Why do two cabinet refacing quotes for the same kitchen differ by thousands?

Almost always the door material and where the doors are finished. Laminate doors on a laminate veneer are a different product from solid wood doors with a hand-sprayed catalysed finish, and both are legitimately called cabinet refacing. Ask each quote for the door material, the centre panel material, the veneer material and where the finishing happens, and the gap usually explains itself in one sentence.

Is cabinet refacing really cheaper than new cabinets, or is that a sales line?

It is genuinely cheaper, but the honest multiple is smaller than the adverts suggest. On the same kitchen, refacing typically runs a third to a half of replacement. It is not a tenth. If a quote tells you refacing will save 80 percent, they are comparing a laminate reface against a custom replacement kitchen, which is not the comparison you are making.

Do you price cabinet refacing per door or per linear foot?

Both are used and they answer different questions. Per linear foot ($100 to $250 in this market) is how a whole kitchen gets estimated. Per door and drawer front is how you sanity-check it: count your doors and drawer fronts, and a per-unit figure between $80 and $250 depending on material should land near the linear-foot number. If the two are far apart, something in the quote is worth asking about.

Does the countertop have to come off for cabinet refacing?

No, and that is a large part of the saving. The countertop, sink, plumbing and backsplash all stay. If you are replacing the countertop anyway, do it after the cabinet refacing rather than before, so the new top is templated against the finished cabinetry.

Is there a cheaper option than refacing?

Yes, two. Refinishing the doors you already have runs roughly $2,000 to $4,500 for a kitchen and only works if the existing doors are sound and the style still suits you. Changing hardware alone, hinges and pulls on every door, is a few hundred dollars and buys more visible improvement than people expect. Both are covered on this site.

Cabinet Refacing Cost in Columbus, GA (2026)

The Short Answer on Cabinet Refacing Cost

Most kitchen cabinet refacing in Columbus, Georgia falls between $4,000 and $10,000, or roughly $100 to $250 per linear foot of cabinetry. A small kitchen of about ten linear feet in laminate or rigid thermofoil can come in between $1,800 and $3,500. An average Columbus kitchen of twenty to twenty-five linear feet in real wood veneer lands between $4,000 and $9,000. A large kitchen with an island and solid wood doors runs $9,000 to $16,000. A single bathroom vanity is $600 to $1,500. Replacing the same cabinetry outright typically costs two to four times the reface.

Columbus Cabinet Refacing Price Table

Typical 2026 ranges for cabinet work in the Columbus, Georgia area. Local estimates, not quotations.
Cabinet job	Typical range	What drives it
Single bathroom vanity, up to 36 in.	$600 – $1,500	Door count, material, whether the top stays
Hardware only — hinges and pulls, 25–35 doors	$450 – $1,200	Hinge type, whether new holes must be drilled
Doors and drawer fronts only, no box veneer	$2,500 – $6,000	Door count, material, finish
Refinishing existing doors, whole kitchen	$2,000 – $4,500	Prep condition, spray vs brush, colour change
Small kitchen reface, ~10 linear ft, laminate or RTF	$1,800 – $3,500	Material tier, layout complexity
Average kitchen reface, 20–25 linear ft, wood veneer	$4,000 – $9,000	Door style, veneer, hardware, end panels
Large kitchen with island, solid wood doors	$9,000 – $16,000	Linear footage, solid stock, glass doors, moulding
Full cabinet replacement, average Columbus kitchen	$12,000 – $30,000+	Stock vs semi-custom, countertop, plumbing, floor

These ranges are guidance for the Columbus, Georgia market and are not a quotation. Only a written estimate from the contractor who stands in your kitchen is binding.

Cabinet Door Materials, Cheapest to Dearest

Material is the single largest lever on a cabinet refacing quote, and the per-linear-foot figures below are the industry ranges the national cost guides publish. They hold up well against what this market quotes.

