Cabinet Refacing

New Faces on Cabinets That Are Still Built Well

Refacing keeps the structure of your cabinets and replaces everything you see and touch. Nationalvideogamearchive removes the old doors and drawer fronts, covers the face frames and exposed end panels with a matching veneer, hangs new doors on concealed hinges, and in most kitchens builds new drawer boxes on full-extension soft-close slides. The boxes stay fastened to the wall, the sink stays connected, and the countertops usually never move.

It is a good fit for a lot of Scottsdale homes. Kitchens in McCormick Ranch, Gainey Ranch and Scottsdale Ranch were often built with decent cabinet boxes, and many were fitted with granite or quartz tops during an earlier remodel. Those kitchens tend to look dated because of oak doors, brass hinges and worn drawer fronts, not because anything behind them has failed.

What Has to Be True First

Refacing only makes sense when the boxes can carry another twenty years. Before we quote it, we check:

• The sink base. Very hard Scottsdale water eats faucet cartridges and supply line fittings, and slow drips go unnoticed for years. A swollen or soft cabinet floor under the sink is the most common reason a box fails.
• Box material and joints. Plywood and solid wood frames reface well. Particleboard can too, provided it has stayed dry and the screws still hold. Particleboard that crumbles around the hinge holes does not.
• Level and square. If a level on the counter shows the run has settled or twisted, new doors will never hang with even gaps.
• The layout. If the aisle is too tight, the dishwasher blocks a drawer, or you want a different work triangle, no amount of new veneer will fix that.

When one cabinet fails and the rest pass, we replace that single box, usually the sink base, and reface it with the others so the run matches.

Framed and Frameless Cabinets

Most American cabinets built in the last few decades are framed, with a solid wood face frame glued to the front of each box. That frame is what gets veneered, and it is what the new hinges mount to. Framed cabinets are the classic refacing candidate.

Frameless cabinets, the European style with no face frame, have nothing to veneer on the front. Refacing them is really a matter of new doors, drawer fronts and finished end panels, which is simpler and costs less. You will see that as the lower tier on our pricing.

Choosing Doors and Veneer for the Desert

Door style is personal. Material is not, at least not here. Summer heat and very dry air change which finishes last.

• Wood veneer over a stable core is our usual recommendation. It takes stain or paint and holds steady through the seasons.
• Painted MDF doors do not shrink and crack at the panel joints the way painted solid wood doors can in dry air.
• Solid wood doors are beautiful stained, but expect slight seasonal movement at the panels.
• Rigid thermofoil is the least expensive, and it is the one most likely to lift beside a range or self-cleaning oven, or in a house closed up all summer while its owners are away. We will price it if you ask, with a heat shield next to the oven, but we will tell you about the risk.

What Refacing Costs

For a kitchen of around 25 linear feet of cabinets, full refacing in Scottsdale generally runs from $10,000 to $24,000. Veneer species, door style, how many drawers get new boxes, and extras like crown molding, a new pantry tower or glass uppers are what move the price. Doors and fronts alone on frameless cabinets start lower, around $5,500.

How the Job Runs

We measure every opening, order doors and fronts built to those measurements, and wait several weeks for them to arrive. The work in your home is then a matter of days. We strip the old doors, prepare and veneer the frames and end panels, hang and adjust the doors, install drawer boxes and hardware, and fit trim. Most families cook in the kitchen every evening throughout.

If the inspection shows your boxes are past saving, we will say so and talk you through new cabinet installation instead. Call (480) 637-3170 to book an inspection.