# Pricing for some kitchen cabinet reface



## mporter (May 5, 2011)

A lady called me and asked if I would come by and give her a bid on refacing her kitchen cabinets. The woodworking is not beyond me, I just have no idea on what to charge. It will be Oak cabinets, raised panel doors. She wants them stained dark (yuk!) and finished. I think most cabinet shops charge by the linear foot. Anyone know a rough price?


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## History (Dec 22, 2012)

Thats a pretty tough question, especially with such little information. But I will ask you this, are you insured to work on other peoples property ?


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## mporter (May 5, 2011)

Yes I am. 13 doors and 8 drawers if that helps. She is reusing all the old hardware too.


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## History (Dec 22, 2012)

A person would have to know alot more then that, infact I think that it would really be tough to do a bid without physically being there to see the job. Goodluck.


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

I stray away from those jobs as much as possible, but if I were bidding that work I would have to charge her a per hour fee plus any material and other applicable fees.


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## SamuraiSaw (Jan 8, 2013)

Jerry has your best advice. Refinishing work is very labor intensive, and time consuming. If she's wanting the face frames replaced, the job is simplified. You'll still need to factor time, and the rate will depend on what part of the country you're in. Bottom line, this kind of job is filler between good paying work.


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## GregInMaryland (Mar 11, 2010)

Oddly, I just partially priced out the same thing for my kitchen just for kicks and grins.

While my estimate only covers doors (18 of them), not drawers or the face frames, I came up with $1k using the pricing for replacement doors at Rockler

This might be of some help for you as a reality check when you calculate your quote.

Greg


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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

500 a day ?


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## cbc (Mar 2, 2013)

"Refacing" usually refers to covering all exposed exterior parts of the cabinets; the sides, faceframes and sometimes the bottoms of the uppers.(an upgrade) Common materials to cover with are plastic laminate, PSA wood veneer or some sort of vinyl. These materials would be used to match the doors being hung, wood, mica or thermofoil. The existing drawer boxes are commonly re-used, new ones another upgrade. New hinges, handles and moldings will usually complete the job. Pricing in many parts of the country is based upon the number of "openings". An opening being the cavity behind a door or drawer. So, you count all your door/drawers and multipy by "X". You'll have to find "X" for your area. Have a professional refacer come & give you or someone you know a price. Ask how they arrived at that price. Do some dedective work and apply what you learned to your own project. Hope some of this helps1


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## mporter (May 5, 2011)

I am sorry, I should have wrote this post better. I am building all new doors and face frames and replacing whats already there.


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## kdc68 (Mar 2, 2012)

*mporter*...maybe inquire your potential client if she has had bids and if so, under bid if you want the job


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## huff (May 28, 2009)

mporter,

Never price that job by the linear foot; unless you do this type work professionally everyday in your business and you know and understand all the cost factors involved, including the total time it would take you to complete the job. Even if you build cabinets, this is a different ball game all together.

Jerry probably gave you the best advice as far as charging by the hour for labor and charge for materials separately, but very few customers will just give you their check book to write the check when the job is finished and you get to figure the total cost at that time. LOL.

The only way to figure a price up front to quote a customer is to figure everything very closely. How much will it cost to make or buy the doors? How much will it cost to make or buy the drawer fronts? How much will it cost to build all new face frames. But the hardest part to estimating a job like this is to figure out how long it will take to not only do all the building, but how long will it take to prep. the kitchen to do all the work. How long will it take you to remove all the doors, drawer fronts from drawer boxes, removing any moldings, removing old face frames (How are they attached to the original cabinets), How long will it take to install new face frames and how will they be fastened to the cabinets, will the face frames affect the drawer slides, how to attach the new drawer fronts.

Do you have any end panels involved? Can you do the finishing in the shop and install the new face frames without damaging them? How long will the finishing process take and how long will it take to put everything back, etc.

Do you plan on leaving a provision for adding to the price as changes take place?..........and trust me; your customer has not thought out every detail of doing this project, so if you miss or forget one thing, it will have to be added as you go.

