We are a cabinet refacing company, so you would expect us to tell you your kitchen is a great candidate. Sometimes we tell people the opposite, and it is usually the most useful conversation we have all week. We are not trying to save every cabinet. We are trying to save the right ones, and occasionally the right answer is that yours are not worth saving.

Here is how we decide, so you can run most of the check yourself before anyone comes out.

Six things that disqualify a kitchen

1. Water damage or a compromised box

This is the big one, and it is almost always the cabinet under the sink. A slow supply-line drip or years of a leaking disposal turns the bottom of that box into something with no structural value left. Refacing is a cosmetic process. As one refacing specialist puts it plainly, refacing addresses cosmetic issues, but not structural ones. Putting a brand new door on a box that is delaminating from the floor up is money you will spend twice.

Worth knowing: this often disqualifies one or two cabinets, not the kitchen. We replace the sink base and reface the rest. That is a normal project, not a problem.

2. You want the layout changed

If the real complaint is that the refrigerator is in the wrong place, the aisle is too tight, or you want the wall to the dining room gone, refacing cannot help you and neither can new cabinets alone. You are describing a remodel with plumbing, electrical and framing in it. We will tell you that on the first visit and point you toward a general contractor rather than sell you a project that does not solve your actual problem.

The middle ground is real, though. Moving a cabinet run, changing a base cabinet to deep drawers, reworking an island, or building in a pantry are all things we do without touching walls.

New cabinetry built into a kitchen that was otherwise refaced. When storage is the complaint rather than appearance, this is usually the answer, not a full replacement.

3. The boxes are out of square

Cabinets rack over time, especially in houses that have settled. If the openings are no longer square, new doors will not sit right no matter how well they are made, and every gap in the kitchen will be a slightly different width. You will see it every day. A refacing company that ignores this is one you should not hire.

4. Particleboard that is already failing

Particleboard by itself is not disqualifying, and the trade generally agrees: even cabinets built from particle board or other low-quality materials can be refaced when they are sound. Plenty of perfectly serviceable 1990s cabinets are particleboard with a wood face frame, and they reface beautifully. What matters is condition. Shelves that sag in the middle, edges that are swelling and flaking, screws that no longer hold: those are signs the material has given up. The test is whether the box is sound enough to work with, not what it is made of.

5. Your complaint is storage, and only storage

If the doors look fine to you and the real frustration is that nothing fits, refacing is solving a problem you do not have. Start with function: deep drawers, rollouts, a blind corner solution, a proper pantry. Some homeowners do that and never reface at all, and we are fine saying so.

6. You are listing the house in sixty days

If the goal is purely to present well for a fast sale, the math changes. A quality reface is a five-figure improvement made to last decades, and a buyer walking through on a Sunday cannot tell the difference between that and a well-done paint job. If you plan to live with it, reface. If you plan to hand someone the keys in two months, paint and new hardware is the honest recommendation.

What a good candidate actually looks like

The kitchens that reface best have a specific profile, and it is very common in the St. Louis metro, and you can see plenty of them in our project gallery:

• Cabinet boxes that are dry, square and solidly attached to the wall.
• A layout that already works, with the sink, range and refrigerator in a sensible relationship. When that is true, you get to avoid moving the expensive things. As one renovation guide puts it, the sink stays below the window, the range keeps its vent route, and plumbing and electrical stay controlled.
• A finish you dislike rather than a structure you distrust. Dated color, worn edges, chipped corners and a door style from another decade are all cosmetic, and cosmetic is exactly what refacing is for.
• Enough cabinetry that the doors are the dominant visual. If the room is mostly open shelving and appliances, new fronts will not change the room much.

David's own shorthand for this, from the guide he and Stephanie wrote: most homes built in the past two or three decades function well, they just look dated, and those are prime candidates.

A textbook good candidate. The boxes are square and sound, the counters are staying, and everything that bothers the homeowner is on the outside.

The five-minute test you can run tonight

1. Open the cabinet under the sink and put your hand on the floor of it. Soft, swollen, stained or crumbling means that box is a replacement. Firm and dry means you are fine.
2. Stand at one end of a cabinet run and look down the line of doors. Are the gaps roughly even? Do the doors sit in the same plane? Wildly uneven gaps point to racked boxes.
3. Push up on the middle of a loaded shelf. A little flex is normal. A shelf with a permanent sag has been overloaded past what the material can carry.
4. Grab a face frame and give it a gentle shake. It should feel like part of the house. Movement means the boxes need re-securing at minimum.
5. Ask yourself the honest question. If a magic wand changed only the color and style of every door and drawer front tonight, would you be happy with this kitchen? If yes, you are a refacing candidate. If you would still be annoyed about where things are, you have a different project.

What we tell people instead

When we say no, we say what to do instead, and it is usually one of three things.

Paint and hardware. Short hold, tight budget, or a rental. Real money can be saved here and we will say so.

A general contractor. Walls, plumbing relocations, structural changes. We are not that, and pretending otherwise would waste months of your time.

Function first, appearance later. Rollouts, drawers and a blind corner fix now, and revisit the doors in a year or two when the budget recovers. Kitchens can be done in stages, and staging it deliberately beats doing a compromised version of everything at once. 

What a good candidate becomes. Original boxes, original layout, new fronts and finishes.

None of this costs you anything to find out. Four photos of your kitchen and one sentence about what bothers you most is enough for us to tell you which category you are in, and we will tell you even when the answer sends you somewhere else.