Keep the Boxes: Cabinet Refacing in Chattanooga
If your cabinet carcasses are sound, the doors and drawer fronts are the only part you actually touch — and replacing just those runs about a third of a new kitchen. We open every door before we quote, because when the boxes have gone, refacing is the wrong answer and we will say so.
Refacing Is a Carcass Decision, Not a Style One
Every refacing company will show you door styles. Almost none will open the cabinet under your sink and press a thumbnail into the bottom panel. That panel is the whole decision.
A cabinet box is a box. If it is solid — square, dry, screwed rather than stapled, no swelling at the sink or dishwasher — then the doors, drawer fronts and visible ends are the entire visible kitchen, and replacing those is a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the disruption. If the box is delaminating, refacing bonds a beautiful new face to something that is already failing.
- ✓Sink and dishwasher bases fail first — that is where we look
- ✓Stapled particleboard that has swollen will not hold a new face
- ✓Square, dry, solid boxes: reface, and keep two-thirds of your budget
- ✓Mixed condition is normal — replace the failed runs, reface the rest
From New Doors to a New Kitchen
Most jobs sit somewhere between refacing and replacing. We price the middle honestly.
About one kitchen in six that we look at gets told to replace rather than reface. We will tell you that on the first visit, for free, and we do not charge for the check.
Four Numbers Before You Call Anyone
Chattanooga pricing for a typical 25-30 door kitchen. Yours will differ, but these are the bands, and any quote far outside them deserves a question.
Doors & fronts only · $3,500 - $6,500
New doors and drawer fronts on your existing frames, with hardware. Right when the face frames are already sound and the colour works.
Full reface · $9,000 - $16,000
Doors, fronts, matching veneer on every visible frame and end panel, soft-close hardware throughout. This is the one that reads as a new kitchen.
Spray refinishing · $4,000 - $7,500
Doors removed, sprayed off-site, frames finished in place. Only worth it on solid timber doors — a sprayed particleboard door is money you will spend again.
New cabinets · $28,000 - $45,000
For comparison, and it is the honest comparison. Roughly triple a full reface, plus four to eight weeks without a kitchen instead of four to six days.
Same Boxes, Different Kitchen
Every one of these kept its original cabinet carcasses.
You Keep Cooking the Whole Time
This is the part people underestimate. A new kitchen means four to eight weeks of a microwave on a folding table in the dining room, and it is the reason plenty of kitchens that should be redone never are.
Refacing does not move your sink, your range or your fridge. The doors come off, the frames get veneered in place, new doors go on. There is dust and there is noise, and there are a couple of days where the drawer you want is in the garage — but you cook every night.
- ✓Sink, range and fridge never move
- ✓Doors go off-site; frames are veneered in place
- ✓Two days of the worst of it, four to six days total
- ✓We sheet the run and vacuum daily — you still live there
Check, Choose, Fit
About three weeks from the cabinet check to a finished kitchen, most of it waiting on doors.
The cabinet check
Forty minutes. We open every door and drawer, check the sink and dishwasher bases, and tell you whether refacing suits your boxes. Free, and sometimes the answer is no.
Doors & finishes
Samples at your kitchen, in your light. Cabinet colours look completely different under a showroom lamp and we would rather you chose at home.
Manufacture
Two to three weeks for doors and fronts. Nothing is touched in your kitchen until they are physically here.
Fit
Four to six days. Veneer, doors, hardware and adjustment, then a walk-round where we tune every hinge before we invoice.
Five Things That Separate a Reface That Lasts
Refacing has a mixed reputation, and it is earned — by shops that skip these.
Rigid thermofoil vs real veneer
Cheap refacing wraps frames in vinyl that lifts at the dishwasher within a few years. We use timber veneer or laminate rated for heat and moisture at the appliance runs.
The frames get prepped, not just covered
Sanded, degreased and filled before anything is bonded. Kitchen frames carry years of cooking grease and nothing sticks to that.
New hinges, not the old ones
Twenty-year-old hinges on new doors is how a reface starts sagging in a year. Soft-close hardware throughout, adjusted on the final day.
Drawer boxes matter more than fronts
If the box is a stapled one that racks when loaded, a new front hides it for a while. We price replacing the box, because that is what you feel every day.
End panels and toe kicks finished too
The tell of a cheap reface is a beautiful door beside an unrefaced end panel in the original colour. Every visible surface or none.
What People Say
They pulled a drawer out, showed me the particleboard swelling at the sink base, and told me refacing that run would fail in three years. They quoted replacing four boxes and refacing the rest. Nobody else had even opened a door.
Eleven thousand instead of thirty-four for a new kitchen, and honestly I cannot tell it is the same carcass. The doors and the drawer boxes are what you touch.
We cooked every night except two. That was the thing I could not believe — a whole kitchen transformation and the fridge and range never moved.
The quote broke out doors, veneer, hardware and the two organisers separately, so I could see what I was actually paying for and drop the bits I did not want.
Not Sure If Your Boxes Are Worth Keeping?
That is exactly what the cabinet check is for. Forty minutes, free, and you get a straight answer either way.
Refacing, Honestly
How do I know if my cabinets can be refaced?
Open the cabinet under the sink and press a thumbnail into the bottom panel and the back of the side. If it is firm and dry, you are almost certainly a refacing candidate. If it gives, or you can see the layers separating, that run needs replacing. We do this check for free on every cabinet in the kitchen, not just one.
Is refacing worth it, or should I just replace?
If your layout works and the boxes are sound, refacing gets you most of the visible result for about a third of the money and a week instead of two months. If you want the layout changed — moving the sink, taking out a wall, different cabinet heights — refacing cannot do that and you should replace.
Will it look like a cheap job?
It looks exactly as good as the doors you choose and the prep underneath. The failures people have seen are vinyl-wrapped frames lifting at the dishwasher and unrefaced end panels left in the old colour. Both are avoidable and both are in our quotes as line items.
What does it cost?
For a typical 25-30 door Chattanooga kitchen: doors and fronts only run about $3,500-$6,500, a full reface with veneer and hardware about $9,000-$16,000, and new cabinets about $28,000-$45,000 for comparison. Your kitchen will differ, but a quote far outside those bands is worth a question.
How long am I without a kitchen?
You are not. The sink, range and fridge never move. Doors go off-site, frames are veneered in place, and the whole fit is four to six days with two noisy ones in the middle. Most of our customers cook every night except one or two.
How far ahead do I need to book?
Doors take two to three weeks to manufacture and we do not touch your kitchen until they physically arrive. So from the cabinet check to a finished kitchen is usually about three weeks, and nothing is disruptive until the final week.
Can you change the layout at all?
Only slightly. We can add an island or a peninsula where the floor and services allow, and we can swap a base cabinet for drawers. Moving the sink or the range is plumbing and electrical work on a different scale, and at that point you are replacing, not refacing.
Do you replace drawer boxes too?
Where they need it, and we recommend it more often than people expect. The drawer box is the thing you physically operate several times a day, and a new front on a racking stapled box is the one part of a reface that still feels old.
What about the countertops?
They can stay or go. If they are staying we template the door colour against them so the pairing is deliberate rather than accidental. If they are going, we do that after the doors are chosen for the same reason.
Book a Cabinet Check
Forty minutes, free, and no obligation. We open every door and drawer and give you a straight answer about whether refacing suits your kitchen.