Once you figure your total material cost (that part you should be able to figure fairly close) and figure all the hours it will take to do the entire project and don't forget all the travel time that may be involved,(the time involved will be much harder to figure), so don't be surprised that once you figure all the time you will spend doing this you may not want to tackle it.

Don't worry about what the other businesses may charge the customer. You know what kind of work you will do for that customer, but you have no idea what your competition does and besides, your competition doesn't pay your bills.

With all that being said, refer back to what Jerry recommended. Post#4 LOL

Good luck


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## Maggiepic (Aug 26, 2010)

First off, go into the job with confidence and with the attitude that your work is worth what you are going to charge. So I have to respectfully disagree with kdc68. I tell many clients that they can get 10 more quotes and I can guarantee that 9 of them will be cheaper than me. It's works. Gives them confidence that I am going to do a quality job with quality materials.
What is the condition of the existing cabinet carcasses, shelves, shelf standards, hardware, etc? Is everything square, plumb, and level? These are questions I present to the prospective clients then try to steer them towards replacing than than rebuilding "the old tired ones". 
But if they are dead set on rebuilding then figure your time/hrs including all phases of removal, acquisition of parts and material, fabrication, finishing, and installing. Then figure your materials and add 5% for misc. and another 20% mark-up. In some areas you can get away with another profit and/or overhead mark-up.
Myself, I walk away from "rebuilds" if I cannot convince them of replacing. It's too much cost for the rebuild compared to replacing. There's not that big of a difference. Unless your doing it yourself for your own cabinets. No labor costs then. I guess that's my point, rebuilding is labor intensive.


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## SamuraiSaw (Jan 8, 2013)

As you can see, this kind of job doesn't have high regard. It's a low yield project.

If you do decide to go forward, I'd recommend you contact some of the larger cabinet companies in your area and ask if they will build the doors and drawer fronts for you. Generally speaking they can build them for you at or slightly above your material costs. Unless you're set up for it, building raised panel doors takes a lot of time as well as equipment usage. I seldom take on cabinet projects, but when I do I usually sub out the doors and drawer fronts.

The face frame construction is pretty straightforward. But then you have to figure in finishing. Unless you really need the work, pass.


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## kdc68 (Mar 2, 2012)

*GaryL* - no disrespect taken. I merely made the statement because if he *really* wants to undertake this project he could underbid. Your coinfidence approach is great and works for you because you have the experience and track record to back it up. * mporter *on the otherhand, doesn't sound experienced as you and maybe by taking on less desirable jobs to gain experience and reputation for good work might be worth underbidding the previous guy to get his feet wet and his name out there…just IMO thats all


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## Maggiepic (Aug 26, 2010)

No sweat *kdc*. I know what you mean with getting your feet wet or the foot in door. I do a fair share of basic home repairs to get "my foot in the door". Leads to bigger projects from the homeowner many times.


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## kdc68 (Mar 2, 2012)

*GaryL* - Leads to bigger projects from the homeowner many times - Exactly and word of mouth from those homeowners to their friends and family…so forth, so on. Pretty much nothing beats referrals from previous happy customers..
*mporter* - no offense meant by me assuming you lack experience. It was just an observation from your question in this forum


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## mporter (May 5, 2011)

Thanks for all the great help and advise guys. It's great to have a site like this and to have access to 40000+ great woodworkers!


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Well I hope things worked out great for u. We also have a similar job on schedule I wish I never sold as I prefer not doing them. But the job will be simple for us so not so bad. Its just that we are really too busy at thjs time.

So I hope it worked out good for u.


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## keithglass (Apr 8, 2013)

Hi mporter, The information you provided isn't enough for raising a perfect quote but I think you may go for around 1.2K.

The RTA Store.


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## renners (Apr 9, 2010)

Are the doors etc available to buy premade and prefinished? I think this is the way to go, especially if your client wants to save a few bucks by reusing the hardware. That should tell you that they don't want to pay a lot for this job.


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