Cabinet refacing in Orange County: keep the boxes, change the faces

Kitchen Remodel Orange County is a referral service, not a contractor. A request from this page goes to an independent remodeler in your part of the county, who gives you their own written estimate.

Refacing, refinishing, painting or replacing

Four different jobs get described with the same words, so be clear which one you are asking for.

Job	What happens	Fits when
Refacing	New doors and drawer fronts; the face frames and exposed sides are covered with veneer to match	Boxes are sound, the layout works, and you want a new door style
Refinishing	The existing doors and frames are stripped and refinished in a new stain or clear coat	The doors are solid wood in a style you still like
Painting	The existing doors and frames are cleaned, sanded, primed and painted	You like the door style and want a new color
Replacing	Old cabinets come out and new ones go in, often with a new layout	The boxes are failing or the layout has to change

Refacing sits in the middle. It changes the look more than paint can, because the door style changes, but it leaves the cabinet boxes, the counters and the plumbing where they are, unless you choose to change those too.

When the boxes are worth keeping

Open every door and look inside before you decide. The boxes are the part refacing keeps, so they have to be in good shape.

• The sink base is dry and solid, with no soft or swollen bottom from old leaks
• Shelves sit flat and the box sides are not split or sagging
• The cabinets are fixed firmly to the wall and the floor
• The layout works for how you cook, and you do not plan to move the sink or range
• The counters are staying, or you are happy to replace them on the same footprint

If the sink base has rotted, a refacer may rebuild that one box while refacing the rest. If you want an island where a wall of cabinets stands, or the kitchen opened to the family room, refacing is the wrong tool: read your city guide, such as kitchen remodel Huntington Beach, for what a layout change involves.

What a refacing job includes

Refacing companies differ, so ask each one to list in writing exactly what its price covers. A full refacing usually means:

• New doors and drawer fronts in the style and finish you choose
• Veneer applied over the face frames and the exposed end panels, matched to the doors
• New hinges, often soft-close, and new pulls or knobs
• Optional extras such as new drawer boxes, roll-out shelves, crown molding or a few new cabinets to fill a gap

Doors and veneers come in several materials, from real wood veneer to thermofoil and laminate. Each looks and wears differently, so ask to see and handle samples, and ask how each one holds up near the dishwasher and the range, where steam and heat hit the doors most.

Face-frame and frameless cabinets

Most older American cabinets have a face frame, a solid border around the front of each box, and that frame is what gets the veneer. Frameless, European-style cabinets have no face frame, so refacing them is mostly a matter of new doors and edge banding. Tell the refacer which kind you have, or send a photo of an open door.

Permits and refacing

Refacing by itself is finish work, and some cities list cabinet work as exempt from a building permit: Huntington Beach’s list names cabinets and counter tops. The same list says separate plumbing, electrical and mechanical permits are still required, so a new sink, new under-cabinet lighting on a new circuit or a moved outlet each needs its permit. Every city sets its own rules. Your contractor pulls any permit and the city decides what is needed.

The right license for the job

CSLB’s C-6 classification, Cabinet, Millwork and Finish Carpentry, covers cabinet work like refacing on its own. If the project grows to include plumbing, electrical and carpentry under one contract, CSLB says to hire a B General Building contractor instead. Ask which license a company holds and look it up on the CSLB website before you sign.

In California, work that costs $1,000 or more in labor and materials combined, or that needs a building permit, must be done by a licensed contractor, and almost any refacing job passes $1,000. A home improvement contract over $500 has to be in writing and signed before work starts, and the down payment may not exceed $1,000 or 10 percent of the contract price, whichever is less.

Questions to ask a refacing company

• What exactly is included: doors, drawer fronts, veneer, hinges, pulls, end panels, crown molding?
• What are the doors and veneers made of, and how do they handle heat and steam?
• Will you inspect the boxes first, and what happens if one needs rebuilding?
• How long is the kitchen out of use, and when will work start and end?
• What is your license number and class, and can I see a certificate of insurance?

Get written bids from more than one company for the same scope. Then compare them line by line rather than by the total. If you live in a community with an association, see kitchen remodel Irvine and kitchen remodel Mission Viejo for the association step, or kitchen remodel Newport Beach for coastal homes.

Questions people ask