The Countertop Decision Forces the Cabinet Decision
In the 2025 U.S. Houzz Kitchen Trends Study, engineered quartz was selected by 39% of renovating homeowners, followed by granite at 19% and quartzite at 11%.
Those are heavy materials, and they land on whatever boxes are already in the room. Once the old top comes off, the cabinets are exposed and stressed, and that is the moment to be honest about what you have.
What Refacing Actually Changes
Refacing swaps doors, drawer fronts and hardware, then applies veneer or laminate skins to the visible faces and ends. The boxes, the interiors and the layout all stay.
It is a finish change, not a structural one. Refacing is not a service we offer, so what we can do is tell you straight whether your existing boxes are worth keeping.
Inspect the Boxes Before You Choose
Open the sink base and look at the bottom deck. Swollen particleboard, delamination or a soft floor means the box is near the end of its life, and a new door will not change that.
Check the face frame joints for movement, pull a drawer to see how the box is built, and look for half inch plywood sides versus thin particleboard.
Pro Tip: Older laminate tops are frequently glued and stapled straight to the cabinet top rails. Pulling a bonded top off a particleboard box often tears the rail out with it. If your boxes are particleboard and you are already paying for demo, new boxes usually cost less than repairing what breaks coming off.
Refacing Cannot Fix Layout
A 33 inch sink base still will not accept a 36 inch undermount sink after refacing. A blind corner is still a blind corner. Awkward filler runs stay awkward.
New cabinetry is the only path when the problem is where things sit rather than how they look, and our ready to assemble and custom cabinet lines cover both kitchens and baths.
Pro Tip: If your new countertop plan includes an undermount sink, measure the sink base interior width first. An undermount needs room for the bowl, the mounting clips and the rail, and plenty of older 33 inch bases quietly rule out the sink you actually picked.
Transform Your Space with Prime Countertops and Renovations and Renovations
Weighing Refacing vs. New Cabinets Before Your Countertop Install?
Talk it through with us before demo day. Send photos through our free quote request or call 954-840-3661, and we will look at your existing boxes with you.
Sequencing Changes Depending on Which Way You Go
With new cabinets the order is simple. Set and level the boxes, template off what is installed, then fabricate and install the tops.
Refacing is different because applied skins and new doors change the finished dimensions. Skins commonly add a quarter inch to a half inch per exposed side, which moves your countertop overhang.
Pro Tip: If you reface, get the skins and end panels on before anyone templates. Templating bare boxes and then adding skins is how an island ends up with a short overhang on one end and a long one on the other.
Cost and Time in Practical Terms
Refacing is priced per door and per linear foot of skin, so a large kitchen with many doors closes the gap with new cabinetry quickly.
For context, the 2026 Cost vs. Value Report puts the national average minor kitchen remodel at $28,458, with about 112.9% of that recouped in resale value. A minor remodel in that survey keeps the existing boxes and updates fronts and surfaces, which is a useful benchmark when you are comparing the two paths.
Timing also differs. Refacing keeps the kitchen partly usable, while new boxes mean a short period with no cabinets at all before the countertops go on.
Let Us Look at Your Kitchen First
Our Pompano Beach showroom carries cabinets, sinks and vanity tops, plus an indoor and outdoor slab yard, and we are open seven days a week.
Bring photos or send them over, call 954-840-3661, or reach us through our contact page. Browse our completed projects and our remnant and slab inventory while you decide.