Cabinet Refacing in Cerritos, CA: Cost, Process & Refinishing
Cabinet refacing in Cerritos is the smart middle path between living with a dated kitchen and paying for a full remodel. Refacing typically costs 50 to 70 percent less than replacing the same cabinets outright. Here is the logic behind that number: in most kitchens, the cabinet boxes screwed to the walls are still square, solid, and doing their job. It is the doors, drawer fronts, and finish that look tired. Refacing replaces everything you see and touch while keeping the structure you already paid for.
That logic fits this city unusually well. Cerritos built out fast between 1963 and the early 1970s, which means thousands of local kitchens still carry cabinet boxes from that original construction era. Many of those old boxes were screwed and glued into the framing and have held up better than anything sold in a flat-pack today. When the structure is sound, tearing it out to install new boxes is paying twice for something you already own.
We are not a refacing franchise working from a van. We are a licensed CSLB cabinet shop with our own fabrication facility here in Cerritos, which changes two things about how your project goes. First, your doors and drawer fronts are made and finished in a real shop, not ordered from a catalog. Second, because we build full custom kitchens too, we have no incentive to push refacing on boxes that cannot carry it. Every project starts with an honest box assessment, and we will tell you plainly which side of the line your kitchen falls on.
Get a Free On-Site Design Consultation
Tell us about your project and we’ll schedule your free in-home measure and written quote.
Is Refacing Right for Your Kitchen? The Box Assessment
Refacing has one non-negotiable requirement: the cabinet carcasses must be structurally sound. New doors on failing boxes is money burned, so we check the structure before we quote anything.
During a free in-home assessment we open every cabinet and look at the things homeowners rarely think about. Are the face frames tight to the boxes? Do the side panels show water swelling around the sink base? Are the shelf pins ripping out of the panel walls? Is the hanging rail still anchored to studs? A kitchen can look rough on the outside and pass every one of these checks, and the reverse is also true.
If your boxes pass, we quote the refacing. If they fail, we say so and walk you through what new kitchen cabinet installation would cost instead. Either way you leave the assessment knowing exactly where your kitchen stands, which is more than a doors-only franchise can tell you.
Cabinet Refacing Cost: Refacing vs Replacement
This is the question that brings most people to this page, so here are real numbers rather than a quote form.
What Refacing Costs
Most refacing projects run $4,000 to $9,500, with the standard 10x10 kitchen benchmark landing between $7,000 and $12,000. National averages spread wider than that: Home Depot puts the average refacing project near $15,000, while Modernize data puts the average at $6,750. The spread comes down to two variables: how many doors and drawer fronts your kitchen has, and whether the boxes get wrapped in real wood veneer or RTF laminate skins. We count your doors, price both skin options, and give you a firm written number.
What Replacement Costs
Full cabinet replacement for the same kitchen typically runs $10,000 to $25,000 or more. Fully custom work is priced by the linear foot, and a 20-foot kitchen generally lands between $10,000 and $24,000 installed. The full breakdown by wood species and cabinet grade lives on our custom cabinet pricing guide.
The Honest Comparison
Put side by side, refacing runs 50 to 70 percent less than replacing the same cabinets. Time is the other half of the math. A refacing project wraps in 3 to 5 days, while a full remodel stretches 6 to 12 weeks. That is the difference between a long weekend of disruption and a season of takeout dinners.
Replacement still wins in specific situations: boxes with structural damage, a layout you want to change, or a kitchen where you need different cabinet sizes entirely. Refacing keeps your footprint. If the footprint is the problem, no veneer fixes it, and we will point you toward replacement without a sales pitch.
Our 3 to 5 Day Refacing Process
Because we run our own local shop, the sequence is tight and the mess in your house is minimal.
Day One: Measure, Remove, and Prep
We field-measure every opening, then pull the old doors, drawer fronts, and hardware. Box exteriors get cleaned, degreased, and sanded so the new skins bond permanently. Any small structural corrections flagged in your assessment happen now, while everything is open.
In the Shop: Doors, Fronts, and Finishing
Your new doors and drawer fronts are fabricated to your exact openings and finished in our spray booth. This is where a shop beats a franchise installer: finishes are sprayed in controlled conditions rather than brushed in your driveway, and every panel is inspected before it rides back to your house.
Final Days: Skins, Doors, and Hardware
We apply wood veneer or RTF skins to the box faces and exposed ends, hang and align every new door, and set the drawer fronts. Soft-close hinges are included in every refacing project we do, not sold as an upgrade, so slamming doors leave with the old fronts. We finish with hardware installation and a walkthrough, and your kitchen goes back to work the same day. The whole project carries our 5-year written workmanship warranty.
Cabinet Refinishing & Painting in Cerritos
One tier below refacing sits refinishing. If your doors are a style you still like and only the finish has failed, you do not need new doors at all. Cabinet refinishing sits at the most affordable rung of the ladder, below refacing and far below replacement, and professional cabinet painting typically runs $300 to $1,000 per project scope.
