Cabinet Refacing in Portland: When It Beats Replacing

Cabinet refacing keeps your cabinet boxes and your layout, and replaces what you see: new doors and drawer fronts, new hardware, and a veneer or laminate laid over the existing face frames and sides. The boxes stay where they are, and so do the countertops that sit on them. No trade body publishes a definition of refacing; this is how the remodeling press describes it. Refacing is one of four kitchen jobs we pass requests for; the full remodel is on our page about kitchen remodeling in Portland.

When the boxes are sound enough to keep

Refacing makes sense when two things are true: the cabinet boxes are solid, and the layout works for you. Then the boxes have nothing wrong with them, and only the fronts need to change.

Some kitchens point the other way:

• A sink base that is swollen, stained or soft from water, or boxes coming apart at the joints. A new front does not repair a failed box.
• Not enough storage. Refacing keeps the cabinets you have, so it cannot add one.
• A layout that does not work. Moving cabinets is a new-cabinet job, and often a permit job.

Any of those is a reason to look at new kitchen cabinets instead. Before the consultation, open each base cabinet and look at its floor and sides, especially under the sink.

Painting is the third option. Cabinet painting keeps the doors and drawer fronts and changes only their finish, so it suits fronts whose style you still like. The table below sets refacing, new cabinets and painting side by side.

What moves the price of refacing

We publish no refacing price, because no source we can cite gives one for this area; the remodeler prices it after seeing the kitchen. What changes the size of the job is easy to count: the number of doors and drawer fronts, the door style, whether the new surfaces are wood veneer or laminate, the hardware, and anything beyond the fronts, such as a new countertop or wiring for under-cabinet lights, which brings in another trade.

The nearest published figure, for a whole-kitchen project that keeps the cabinet boxes and replaces the fronts, is on our page about kitchen remodel costs in Portland, with what that project includes.

Permits for a refacing job

Refacing on its own needs no building permit in Oregon. The state’s permit list exempts cabinets, countertops and similar finish work, the 2026 Oregon Residential Specialty Code lists cabinets among the work exempt from a building permit, and Portland Permitting & Development needs no permit to install cabinets. The state adds that work exempt from a building permit is not necessarily exempt from a mechanical, electrical or plumbing permit: running additional wiring or installing a new outlet or light fixture needs an electrical permit, in Portland and under the state list. For a kitchen in Washington, see kitchen remodeling in Vancouver, WA.

Painted cabinets in an older house

If your cabinets, or the walls and trim around them, are painted and the house was built before 1978, the lead-safe rules cover work that disturbs that paint. In Oregon, only contractors licensed by the CCB for Lead-Based Paint Renovation may bid or work on pre-1978 homes, and the CCB sets the threshold for interior work at six square feet of painted surface per room. In Washington, any work that disturbs paint in a pre-1978 property needs RRP certification from the Department of Commerce. Ask the remodeler which they hold. In Portland, 63.4% of homes were built before 1980 (Census American Community Survey, 2020-2024).