What comes off
Every door and every drawer front, unscrewed at the hinges and hauled away. Old hinges, pulls and knobs. Worn trim at the ceiling line and the scuffed toe-kick at the floor.
Cabinet Refacing in Austin: A New Kitchen Face on the Boxes You Already Have
Austin Elite Cabinets handles cabinet refacing in Austin, TX, and is Travis County's trusted specialist in giving sound cabinet boxes a new face, specializing in wood veneer over existing face frames, matching plywood end panels and new Shaker or slab doors. We offer new drawer fronts and soft-close hinges.
- Free in-home design visit
- Shop drawings you approve
- One firm written price
Step 1 of 3Your project
Book a free design visit
About our cabinet refacing
Our team provides a complete refacing package with a fresh toe-kick skin and new crown trim, delivering a kitchen that looks rebuilt for homes and a quick, low-disruption update for both residential and commercial projects. Before any veneer is ordered, our own installer measures every opening, draws the new door layout for your approval, and the finished job is covered by a written warranty.
From veneer laid over the stiles and rails of each face frame to new doors, drawer fronts, hardware and trim, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin, West Lake Hills, Shady Hollow and Steiner Ranch, we leave your boxes, your countertops and your floor plan exactly where they are while the whole room changes face.
Why Austin Elite
How We Work
No catalogue boxes and no handoffs. The people who measure your room are the people who build and install it.
Measured in your homeEvery run, wall and ceiling measured on site, never from a plan
Shop drawings firstYou approve the drawings and finish before anything is built
Same crew, start to finishThe people who measure are the people who install
One firm written priceThe number on the quote is the number at install
What Cabinet Refacing Replaces, and What It Keeps
Refacing is a skin job on a sound structure. The cabinet boxes, the plywood or particleboard carcasses screwed to your walls, stay in place. Everything you actually look at gets replaced or covered.
What goes on
Wood veneer across each face frame, cut to follow the vertical stiles and horizontal rails so the frame reads as solid wood again. Quarter-inch plywood end panels on every exposed cabinet side, finished to match the veneer. New doors and drawer fronts built to your chosen style, with new concealed hinges and new hardware. A thin matching skin over the toe-kick and new cove or crown molding along the top. The result is a kitchen with one continuous finish, frame to door to end panel, sitting on the same boxes that have held your dishes for years. Nothing about the layout moves, which is the whole point and also the limit.
Refacing, Painting or New Doors: When Another Job Fits Better
We would rather sell you the right job than the biggest one. Three kitchens walk in the door asking for refacing, and only one of them should get it.
Refacing is the right call when
The boxes are solid, level and dry, but the frames, doors and end panels are all tired and you want a different wood look or a new door style. The layout works. You like where the sink, range and drawers sit. You want the kitchen to look replaced without living through demolition.
Choose cabinet painting instead when
You already like your door style and the doors are in good shape, you simply want a new color. A sprayed paint finish over properly prepped doors changes the color without new veneer, and it is the smaller job. Our cabinet painting page covers that work in full.
Choose door replacement instead when
The frames and end panels still look fine, or you plan to paint them, and only the doors are worn, dated or peeling. New doors and drawer fronts alone, with no veneer on the frames, is a narrower job with fewer steps.
Refacing will not fix these
A layout that does not work. New faces on the wrong boxes are still the wrong boxes. Water damage in the sink base. Particleboard that has swollen from a slow leak needs a new box, not veneer. Boxes that are racked, loose from the wall or out of level. If we find any of those at the measure, we will tell you plainly and price cabinet replacement for that run rather than cover the problem with a new face.
Veneer, Door Styles and Finishes for a Refaced Kitchen
Veneer is a thin slice of real wood, today often cut as thin as about a fortieth of an inch, glued to the frame so it looks and finishes like solid lumber. How that slice is cut decides what the grain looks like on your frames. Plain-sliced veneer shows the familiar cathedral grain pattern. Rift-cut veneer gives straight, tight lines that suit a modern kitchen. Rotary-cut veneer is peeled from the log and shows a broad, wilder figure. Paper-backed veneer joins smaller leaves into large sheets, which helps on wide end panels.
Door styles we build for refacing
The Shaker door, a flat recessed panel held in a five-piece rail-and-stile frame, is the most requested because it suits almost any room. Slab doors give a flat, clean front for a contemporary kitchen. Raised-panel doors, with an ogee, chamfer or cove profile on the panel edge, keep a traditional house traditional. In a solid wood door the panel floats in its groove rather than being glued, because a wide wood panel can move across the grain as the humidity changes, and Austin's humid subtropical climate gives it every reason to.
Finishes
Veneer and matching doors can be stained, clear-coated or painted. A clear conversion varnish or a two-part polyurethane gives a hard, wipeable surface for a working kitchen. We match the frame veneer, the end panels and the doors so the finish reads as one piece of furniture rather than three.
The process
How Our Cabinet Refacing Process Works
Refacing is quick compared with ordering new cabinets, tearing out the old ones and installing the replacements, but it only goes smoothly when the measuring is right. Here is how a job runs.