Here is where our process separates from the painting contractors who show up for cabinet painting in Cerritos with a roller and a drop cloth. We treat cabinet finishing as shop work. Doors and drawer fronts come off their hinges and travel to our facility, where they are degreased, sanded, and grain-filled if you have open-pored oak that would otherwise telegraph texture through the paint. Then they are sprayed with catalyzed conversion varnish, a furniture-grade coating that cures far harder than any rolled-on wall paint. Face frames are masked and sprayed on site with the same system.
The result is a factory-smooth surface that survives fingernails, cleaning sprays, and a decade of daily use. A brushed latex job starts chipping at the corners within a year or two; a conversion varnish finish does not. Full color changes are welcome, including dark-to-light conversions that require proper priming to hold. If you have been searching for cabinet refinishing that lasts, the finish system matters more than the color chart.
Cabinet Repair & Restoration
Sometimes the kitchen does not need a new face. It needs a mechanic. Our repair work covers the failures that accumulate in any hardworking kitchen: hinges that sag, drawer slides that grind or drop, doors that will not stay aligned, veneer lifting at the edges, and water damage around sinks and dishwashers.
Repair jobs in this market typically run from about $1,126 into the $1,700 range. What you are paying a cabinet shop for, rather than a handyman, is the matching. We re-glue joints structurally instead of shooting screws through them, re-veneer doors with the correct species, and color-match touch-ups to the existing finish so a repair disappears instead of announcing itself. Restoration is also the honest first quote: if a $1,400 repair buys your cabinets another fifteen years, we would rather do that job well than sell you a kitchen you did not need.
Cabinet Door & Drawer Front Replacement
Between a hardware swap and a full reface sits a third option: replace only the doors and drawer fronts, and leave the box faces as they are. This works well when your face frames are in good shape and stained or painted a color you are keeping, or when only a handful of fronts have failed.
We build replacement doors and drawer fronts in our shop to your exact opening sizes, in solid maple, red oak, or paint-grade stock, typically $20 to $80 per piece depending on size, material, and profile. The mail-order door mills that dominate this market will happily sell you the same pieces, but they leave you holding the hard parts: measuring overlays correctly, boring hinge cups in the right spots, and matching a new finish to twenty-year-old boxes. We handle the measuring, the boring, the overlay math, the finish match, and the hanging. You get doors that fit the first time, aligned and adjusted before we leave.
Cabinet Hardware Installation
Hardware is the finishing course of every refacing and refinishing project, included in the job rather than billed as an extra. Standalone installers charge $100 to $300 for a simple pulls installation, which is real money for something that takes a jig and a steady hand.
Every knob and pull we install is drilled with a template jig, so spacing is identical from the first door to the fortieth. We work with whatever you choose: 3-inch, 96mm, or 128mm center-to-center pulls, knobs with backplates, or a full soft-close hinge retrofit on cabinets we are not otherwise touching. If your only complaint is dated brass handles and slamming doors, a hardware-and-hinge visit is the cheapest kitchen update that exists, and we are glad to do it as a standalone job.
FAQs
Is cabinet refacing cheaper than replacing cabinets?
Yes, substantially. Refacing runs 50 to 70 percent less than full replacement, with typical projects at $4,000 to $9,500 versus $10,000 to $25,000 or more for new cabinets. The savings only hold when your cabinet boxes are structurally sound, which is why every project starts with a box assessment.
How much does it cost to reface a 10x10 kitchen?
A standard 10x10 kitchen typically lands between $7,000 and $12,000 to reface. Your exact number depends on the door and drawer count and whether you choose real wood veneer or RTF laminate skins. We count your doors during the free assessment and put a firm price in writing.
How long does cabinet refacing take?
Refacing takes 3 to 5 days, compared to 6 to 12 weeks for a full kitchen remodel. Your kitchen stays usable through most of it because the boxes, counters, and plumbing never move. Door and drawer fabrication happens in our shop before installation week begins.
Is it better to reface cabinets or just paint them?
It depends on what failed. If the finish is worn but you like your door style, refinishing is the cheaper fix, typically $300 to $1,000. If the doors themselves are dated, warped, or damaged, painting old doors wastes the finish work and refacing is the better spend.
Can water-damaged cabinets be refaced?
Sometimes. Minor swelling on a sink-base panel can often be repaired first, then refaced. Boxes with rot, delamination, or particleboard that has crumbled from moisture cannot hold veneer or new hinges reliably, and refacing them wastes your money. Our assessment tells you which case you have before you commit to anything.
What is the difference between refacing and refinishing?
Refinishing keeps your existing doors and renews the finish through sanding and spraying. Refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts entirely and wraps the box faces in new veneer or laminate, changing the style, not just the color. Refinishing is the cheapest tier, refacing sits in the middle, and full replacement costs the most.
Get a Free Box Assessment
Before you price new cabinets or book a painter, find out what your kitchen actually needs. We will come out, inspect every box, and give you a straight answer: reface, refinish, repair, or replace, with a written quote for the right option and our 5-year workmanship warranty behind the work. The assessment is free, the in-home consultation is free, and the advice does not come with a sales script. Call (562) 262-5720 today and get an honest read on your kitchen this week.