Refacing Kitchen Cabinets archived

Can anyone recommend a company that does kitchen cabinet refacing? We've contacted the Home Depot and the Home Remodelers Group. Just wanted to weigh some other options before making a decision. Thank you.

Had Sears do mine a few years ago, they still look good.

OMG! :fierce: RUN! Don't walk!! :fierce:

NOT SEARS!! Anything but Sears!!! Their NJ contractor is a bleepin' NIGHTMARE!!!! :fierce:

(http://www.pangalacticenterprises.com/new_kitchen.html)

BEWARE: The Home Remodelers Group - aka Mark Four Enterprises is the NJ Contractor for Sears...

Thanks for the information. According to our sales rep, Home Remodelers no longer does refacing for Sears customers. They now work with BJs and Sam's Club, I believe. In any case, I appreciate the warning. Has anyone had experience with RJ Remodeling (refacing or any other work)?

Before you sign on the dotted line, you may want to look into purchasing new cabinets altogether. I saw a kitchen that was refaced by Kitchen Magic. They did a great job; and the home owner, a neighbor of ours, was extremely pleased with the quality and service.

Full disclosure here, I'm a kitchen designer and I sell kitchen cabinets. We recently moved into our home and are in need of a new kitchen. Unfortunately, *this old house* has lots of other issues that need to be addressed before we can do a complete kitchen redo, so we looked into refacing as a temporary solution. Kitchen Magic came and quoted us $14,000 to reface with laminate and install a quartz countertop. (I knew the price would be high when he stated towards the beginning of the presentation that the price for wood would be about $200 more *per door*.) When I asked the salesman how much the countertop alone was, he got a bit uncomfortable and stated $5000. That's when I truly realized they were trying to take us for a ride. I'll sell the same exact counter to anyone who walked into our showroom for $2800, including installation. (BTW, our cabinet cost would have been *much* lower for comparable new cabinets. Installation would add some, (Kitchen Magic's price included installation), but the entire project, apples to apples, would cost between three and four thousand less with us (and more, if we compared wood cabinets).

The only advantage to going the refacing route, imo, is that it goes faster and is less intrusive. Refacing takes about two to three days, where this type of renovation would take about a week (remember, we're talking apples to apples---no new floor, windows, etc.---just the most basic of renovations). Most people redoing their kitchen with new cabinets also make other changes, which add to time and cost, but for the most basic of renovations, new cabinets may still be the better alternative.

What are the condition of your cabinet frames?

We had good oak wood frames that we had sanded and stained by our handyman for several hundred dollars (and he also painted the kitchen and installed new linoleum). We ordered new custom cabinet doors, and a section of a custom built section of cabinets to fit in the corner from a cabinet maker (who was from Pennsylvania, and is significantly less expensive than anyone around here, and he gave us the stain for the frame so it would match the doors).

The total for the updated kitchen (with no countertop change, other than matching the new cabinet's countertop to the old cabinet's formica, but with new floor and paint, plus a custom made table) was under $9K. Sears quoted me $13K for JUST the cabinet refacing and a new corner cabinet section.

Sears does a hard-sell tactic, and will call you again with a reduced price. But even their reduced price was a lot more than what we paid for custom work. Also, Sears only had "matte" finish, when what I wanted was semi-gloss.

Here is the before-during-and-after of our cabinets:
http://www.onlyplanet.org/Kitchen-web/

Our cabinetmaker's name is Brian Arnold.
His number is: 215-778-2320
B.A WOODCRAFT, INC.
20 DEER RUN RD
PERKASIE, PA 18944
Note: The downside is that he did take over 6 months to get to our project after giving us an estimate.

Also note, I did more of the work on the details (research, prep, design, coordinating appointments, touch-ups, ordering handles, removing, painting, and replacing moldings, etc.) than I probably would have with a refacing company. This was well worth it for me, but may not be someone else's preference if you're looking for full-service. Also, we were out of our kitchen for over a week to wait for the coats of stain and varnish to dry (takes multiple days). But we could use the sink, stove and fridge during that time.