The in-home measure
The installer who will do your job comes to the house. We check every box for level, water damage and loose fastening, then measure each door opening, drawer opening and end panel. Door size on an overlay door is the opening plus twice the overlay, so a single wrong reading shows up as a gap you see every day.
Drawings and selections
You get a drawing of every door and drawer front with its size and hinge side, plus the veneer species, door style and finish you picked. Nothing is ordered until you approve it.
Build and finish
Doors, drawer fronts, end panels and veneer are produced to those drawings and finished together so the color matches across every part.
Install
On install days the old doors come off, the frames are cleaned and veneered, the end panels, toe-kick skin and crown go on, and the new doors are hung on new hinges. Each concealed hinge adjusts for height, side to side and depth, so every reveal ends up even. Your kitchen stays usable around us, because the boxes and countertops never move.
Walkthrough
We open and close every door and drawer with you, fix anything that is off, and hand over your written warranty.
What Drives the Cost of Cabinet Refacing in Austin
We do not publish a flat rate for refacing, because two kitchens of the same size can land far apart. These are the things that move the number.
- How many doors and drawer fronts. Refacing is priced by the pieces, so a kitchen with many small doors and a bank of drawers carries more parts than one with a few wide doors.
- Linear footage of face frame to be veneered, and how many exposed end panels need a new skin.
- Door style. A slab door has fewer parts than a five-piece Shaker door, and a raised panel adds profiling work.
- Species and veneer cut. Rift-cut and quartered figures cost more to produce than plain-sliced veneer.
- Finish. A stain and clear coat, a painted finish and a glazed finish each take different time.
- Overlay. Moving to full overlay doors, which hide nearly all of the frame, changes every door size and often calls for new hinge types.
- Hardware and accessories. Soft-close hinges, new pulls and any roll-out shelves added to the boxes.
- Repairs found at the measure. A swollen sink base or a loose box has to be fixed before veneer goes on.
What refacing does not carry is the cost of demolition, new boxes, countertop removal or wall and floor patching, which is why it sits between painting and full replacement. The honest number comes from the free in-home measure. Call us to book one.
Cabinet Refacing Across Austin and the West Side
Refacing makes the most sense in houses where the boxes were built well and the look has simply aged. Across Travis County that describes a lot of kitchens.
- Shady Hollow and West Lake Hills hold many homes built before 1990, and their original kitchens often have solid face-frame boxes under dated doors. That is the classic refacing kitchen.
- Steiner Ranch kitchens from the 2000s building boom are frequently builder-grade: the boxes are sound, but the doors and finish were chosen for a price. Refacing or new doors lifts them without a teardown.
- Rollingwood and Sunset Valley ranch homes sometimes turn out to need new boxes once we look inside, and we will say so if that is what the measure finds.
- Lakeway, The Hills, Volente and Barton Creek homes span decades of building, from lake houses to newer custom estates, so every kitchen there starts with an honest look at the boxes.
We also serve Lost Creek, where many kitchens are still original to houses built in the 1960s and 1970s. Wherever you are on the west side of Austin, the first step is the same measure at your kitchen.
Same Room, New Cabinet Fronts
Drag the handle. The room and layout stay; the cabinet fronts change.
BeforeAfter
More of What We Build
Questions
Cabinet Refacing: Common Questions
What drives the price of refacing my kitchen?
The count of doors and drawer fronts, the length of face frame to veneer, the number of exposed end panels, your door style, the wood species and cut, the finish and any hardware or roll-outs you add. Repairs to a damaged box add to it. We give you the number after the free in-home measure, not before.
How long does refacing take compared with new cabinets?
It is a shorter job on site because nothing is torn out and nothing new is set on the wall. Most of the calendar time is building and finishing the doors to your drawings. We give you the lead time in writing once your selections are approved.
Should I reface, paint or replace my cabinets?
Paint if you like your doors and want a new color. Replace only the doors if the frames still look good. Reface if the frames, doors and end panels are all tired but the boxes are sound. Replace the cabinets if the layout is wrong or the boxes are damaged. We will tell you which one your kitchen needs at the measure.
Can you reface cabinets that have water damage under the sink?
Not over the damage. Particleboard or MDF that has swollen from a leak has lost strength, and veneer will not bring it back. We replace that one box and reface the rest so the whole kitchen matches.
Can I change from traditional doors to full overlay when I reface?
Yes. Every door is built new, so we size each one to the overlay you choose and fit hinges to suit. Full overlay hides nearly the whole frame and gives a more modern look.
Do you cover my area?
We serve Austin and the west side of Travis County, including West Lake Hills, Rollingwood, Sunset Valley, Shady Hollow, Barton Creek, Lost Creek, Steiner Ranch, Lakeway, Volente and The Hills. Call and we will confirm your address.
Is refacing covered by a warranty?
Yes. Every refacing job comes with a written warranty, handed over at the final walkthrough.
What happens at the design visit?
The installer checks every box for soundness, measures each opening, end panel and drawer, and goes through door styles, veneer species and finishes with you. You then receive drawings of every piece to approve before anything is ordered.
Free design visit
Talk to us about cabinet refacing
Free in-home design visit across Austin and the west side. We call you back to set a time.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.