Cabinet refacing
Cabinet Maker in Vaughan — The Boxes Stay
Most kitchens that get torn out did not need to be. The boxes were sound, the layout worked, and what was actually wrong was everything bolted to the front of them.
Before 
After 4–5 weeks
Start to finish, five days without a kitchen
100+
Kitchens completed
25 years
In the trade, and here since 2013
4.9
Rated on Google
What cabinet refacing actually is
A kitchen is two things bolted together, and only one of them wears out. The boxes — the carcasses screwed to the wall, the frames, the shelves — are plywood or solid timber and they were built to outlast the house. What ages is everything you touch and everything you look at: the doors, the drawer fronts, the hinges, the colour.
Cabinet refacing is the trade that separates those two facts. The boxes stay where they are, the fronts are replaced, and the result is a kitchen that is new in every respect a person experiences and untouched in the parts nobody sees. Most of our customers save between fifty and seventy percent against buying new cabinetry, and the results stand beside it rather than behind it.
Cabinet refacing does not suit every kitchen. Where a box has swollen under a leaking sink, or the layout itself is what you dislike, or the frames were chipboard to begin with, refacing is the wrong spend and we say so before quoting. The honest answer is sometimes replacement, and it costs us nothing to give it.
Why our cabinet refacing sprays the boxes instead of wrapping them
Almost every refacing company in the GTA covers the cabinet boxes with a self-adhesive veneer — a laminate sheet, cut to size, rolled onto the frame. It is fast, it needs no equipment, and it is the reason refacing has the reputation it has. Veneer lifts at the edges, it shows a seam wherever two pieces meet, and once it has started peeling there is no repair.
We spray them. Same 2K polyurethane that goes onto the doors, applied on site behind sealed containment, in whatever colour the doors are — so the frames and the fronts are the same finish rather than two materials pretending to match. Any colour, no seams, and repairable in ten years if something takes a knock.
The reason almost nobody does it this way is that it needs two trades. A refacing company cannot spray; a painting company cannot build you a door. We hold both, which is unusual enough that it is most of why this business exists.
What 2K is, and why it is worth the trouble
Two-component polyurethane: a resin and a hardener, mixed immediately before use, which then react chemically rather than simply drying. What that produces is a cross-linked film — harder than anything that cures by evaporation, resistant to the cleaners and cooking oils a kitchen throws at it, and far less likely to chip through to bare substrate.
It also does not yellow. A white kitchen finished in a water-based enamel goes faintly cream in its fifth year even when nothing has gone wrong with it, and that is the thing that eventually dates it rather than any damage.
The trade-off is real and worth stating. 2K costs several times what cabinet enamel costs, it cannot be saved once catalysed, and a slow afternoon throws material away. It is solvent-based, so on-site spraying means containment, filtration, and asking you out of the house for two or three days. We are premium-priced, and what we compete on is how the kitchen looks in year five rather than the quote.
The part nobody sees, which decides everything
Two failures account for nearly every cabinet finish that lets go, and neither is about the paint.
The first is grease and wax. A kitchen accumulates cooking residue, and most cabinets have had furniture polish over them at some point. Standard preparation uses TSP, which is water-based, and water-based chemistry does not dissolve wax — it lifts the visible grease, leaves an invisible barrier, and the primer bonds to the wax rather than to the door. That kitchen looks excellent for a year and then starts letting go around the handles, where hands put the most stress on it. We use a proprietary solvent-based degreaser instead, which cuts what TSP leaves and does not swell timber or raise grain the way water does.
The second is a coating that stays soft, which is the 2K argument above.
Neither is visible in a photograph, and both are most of what you are paying for. Prep is the part nobody sees and the part that decides how long the finish lasts, which is why quotes that look similar on paper are not comparing the same job.
The doors themselves
Doors are made to your openings rather than ordered from a catalogue and trimmed, which matters more in older houses than anyone expects. Openings drift out of square over decades, and a door built to a nominal size sits proud on one side of a run and shy on the other — which is what people are seeing when a refaced kitchen looks very slightly wrong and they cannot say why.
Two materials cover almost every kitchen we quote. Waterproof MDF takes a sprayed colour better than timber does, stays dimensionally still through a Canadian winter, and carries our fifteen-year warranty because the material and the finish suit each other that well. Solid hardwood is for kitchens where the grain is the point — rift-cut white oak, maple, cherry — stained and sealed under clear 2K so the timber still reads as timber.