Laminate — about $80 to $125 per linear foot. A printed decorative surface bonded to a substrate. Cheapest, entirely serviceable, and the least convincing up close on a cabinet door with any profile to it.
Rigid thermofoil (RTF) — just above laminate. A vinyl skin vacuum-formed over an MDF core, so it wraps a routed profile in one seamless piece with no paint edge to chip. Excellent value in a humid climate. Its weakness is heat: RTF next to an unshielded oven or a self-cleaning range can lift over time.
Wood veneer — about $100 to $250 per linear foot. Real timber on a stable substrate. This is the middle of the market and where most Columbus cabinet refacing jobs land. It stains like wood because it is wood.
Solid wood — about $200 to $500 per linear foot. The best-looking and the most expensive, and the one the humidity here has an opinion about. Solid raised-panel doors move seasonally; that is a feature in a stained finish and a liability in a painted one.

Pricing a Cabinet Job by the Door Instead of the Room

Room size is the worst way to estimate cabinet work and it is the way most people try. Two Columbus kitchens of identical square footage can carry a fifteen-door difference, and every cabinet door is a unit of material, finish, hinge and labour. Counting is better than measuring.

Walk the kitchen and count every cabinet door and every drawer front, including the ones on the island, the pantry and the cabinet over the refrigerator. A typical Columbus kitchen runs twenty-five to thirty-five. Multiply by $80 to $250 depending on material and you have a sanity check on any cabinet refacing quote you are given. If the per-door figure and the per-linear-foot figure disagree badly, one of them is describing a different scope, and that is the question worth asking.

The Six Things That Move a Cabinet Refacing Quote

Cabinet door and drawer count. Not room size, for the reason set out above.
Material tier. See above. The spread between laminate and solid wood on the same kitchen is routinely a factor of two and a half.
End panels and exposed cabinet sides. Every cabinet run that ends in open air needs a finished end panel, and a peninsula or island can have three or four. They are priced individually and they are where two cabinet quotes quietly diverge.
Moulding and scribe work. Crown moulding at the ceiling, light rail under the wall cabinets, scribe strips closing the gap against an out-of-plumb wall. Older Columbus houses need more of this than new ones.
Hardware. Soft-close hinges and full-extension glides across a whole kitchen are a real line item. Worth it, but ask whether the quote includes them or assumes your old hinges get reused.
Access and cabinet condition. A sound 1975 kitchen is a straightforward cabinet refacing job. One with two water-damaged sink-base cabinets needs those boxes rebuilt first, and that is joinery, not refacing.

Where Georgia's $2,500 Line Falls on a Cabinet Job

This is the part worth reading before you call anybody, including us, because cabinet refacing sits on the wrong side of a line that most smaller home jobs never reach.

Georgia's threshold is $2,500. Under O.C.G.A. 43-41-2(9), a “residential contractor” is anyone whose work or compensation on a job exceeds $2,500.00, and that work requires a state license from the Georgia State Licensing Board for Residential and General Contractors. A typical Columbus cabinet refacing job is $4,000 to $10,000 — two to four times over the line.
There is a genuine repair exemption, and it comes with a condition. O.C.G.A. 43-41-17(g) allows unlicensed repair work, but only where the work does not affect the structural integrity of the property and the person doing it discloses to the owner that they hold no license. Board Rule Chapter 553-8 requires that disclosure to be made in writing. If a cabinet company is working under the repair exemption, Georgia law says they have to tell you so on paper.
An unlicensed contract is unenforceable against you. O.C.G.A. 43-41-17(b) makes a contract for licensable work signed by an unlicensed contractor unenforceable in law or equity by that contractor, and states that no lien or bond claim shall exist in their favour. Read that as consumer protection, because that is what it is.

So the useful question on a cabinet refacing job in Georgia is short: is this over $2,500, and if so, what is your license number? Licenses are searchable free through the Georgia Secretary of State. If the answer is the repair exemption, ask for the written disclosure the rule requires. Insurance is the separate question and it matters at every price — the independent provider who takes your cabinet job carries general liability cover and you are entitled to ask for the certificate.

How to Compare Two Cabinet Refacing Quotes

Ask both quotes the same five questions and the price gap almost always explains itself: what are the doors made of, what is the centre panel made of, what goes on the face frames and end panels, where are the doors finished, and are soft-close hinges included. A cabinet refacing quote that is $1,800 lower and answers “laminate, MDF, laminate, offshore, no” is not lower. It is a different product.

Cabinet Refacing Cost in Columbus, GA

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