Justin Carinci
Clark County (Washington) Columbian

Is it time to replace those old kitchen cabinets? Are they crumbling into rat-gnawed dust? Are cinder blocks and chicken wire all that’s keeping your counters off the floor?

No? They’re just ugly?

Then why replace them?

For a kitchen remodel on a tight budget, consider refacing cabinets. A refacing contractor replaces just the doors and covers the rest with a matching wood veneer.

Here are five points to think about when considering refacing:

Looks
With either option, you’ll get new doors. In fact, with most styles of cabinets, the doors are all you’ll see from the front. From the side, you’ll see a thin layer of wood, probably over plywood. The secret? Most new cabinets aren’t solid wood, so you’ll still be looking at a veneer even if you replace your existing cabinet boxes.

The bottom line: There’s no real difference in looks.

Cost
Some homeowners don’t think twice about spending more than $40,000 on a kitchen remodel, with cabinets often the single biggest expense. For perspective, U.S. Census Bureau data show the country’s median annual household income at $46,300.

Replacing cabinet boxes can run double what refacing costs, said Jim Hebblethwaite, owner of Camas-based Affordable Kitchens. Recently, Hebblethwaite refaced cabinets in an average-sized kitchen for about $6,000. Pulling out the cabinet boxes and starting anew in the same house might have hit $12,000, he said.

The bottom line: Refacing is cheaper.

Flexibility
Want to move the cabinets around? Time to put in a dishwasher? Want a row of drawers to replace the trash compactor that broke in 1994? If that’s the case, you probably should replace your cabinet boxes. Unless you’re a big fan of the old boxes, you might as well start from scratch.

The bottom line: Replacing lets you work with the cabinets you want, not the cabinets you have.

Environment
Cheaper particle-board cabinets can contain binding agents that can leach into your home’s air, said Mike O’Brien, green building specialist with the city of Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development. If you buy cabinets that don’t contain toxins, there’s still the matter of dumping something that’s perfectly usable.

“There’s an environmental benefit to keeping your cabinets,” O’Brien said. “Just because you’re not going to throw them away and start over.”

The bottom line: Reusing materials keeps bulky waste out of landfills.

Convenience.
There’s a danger to pulling out cabinets and putting in new ones, Hebblethwaite said. “Inevitably, things have to be addressed,” he said.

The new cabinets might not fit into the hole where the old ones settled. Replacement might require repairs to walls, tile, or floors. And major work could disrupt plumbing and appliances.

A big refacing job might take five days, Hebblethwaite said, compared to two weeks for cabinet replacement. But the kitchen sink stays hooked up during those five days, often making the difference between a usable and an unusable kitchen.