Reface or Replace Your Kitchen Cabinets? Start by Looking Under the Sink

Published September 13, 2026

Most people decide to replace their kitchen cabinets while standing in the middle of the kitchen looking at the doors. The doors are oak with a honey stain, or they are a white thermofoil that has started to yellow, or the hinges are the exposed brass kind that went out of style a generation ago. The kitchen looks old, so the cabinets must be finished.

That conclusion skips a step. The doors are not the cabinets. They are the part of the cabinets that ages fastest, and they are also the easiest part to change. Whether you need new cabinets depends on the boxes behind the doors, and very few people ever look closely at those before a quote for a full tear out is on the table.

This is the inspection we do in Scottsdale kitchens before recommending refacing or replacement, written out so you can do most of it yourself.

The Difference Between a Box and a Face

A kitchen cabinet is a box. It has two sides, a bottom, a back or a pair of rails where a back would be, and on most American cabinets a face frame glued to the front edge. The box is what holds the countertop up, what the plumbing runs through, and what is screwed to the wall studs. Everything else, the doors, drawer fronts, hinges, pulls and the finish on the face frame, is the face.

Refacing replaces the face and keeps the box. New doors and drawer fronts are built to your measurements, the face frames and exposed end panels are covered in a matching veneer, the hinges are replaced with concealed soft-close hinges, and the drawers usually get new boxes on full-extension slides. When it is done well, a refaced kitchen is hard to tell apart from a new one.

Replacement removes the box. That means disconnecting the sink and appliances, taking the countertops off, pulling the cabinets from the wall, patching the drywall and floor behind them, and starting again. It is a bigger, longer and more expensive job, and there are good reasons to do it. A tired door style is not one of them.

A Twenty Minute Inspection You Can Do Yourself

You need a flashlight, a small level, and a screwdriver. Work through the kitchen in this order.

Empty the sink base completely. Take out the cleaning supplies, the trash can and anything else stored there. Shine the light on the cabinet floor, especially along the back edge and around the plumbing holes. You are looking for swelling, a raised or bubbled surface, dark staining, or soft spots. Press down firmly with your palm in several places. A good floor feels like a board. A failing one flexes or feels spongy.

Check around the dishwasher. The cabinets on either side of a dishwasher take steam every time it opens, and a slow leak from the dishwasher supply or drain can soak their side panels. Look at the edges of those panels where they meet the floor.

Pull out three or four drawers. Look at how the drawer box is built. Stapled particleboard with a thin bottom that sags is normal on builder grade cabinets and gets replaced during refacing anyway. What matters is the cabinet opening the drawer came out of. The rails and sides should be solid and square.

Test the hinge screws. On a few doors, turn a hinge screw a quarter turn tighter. If it snugs up, the material is holding. If it spins without tightening, the screw hole is stripped. One stripped hole is a repair. A whole kitchen of stripped holes in crumbling particleboard is a sign the boxes are wearing out.

Look at the shelves. Adjustable shelves that bow in the middle are easy to replace. Fixed shelves that have pulled away from the sides tell you the box joints are loosening.

Put a level on the countertop. Check along the length of each run and front to back. A small variation is normal. A run that has settled noticeably at one end, or a corner that has dropped, means new doors will never hang with even gaps.

Open the upper cabinets and look at the back. You should see screws going through a solid rail into the wall. Uppers that have pulled forward from the wall even slightly need attention before anything else happens.

If everything passes, your cabinets are refacing candidates. If one or two cabinets fail, most often the sink base, those can be replaced individually and refaced to match. If most of the kitchen fails, replacement is likely the better investment.

Hard Water and the Sink Base

Scottsdale’s municipal water is very hard, and that shows up under the sink more than anywhere else. Mineral scale shortens the life of faucet cartridges, supply line fittings and the valves on reverse osmosis systems and water softener loops. When they begin to fail, they rarely burst. They drip slowly, often down the back of the cabinet where nobody looks.

A slow drip over a few years is enough to swell a particleboard cabinet floor and soften the bottom of its sides. Plywood holds up better but is not immune. This is why the sink base is the first thing we open, and why so many of the refacing jobs we do include replacing that one cabinet. A new plywood sink base, refaced with the rest of the run, costs a small fraction of what a full replacement would.

While the sink base is out, it is the right time to replace the supply lines and shutoff valves, add a drip tray, and consider a leak sensor. None of that is glamorous, and all of it protects the new work.

What Refacing Changes and What It Does Not

Refacing changes the look of the kitchen almost completely. New doors in a different style and color, new drawer fronts, veneer on the frames, new hardware, and often crown molding and a finished toe kick. It also changes how the kitchen works in small but real ways. Soft-close hinges and full-extension drawers are a daily improvement, and in a framed cabinet it is often possible to convert a base cabinet with a door and shelf into a stack of drawers, which is easier to use than bending down to reach the back of a shelf.

