Where do you start?
Updating your kitchen cabinets is a big decision. Before you compare prices, it helps to know which kind of project you actually have. If you answer yes to most of these, improving the cabinets you have is probably worth a serious look:
- Am I happy with the overall layout and where the appliances and fixtures are?
- Is any redesign I want minor, without moving plumbing, electrical or walls?
- Is my main problem decorative, like a dated door style or color?
- Have I already spent money on countertops or flooring that I want to keep?
- Do I hate the idea of a long, messy remodel?
- Do I want a custom cabinet look without starting over?
Your options, from simplest to biggest
1. New doors only
If you like the color of your cabinet boxes, replacing just the doors and drawer fronts is the simplest update. It is most common when old white thermofoil doors start peeling.
2. New doors with boxes painted to match
New factory-finished doors and fronts, with the cabinet boxes and face frames painted in your home to match. This is the way to change the color of the whole kitchen.
3. Full refacing
New doors and fronts, face frames painted or veneered to match, and decorative end panels. Veneer is the method for stained wood finishes. This is where most of our kitchens land.
4. Islands, trim and storage
Island and peninsula trim packages are often the biggest wow in the whole project. Crown and under-cabinet molding, dovetail drawer boxes, roll-out trays, trash pull-outs and pots and pans drawers make old cabinets look and work like new.
5. A few cabinets added or replaced
An unused desk filled with cabinets or a beverage cooler, a low-hanging microwave raised, a cabinet added to a blank wall. Small changes that make the kitchen work better.
Replace the uppers, reface the lowers
For a more dramatic change without tearing everything out, replace the wall cabinets and reface the base cabinets. Upper cabinets are what you see first. The lowers mostly hold the countertop.
It is most effective when the house has high ceilings but standard 30 inch wall cabinets. Going to 42 inch cabinets with crown molding makes it look like the whole kitchen was remodeled.
Refacing vs. new cabinets
When you compare refacing to new cabinets, compare like with like. Our doors and finishes compare with upper-end custom cabinet lines, and only mid to upper-end lines include decorative end panels and quality crown molding. Discount home center cabinets can cost less than quality refacing materials.
The bigger difference is everything around the cabinets. New base cabinets usually mean a new countertop, and often flooring and backsplash work, fitted to the new footprint. With refacing, those usually stay. And refacing happens mostly in your home while you keep using the kitchen, instead of weeks or months without one.
A word on DIY
We started as do-it-yourselfers, so we understand the question. Painting cabinets yourself can work if you prep thoroughly and use a real cabinet-rated coating. Ordering replacement doors yourself is possible, but measuring and ordering is where the costly mistakes happen: every door, hinge and overlay has to be right, to the sixteenth of an inch.
Getting a real number
For planning numbers, start with the cost calculator, and see Cabinet Refacing Cost St. Louis: Real 2026 Ranges. For an exact price, send us a few photos and we will set up a free in-home design consultation.