Kitchen Refacing: The Full Process
NOTE: If you’re thinking of refacing your cabinets with Front + Center, you can use our code for a discount! JonathanandJenna20. Find it also on our Links page.
We renovated our kitchen in Nov/Dec 2022, and now I’m finally writing about it in detail. We’ve shared kitchen renovation videos on Instagram and TikTok, but now it’s time to blog the details for you!
Our kitchen had its original cabinets from 2000, so we painted the cabinets when we moved in. This paint lasted us a year or two before it started chipping and cracking. We needed a better option than just painting over it again.
Cabinet refacing was the best option because it allowed us to keep our existing cabinet boxes and only replace the doors and drawer fronts.
Cabinet refacing is when you only replace (or reface) the cabinet doors and drawer fronts. You keep all the rest the same but put a new face on it.
We worked with Front+Center (they gave us a 50% discount so we ended up paying around $1200 ourselves).
Here are the steps simplified for how we DIY our cabinet refacing:
Measure your cabinet doors and drawers and order new ones with Front+Center
Remove the existing doors (keep the hinges!) and drawer fronts
Take the paint swatch to Home Depot to color match the cabinet doors
Paint the existing boxes and frame whatever color will match your cabinets
Get the new doors and drawer fronts and install with existing hinges
Add desired hardware (handles/knobs)
The most time-consuming part was painting the existing cabinet boxes and island ourselves, but the color match of the paint swatch to the actual cabinet doors was pretty much identical!
We used our old hinges and it worked great; when ordering and measuring, make sure to double check your hinge size and what type of overlay you want so you don’t run into measuring issues. We double and triple checked this!
Then, we added a top piece of trim/molding to add height to our cabinets, and we switched out the backsplash with a new tile to match the quartz countertops.
To see more videos, check out our TikTok highlight Kitchen DIY to visualize the process.
You can also browse Jonathan+Jenna Home on Instagram to see our projects!
