on what you found, book an on-site consultation and we will open the doors with you.