Hinges are replaced at the same time, always. They are hidden, they are cheap relative to the job, and they are the difference between a door that closes and a door that closes properly. Soft-close is the upgrade most people take once they have felt one.
How four to five weeks becomes five days
The number that matters is not the project length, it is how long you have no kitchen, and those are very different.
Week one, day one. The doors, drawer fronts and any removable panels come off and are measured and labelled. Colour is chosen in your kitchen, against your worktops and your floor, in the light you actually use the room in — not from a chip in a shop. Then the doors go to the shop.
Weeks one to four. Nothing happens at your house at all. The doors are being made and sprayed. Your kitchen has no doors on it and works in every other respect: sink, appliances, worktops, all of it, with open shelving where the fronts were. Most people report this being far less disruptive than they had braced for.
The last five days. Containment goes up, the boxes are degreased, sanded and sprayed in place, and the new doors come back and are hung and adjusted one by one. This is the week without a working kitchen and it is the only one. We ask you out of the house for the two or three days of spraying, because 2K is solvent-based.
Then we walk the kitchen with you before anything is signed off. The finish is cured by then rather than merely dry, so the cupboards can be loaded that evening.
How we work
Why four to five weeks costs you five days
Your doors are built while your kitchen keeps working. We only start taking the kitchen apart once they exist.
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Day one
Off and sealed
Doors and drawer fronts come off. Zipper walls and sheeting seal the kitchen from the rest of the house, appliances and counters are masked, filtration goes in.
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Days two and three
Degreased and sanded
A solvent degreaser lifts the wax and polish a water-based cleaner leaves behind, then every frame is sanded. Prep decides whether a finish lasts.
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Days four and five
Sprayed
Tinted primer, sanded, then two topcoats of 2K polyurethane with a cure between each. Best to be out of the house for these two.
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Final day
Fitted and walked through
New doors and drawer fronts on, hardware fitted, every door adjusted. Then through every cabinet together before anything is signed off.
The usual confusion
Refacing or repainting — not the same job
The two get asked for interchangeably, and the difference decides the price, the result, and whether either one actually suits your kitchen.
| Aspect | Refacing | Repainting |
|---|---|---|
| Doors and drawer fronts | Replaced with new panels built to your openings. | Kept — degreased, sanded, primed and sprayed. |
| Cabinet frames | Sprayed on site in 2K to match the new doors. | Sprayed on site in 2K to match the doors you keep. |
| Change the door style | Yes — shaker, slab, raised panel, whichever suits the room. | No. Same profile you have now, in a new colour. |
| Right for a kitchen where | The boxes are sound but the doors are dated, damaged, or the wrong style. | The doors are sound and well made, and only the colour has dated. |
| Time on site | About five days. | About five days. |
| Start to finish | Four to five weeks — your doors are being built for four of them. | Two and a half to three weeks. |
| Cost | Higher — you are buying new doors. | Lower — you are buying labour and finish. |
Recent work
Kitchens across the GTA, before and after
10 of 100+ kitchens across Vaughan and the GTA.
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After Walk through one
A GTA kitchen, refaced and finished
Stills are framed and chosen. A walk through the room shows the corners a photograph would have cropped out.
A walkthrough of a kitchen refaced the same way every one on this page is — new doors and drawer fronts on the boxes that were already there, sprayed frames to match, and hinges replaced throughout.
The layout did not change. The island, the run of uppers, the pantry wall — all in their original positions, because the boxes were the part worth keeping and moving them was never on the table.
What did change is everything you touch and everything you look at. New doors, new hardware, a sprayed finish on the frames, and the counters replaced alongside the cabinet work rather than left to date on their own.
Before you commit
We design it in your kitchen
No showroom trip, no guessing from a brochure.
100+ kitchens refaced across Vaughan and the GTA
We come to you. Samples, finishes and hardware are laid out on your own counter, against your floors and your light, and we design around the kitchen you actually have.
- Door profiles, colours and hardware brought to your kitchen
- Your written quote already in hand, and it does not change after the visit
- Options for what to change and what to leave alone
- No charge, no deposit taken on the day
Nick did an amazing job replacing the baseboards in my kitchen!
