New doors, painted boxes
Cabinet refacing keeps your cabinet boxes and replaces the doors and drawer fronts you look at every day. Kitchener Elite Cabinet Painting & Refinishing offers it the way a painting company can: new MDF doors sprayed in our shop and fitted to your existing boxes, which we paint on site in the same colour.
It is the right move when your doors are peeling, broken or simply the wrong style, but the boxes behind them are solid. After 16+ years and 1,700+ jobs in Waterloo Region, we see that most often in 1990s and 2000s kitchens with thermofoil doors and in older kitchens with arched cathedral doors.
Traditional veneer refacing in Waterloo Region usually starts around $10,000 for an average kitchen, so it pays to compare it with painting and with our new-doors approach before you sign anything.
What refacing means
Traditional cabinet refacing replaces the doors and drawer fronts and covers the face frames and end panels with a wood veneer or laminate skin. Our version replaces the doors and drawer fronts with new MDF and paints the boxes instead of skinning them.
Either way, your boxes, countertops, backsplash, sink and plumbing stay where they are.
If you want to keep your current doors and only change the colour, kitchen cabinet painting is the simpler and cheaper route.
New doors or paint?
Refacing beats painting when the doors themselves are the problem: the surface is failing, the material is damaged, or the style is one you will never like in any colour. If the doors are sound and you like their shape, painting gets you most of the way for far less.
Thermofoil is the most common reason. Fully bonded foil can sometimes be painted after a test patch, but lifting foil keeps lifting under paint, and our guide to painting thermofoil cabinets explains how we test it.
Choose your doors
New doors let you change the shape of your kitchen, not just its colour. These three styles cover nearly every request, and each one paints a little differently.
Shaker doors have a flat centre panel inside a square frame, and they suit modern and traditional kitchens alike.
One-piece Shaker doors are routed from a single MDF sheet, so they have no joints to crack in dry winter air. Five-piece doors are built from separate rails, stiles and panel, and their joints can show hairline lines when indoor humidity drops.
Slab doors are flat, frameless panels with a clean, modern look that pairs well with long bar pulls or edge pulls. With no profiles to hide behind, every edge has to be perfect, so we seal MDF edges with primer twice before the topcoats.
Beadboard centre panels and detailed edge profiles give a cottage or farmhouse feel. Deeper profiles take longer to sand and spray, so they sit at the top of our per-door price range.
Our approach
The hybrid approach pairs new MDF doors with painted boxes instead of veneered ones. Because the boxes and doors are coated in the same colour and sheen, checked against one sprayed sample door, the kitchen reads as one piece instead of new doors on old cabinets.
Veneer refacing hides the boxes under a new skin, while painting changes them in place at painting prices.
| Veneer refacing | New doors and painted boxes | Painting only | New cabinets | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Doors and drawer fronts | New | New MDF, sprayed in our booth | Existing, resprayed | New |
| Boxes and face frames | Covered in veneer or laminate | Primed and sprayed on site | Primed and sprayed on site | New |
| Colour choice | Limited to the veneer and door range | Any Benjamin Moore or Sherwin-Williams colour | Any Benjamin Moore or Sherwin-Williams colour | Depends on the maker |
| Typical cost | Usually $10,000+ in Waterloo Region | Painting price plus the new doors, quoted in writing | $3,400 to $5,200 for a medium kitchen | Usually $20,000+ installed, before countertops |
| Countertops and backsplash | Stay | Stay | Stay | Usually replaced |
Keeping the boxes, countertops and backsplash means far less goes to landfill than with a full replacement. Only the old doors leave the house.
From measure to install
The process starts with a precise measure of every opening and ends with new doors hung on freshly painted boxes. The doors have to be made before we can finish them, so door lead time is the one part of the schedule we confirm with you at the quote.
We measure each door and drawer opening, note the hinge type and overlay, and confirm the door style and hardware with you.
Made-to-measure MDF doors and drawer fronts are ordered for your openings, delivered unfinished and ready for primer.
Raw MDF edges are sealed with primer twice, pull holes are drilled from a jig, and the doors get two coats of Renner 2K with 320 grit sanding between coats.
The old doors come off, and the boxes, face frames and end panels are degreased, primed and sprayed with HVLP inside zip walls.
New doors go on with Blum soft-close hinges, every gap is adjusted even, hardware is fitted and we walk through the kitchen with you.
Once the doors arrive, painting and install follow our usual 5 to 7 working days for a typical kitchen, with our crew in the home for 3 to 4 of them. Each stage is laid out on our cabinet painting process page.
What it costs
Traditional cabinet refacing usually costs $10,000 or more for an average kitchen in Waterloo Region, and new mid-range cabinets usually run $20,000+ installed before countertops. Those are typical local quotes, not our prices.
Our hybrid quote has two parts, both itemized in writing:
The new doors are the variable, so we quote them once your style and sizes are known. Our cabinet painting pricing covers the painting side in full, and every quote is fixed and written.
Common questions
Refacing is a bigger decision than painting, so most questions are about value and what stays.
It is worth it when your boxes are solid but the doors are damaged or the wrong style. If your doors are sound and you only want a new colour, painting costs far less, and if the boxes are failing or the layout does not work, new cabinets are the better spend.
Yes. Replacing only the damaged doors, such as the sink base and the doors beside the dishwasher, works well when every door is painted together afterwards, so new and old doors match in colour and sheen.
No. We paint the boxes rather than covering them in veneer or laminate, and we supply and finish the new MDF doors. If you would rather keep a stained wood look, our cabinet refinishing options may suit you better.
Sometimes, but most kitchens get new Blum soft-close hinges at $14 each, which also gives every door the same quiet close. Our hardware and hinge upgrades explain the options for older face-frame cabinets.
Free side-by-side quote
Send photos of your kitchen and one close-up of the worst door. We will quote both options, painting your current doors and fitting new MDF doors on painted boxes, so you can compare them side by side.