Refacing vs replacing kitchen cabinets?

Open a door and look at the box edge

That tells you which conversation you are having. Plywood or solid boxes in good order are worth keeping; particleboard that has swollen at the sink base or anywhere damp is not, and no new door will fix it.

What refacing gets you

New doors, new drawer fronts and veneer over the visible box. You keep the layout and the footprint, and you keep the disruption to days rather than weeks. It is meaningfully cheaper than replacement and, done well, is not detectable.

What only replacement gets you

• A different layout, or different cabinet sizes.
• Drawers instead of doors in the base cabinets, which is the single biggest usability upgrade in a kitchen and cannot be done by refacing.
• Proper soft-close hardware throughout on boxes designed for it.
• Fixing a bad original design — a corner nobody can reach, a fridge that blocks a run.

The middle path people miss

Keep the boxes, replace the doors, and add roll-out shelves inside the base cabinets. You get most of the usability improvement and most of the visual change for a fraction of a full replacement, and you can do it one run at a time.

Whichever route you take, decide the counter material with the doors in front of you rather than afterwards: quartz or granite, and pick in the right order.

What refacing cannot hide

• A layout that does not work. New doors do not move a fridge.
• Sagging shelves or boxes that have taken water at the sink.
• Worn drawer boxes, unless they are replaced separately.
• A worktop that is failing, which usually gets replaced at the same time anyway.

If two or more of those apply, price a full replacement before committing to a reface. The gap is often smaller than people expect once the worktop is in both quotes.

What the quotes should include either way

Removal and disposal of the old doors or boxes, new hinges and hardware, adjustment of every door and drawer at the end, and making good where the old units meet the wall and the floor.

Ask specifically about the worktop: whether it is being reused, and if so what happens if it does not survive removal. That is the item most likely to turn a tidy reface into a larger job.