Nick and Travis did an amazing job from start to finish. They were friendly, professional, showed up when they said they would, and kept everything clean throughout the project. The quality of their work is excellent. Our cabinets look brand new, and it's hard to believe they're the same ones. The attention to detail really shows, and the finish is beautiful. The new cabinet and drawers are already making a huge difference for us. Nick also went above and beyond to help with a couple of issues we discovered from previous work, and that really meant a lot to us. We're so glad we chose Kitchen Made New. They completely transformed our kitchen, and we wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking for quality workmanship and great service. Thanks again for a fantastic job!
There isn't an option to leave +++ along with 5 stars. Nick and his crew are awesome! The service, commitment to their work as well as the pure pleasure of working with them is exceptional. You won't be disappointed with KITCHEN MADE NEW and especially Nick.
4.9 on Google · read them on our profile
The other way to keep the boxes
The other way to keep your boxes
Refacing changes the door. Refinishing keeps it and changes what is on it, which only works if the timber underneath is worth uncovering.
Cabinet refinishing in Vaughan
For solid wood only, and it is the opposite decision from refacing — you keep the doors and change what is on them. Stripped back to bare timber, sanded, stained to the tone you want, then sealed under clear 2K so the grain still shows through. It costs more than painting because stripping is slow and cannot be rushed, and it is the only one of the three that a painted door cannot have. Working out when the wood underneath is worth uncovering takes about a minute once somebody has looked at the back of a door.
All of it
Every service we offer across Vaughan and the GTA
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Solid wood stripped back, stained to a new tone and sealed under clear 2K.
The rest of it
The other two trades under this roof
Cabinet painting and spray finishing
Where the doors are sound and the profile is right and only the colour has dated, painting is the cheaper answer and often the correct one. Ours are degreased with a solvent formula rather than TSP, sprayed in a booth rather than brushed in your kitchen, and finished in catalysed 2K rather than a water-based enamel that stays soft. That is three differences and why a sprayed door and a brushed one are different products is all of them at once — on a door you look at from a foot away, in daylight, several times a day.
Countertops, fitted around the cabinet work
Countertops are the one part of this we do not cut ourselves. Stone shops template, fabricate and install; we specify the slab, price it into the job, hold the contract and schedule it against the cabinet work so your kitchen shuts once instead of twice. That sequencing is the whole value of putting it through us rather than booking it separately, and how the stone gets scheduled against the cabinets is worth understanding before you commit to a date.
Cabinet Refacing Cost in Vaughan
Refacing is priced on the door and drawer count plus the days on site, which is why we ask for wide photographs of every run rather than close-ups. The count is the price, and two kitchens that look the same size from the doorway can differ by a dozen fronts once the pantry and the island are in the frame.
What separates two quotes on kitchens of the same size is nearly always the boxes. Frames that have been polished or waxed over the years need our solvent degreaser before anything will bond to them; a frame that has been painted badly once already has to come back further than one that is simply dated.
Door material moves the number more than anything else you choose. Painted waterproof MDF is the value end and carries the longest warranty; solid hardwood stained under clear 2K is the top of it. Hardware, crown moulding and panel-ready appliance fronts are quoted as separate lines rather than folded in, so you can see what each one costs and decline it.
Against replacing the cabinets outright, refacing lands at roughly a third to a half of the cost, and the kitchen is out of use for five days rather than several weeks. What you keep is the layout — which is the right trade when the layout was never the complaint.
Working across Vaughan and the GTA
There is no single storefront address behind this — the shop is the workshop, and the crew and the van go where the kitchens are. Aurora, Markham, Richmond Hill and King City sit inside the normal run; Mississauga, Burlington and Scarborough are the far edges of it, and still ordinary rather than a special trip.
That range covers a genuinely wide mix of housing stock, from Markham's Unionville streets to King City's larger properties to Scarborough's post-war bungalows — and the method does not bend to any of it. The doors are made to your openings, the boxes are sprayed rather than wrapped, and the price is the same door-and-drawer count wherever the house sits.
Aurora, Markham, King City, Mississauga and Richmond Hill are all inside the service area, and if a job happens to fall outside it, that gets said before a price does rather than added as a travel line afterward.