Refacing does not change the layout. The sink, range and refrigerator stay where they are. The aisle stays the same width. If your main aisle is well under the 42 to 48 inches most designers aim for, or the dishwasher door blocks the drawer next to it, refacing will make that kitchen prettier without making it easier to cook in.

Refacing also does not change cabinet heights or depths. Uppers that stop a foot short of a tall ceiling will still stop a foot short, unless you add stacked cabinets on top, which is sometimes possible and sometimes looks added on.

Materials That Last in the Desert

The finish you choose matters more in Scottsdale than in milder climates. Summer heat and very dry air are both hard on some cabinet materials.

Rigid thermofoil, a vinyl film heat pressed over MDF, is the least expensive door option. Its weakness is heat. Next to a range or a self-cleaning oven the film can lift and bubble, and the adhesive can let go in a house that is closed up for months with the thermostat set high while its owners are away for the summer. If you choose it, a heat shield next to the oven is essential.

Solid wood panel doors look wonderful stained, but the panels shrink and swell a little with humidity. In our dry air, painted solid wood doors can show a thin unpainted line along the edge of the panel during the driest months.

Painted MDF doors avoid that problem because MDF does not move with humidity the same way, which makes them a good choice for painted shaker styles.

Wood veneer over a stable core is our most common recommendation for refacing. It can be stained to show real grain or painted, and it holds steady through the seasons. Plastic laminate is very durable and wipes clean easily after a monsoon dust storm has worked its way in around the windows, though it offers fewer style options.

When the Countertops Tip the Decision

One of the largest savings in refacing comes from leaving the countertops alone. Removing granite or quartz without damage is possible but not guaranteed, and stone that cracks during removal has to be replaced. If your countertops are in good condition and you like them, refacing lets you keep them, and that alone can be several thousand dollars.

If you were planning to replace the countertops anyway, the calculation shifts. The counters are coming off regardless, so some of the savings of refacing disappear, and it becomes more reasonable to consider new cabinets, particularly if you also want a layout change. Sound boxes can still be refaced under new counters, and that remains the cheaper route, but the gap narrows.

Kitchens Where Replacement Is the Honest Answer

We recommend new cabinets without hesitation in a few situations. When several boxes have water damage. When the cabinets were built in place in an older south Scottsdale ranch house, with no backs, uneven walls and a soffit that eats storage space. When the layout is the real problem. When you want to move plumbing to an island, open a wall, or run cabinets to the ceiling. And when the boxes are particleboard that has simply worn out, with stripped hinge holes and loosening joints throughout.

Those projects involve more trades and more steps. Moving a sink or adding circuits means plans, a permit and inspections through the City of Scottsdale. Removing a wall that might be load-bearing means a structural engineer. The order runs demolition, rough-in, inspection, drywall, cabinets, countertop template, fabrication and installation, and it means several weeks without a working kitchen.

Comparing the Two on Cost

For a Scottsdale kitchen with around 25 linear feet of cabinets, full refacing generally runs from $10,000 to $24,000. New cabinets installed usually fall between $22,000 and $60,000, before countertops, appliances or any plumbing and electrical changes. Doors and fronts alone on frameless cabinets can come in around $5,500 to $11,000.

What moves refacing costs is mostly the veneer species and door style, the number of drawer boxes, and extras like crown molding or a new pantry cabinet. What moves replacement costs is the cabinet line, inset versus overlay doors, interior accessories, and every change behind the walls.

Warranties and Paperwork

Ask for two sets of written terms. The door and veneer manufacturer covers its product against defects, and that warranty usually has specific exclusions, heat damage beside an unshielded oven being a common one. The contractor covers installation workmanship, and that should be written into the contract, not promised on the phone. Keep both with your house records.

Paying for It

Refacing and replacement are usually billed in stages. A deposit orders the made to measure doors or cabinets, which cannot be returned, with the rest due as the work is completed. If you are borrowing through a home equity line or a personal loan, get both options priced before you settle on an amount. The difference between refacing and replacement can decide how much you actually need to borrow.

Questions to Ask Before You Sign

• Did you look inside the sink base and the cabinets beside the dishwasher?
• Are my boxes plywood or particleboard, and are they framed or frameless?
• Can my existing countertops stay, and what happens if one cracks?
• Which door material do you recommend for this kitchen, and why?
• Does anything in the plan need a permit?
• What does the manufacturer’s finish warranty exclude?

A contractor who has opened your cabinets will have ready answers. One who quotes replacement from the doorway has not looked.

If you would like a second opinion on your kitchen, call Nationalvideogamearchive at (480) 637-3170. We will start under the sink.