Cabinet refacingAdvertisement Paid placement. The consultation and any work are carried out by the remodeling company named below, who paid for this page.
Five ways to update a dated kitchen
Ranked by how much of the kitchen you actually have to tear out — from a weekend of hardware to moving the plumbing. Most people need option three and are quoted option five.
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A dated kitchen is not one problem, it is four — the doors, the surfaces, the hardware, and occasionally the layout. Which of those you actually have to touch decides everything else: how long you lose the room for, what it costs, and how much of your house becomes a site.
Here they are in order, cheapest and least disruptive first. Find the lowest one that solves your actual problem and stop there — going further up the list is how people end up spending a season on something a week would have fixed.
This ranking is ours — we install three of these five, so read it as the view of somebody with a stake rather than an independent survey. We have put them in the order we actually recommend them, which is not the order that pays us most.
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Change the hardware
New knobs and pulls on the doors you already have. An afternoon, a screwdriver, and a tape measure to get the hole spacing right.
Worth it when the doors themselves are sound and the kitchen just reads as old. Not enough when the door style or the finish is the thing that dates the room — new pulls on tired oak is still tired oak.
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Paint the doors
Properly done this means taking the doors off, degreasing, sanding, priming and spraying rather than brushing. Done badly it chips at the handles within a year and looks worse than where you started.
Worth it when the boxes and doors are solid timber and you can live without the kitchen for a week. Not enough when the doors are laminate or thermofoil, which do not take paint reliably, or when the doors are the wrong style rather than the wrong colour.
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Reface: new doors, drawer fronts, hardware and finish
The cabinet boxes stay exactly where they are and every surface you actually see is replaced. This is the option most people do not know exists, which is why they get quoted for a full remodel instead.
Because nothing structural moves, there is no demolition, no plumbing work and no rebuilding — which is why it takes about a week rather than a season, and costs a fraction of new cabinetry.
Worth it when the layout already works and the boxes are sound — which, in most Southern California kitchens built from the eighties on, they are. Not enough when the problem is where things are, not what they look like.
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New cabinets, same layout
The old boxes come out and new ones go in where they were. The sink, the range and the plumbing stay put, so the expensive parts of a remodel are avoided.
Worth it when the boxes are genuinely failing — water damage, sagging shelves, particle board that has swollen. Not enough when you also need the room to work differently.
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Full remodel: move the layout
Walls, plumbing, electrical, the lot. The only option on this list that changes how the room actually works, and the only one that justifies the disruption of a full build.
Worth it when the layout is the problem — the fridge blocks a walkway, there is nowhere to put anything down, two people cannot be in there at once. Overkill when you would have been happy with option three and nobody told you it existed.
The one that catches people out
Options three and five produce a kitchen that photographs almost identically. They differ enormously in time, disruption and price — and if nobody measures your boxes and tells you which one you need, you will be quoted the expensive one.
| Refacing | Full remodel | |
|---|---|---|
| What changes | Doors, drawer fronts, hardware, finish | Boxes, layout, plumbing if it moves |
| Roughly how long | About a week | Most kitchens, three weeks or less |
| Demolition | None | Yes |
| Makes sense when | The layout works and the boxes are sound | The layout is the problem |
That is the whole reason to have somebody measure before anybody quotes. If refacing is the honest answer for your kitchen, we will say so. If it is not, we will say that too, and tell you why.
About the cost
Installation is half off at the moment, across Greater Los Angeles, Orange County and Santa Clarita.
The consultation is free. The price you are given is written down before any work begins and nothing is added to it after you sign, and flexible payment options are available so the project does not have to be paid for all at once.
The questions we get asked most
How do I know which option my kitchen needs?
Somebody has to open a door and look at the boxes. Water damage, swollen particle board or sagging shelves rule refacing out; sound boxes and a layout you are happy with rule it in. It is a ten-minute answer once someone is standing in the room.
Does refacing look like a shortcut?
Not when the doors are the same quality as new cabinetry, which is the part that decides it. Every surface you can see is new — what stays is the box behind the door, which nobody sees either way.
Will the price change once you have started?
No. The price is written down before any work begins and nothing is added to it after you sign. If something unexpected turns up behind a wall, you are told before anything is done about it, not after.
Who is behind this
Payless Kitchen Cabinets is a kitchen and bath remodeler working across Southern California, with a showroom at 3614 San Fernando Road in Glendale. They do full kitchen remodels, bathrooms, and cabinet refacing, and they are the company that carries out the consultation described on this page.
Where we work
Greater Los Angeles, Orange County and the Santa Clarita Valley. If you are outside that, we will tell you rather than send somebody out.