Why us
Why GTA homeowners choose this crew for refacing
- The boxes stay, so the cost roughly halves
- Refacing replaces the doors, drawer fronts and hinges and keeps the boxes already on the wall. The saving is labour and disposal as much as materials, which is why refacing lands at roughly a third to a half of tearing the kitchen out.
- Two trades under one roof, which almost nobody else holds
- Refacing companies wrap boxes in veneer because they cannot spray. Painting companies cannot build a door. This crew holds both, so the doors and the sprayed frames come from the same shop rather than two contractors matching each other's work after the fact.
- The quote is the price
- Wide photographs of every run produce a written price inside 24 to 48 hours. It is not revised after a visit and it does not move during the job — every add-on is its own line, so you can decline one rather than renegotiate a total.
- Five days without a kitchen, not five weeks
- Your doors are made while your kitchen keeps working. We only start taking anything apart at the house once they exist, which is what keeps the disruptive part to a single week.
Book it
Get a written quote for your GTA kitchen
Photographs are enough for a real price. Wide shots of each run of cabinet, and you will have a written quote inside 24 hours.
Questions
Common questions about cabinet refacing in Vaughan
- Do you actually work in Vaughan, or just say you do?
- The service area is Vaughan and the GTA, and it is not a list scraped off a map — it is where the van goes. Aurora, Markham, Richmond Hill and King City are all within the same run; Mississauga, Burlington and Scarborough are the far edges of it. If a job is outside that we say so rather than quoting it and adding travel.
- What is the difference between refacing and just painting the doors?
Refacing gives you a different door. Painting gives you the same door in a different colour. If the profile is wrong for the kitchen you want, no colour fixes it — and if the profile is right, new doors are money spent on the one part that was not the problem. Working through the one question about one door that settles it takes about a minute standing in your own kitchen.
- How long am I without a kitchen?
- Five days. The project runs four to five weeks, but four of those are your doors being made while your kitchen works exactly as it does now — every appliance, the sink, the worktops. The week without it is the installation week, and it is the only part you feel.
- How much does refacing a kitchen cost?
Most kitchens land between $8,000 and $18,000, and the range is wide because a galley with twelve fronts and a U-shape with a pantry are both "a kitchen". The number comes from the door and drawer count plus the days on site rather than from floor area, and how a refacing quote is built, line by line explains why two kitchens of the same size can differ by thousands.
- Is the quote going to change once you see it?
- No. Ninety-nine percent of quotes are done from photographs and the written price follows within 24 to 48 hours — calculated rather than guessed at on a doorstep — and it does not move afterwards. If a visit turns something up that changes the job, that is our problem rather than an extra line.
- Will the new doors and the sprayed frames actually match?
- Yes, and it is the question worth asking any refacing company. The doors are sprayed in the booth and the frames are sprayed in your kitchen, in the same 2K from the same batch, within days of each other. There is no sheet material anywhere in it, so nothing has to be made to resemble anything — the two surfaces are the same product.
- Is refacing actually worth it, or should I just replace the kitchen?
It turns on four things and only one is the price — whether the boxes are sound, whether the layout works, whether the profile or the colour is the complaint, and then the gap to replacement. Reading the four conditions that decide it works through them in the order that can rule the job out before anyone quotes it.
- Could I just change the doors and leave everything else?
You can, and whether you should depends on the frames rather than the doors. New fronts beside forty-year-old frames read as new doors on an old kitchen, which is the opposite of the intended effect. Checking what the frames beside new doors will look like settles it from one photograph of an open cabinet.
- Which cabinet colours have dated badly?
Honey oak and cool flat mid-grey are the two we are asked to change most, though the pattern matters more than the list — what ages worst is whatever everybody chose at once. Reading why undertone dates a kitchen faster than shade is the useful part, because it is the thing nobody has ever had explained to them.
- What is the warranty?
- Five years on the finish and the workmanship, and fifteen on waterproof MDF doors and drawer fronts. Stone is the exception and we say so up front — countertops carry a one-year warranty from the fabricator who cuts and fits them, not from us.
Wondering whether your boxes are worth keeping?
Send wide photographs of every run of cabinet and a written price comes back inside 24 hours, which we do not revise afterwards. If the boxes are not worth keeping, that is the first thing you will hear.
Free in-home consultation · no obligation