Cabinet installation vs painter

Kitchen refresh: replace cabinets or paint the existing ones? Compare costs, timelines, and results to decide whether new cabinets or professional refinishing is the right move.

A kitchen refresh is one of the highest-ROI home improvement projects, and the biggest decision is whether to replace cabinets entirely or refinish the existing ones with professional painting. The cost difference is dramatic — and the right choice depends on the condition of your current cabinets, your design goals, and your budget. New cabinet installation involves removing old cabinets, potentially modifying plumbing and electrical rough-ins, installing new boxes, doors, drawers, hinges, and hardware, and coordinating with countertop fabrication. Stock cabinets (pre-made standard sizes from home improvement stores) cost $5,000–$12,000 installed for an average kitchen. Semi-custom cabinets (modified standard sizes with more finish and configuration options) run $12,000–$25,000. Fully custom cabinets (built to exact specifications by a cabinet shop) cost $25,000–$60,000+. Installation alone typically takes 2–5 days, but the full project including demolition, modifications, and countertop installation spans 2–6 weeks. Professional cabinet painting (refinishing) is a specialized trade that transforms the appearance of structurally sound cabinets at a fraction of replacement cost. A professional cabinet painter removes all doors, drawers, and hardware, degreases and sands every surface, applies primer and 2–3 coats of high-durability paint (typically sprayed for a factory-smooth finish), and reinstalls everything with new hardware if desired. Professional cabinet painting costs $3,000–$7,000 for an average kitchen — roughly 20–40% the cost of new stock cabinets and 10–15% the cost of custom. The work takes 3–7 days, with 1–2 days of limited kitchen access. The quality of a professional spray finish is nearly indistinguishable from factory cabinets to most homeowners. The decision framework is straightforward: choose new cabinets when the existing boxes are damaged (water damage, delaminating particle board, broken joints), the layout needs to change (adding or removing cabinets, changing configurations), you want features your current cabinets lack (soft-close hinges, pull-out organizers, full-extension drawers), or the cabinet style is fundamentally outdated (removing soffits, changing from framed to frameless). Choose painting when the cabinet boxes are structurally sound, you like the current layout and functionality, you want a dramatic visual update on a reasonable budget, and the cabinets are made of solid wood or quality plywood. Painting does not work well on thermofoil (vinyl-wrapped) cabinets or severely damaged surfaces. One popular middle-ground option: reface the cabinets ($7,000–$15,000) by replacing just the doors and drawer fronts while keeping the existing boxes, then painting or staining the new components. This gives you a new look with better materials than painting alone, at roughly half the cost of full replacement.