When you reface your kitchen, you get new doors and drawer fronts and a fresh face on your cabinet boxes. One question comes up on almost every job: should you keep your existing drawer boxes, or replace them while you're at it? Here's what each option gets you, so you can decide what's right for your kitchen.
What a Reface Already Covers
A reface keeps your cabinet boxes in place and updates what you see: the doors, the drawer fronts, and the face of the boxes. If you're doing the box work yourself, my cabinet box prep guide walks through cleaning, filling, and finishing them.
The drawer boxes are the parts behind the drawer fronts, and they're a separate choice. You can screw new fronts onto your old boxes, or put in new boxes along with new fronts.
Keeping Your Existing Drawer Boxes
Why people keep them:
- Lower cost. You only pay for new drawer fronts.
- Less work. The boxes and slides you already have stay put.
What to watch for:
- Old slides stay too. Many older kitchens have cheap single-roller slides that don't open all the way and slam shut. Keeping the boxes usually means keeping those slides.
- Worn boxes. Loose joints, sagging bottoms, and stained or scuffed insides don't go away when you add a new front.
- The inside doesn't match the outside. Open a drawer with a brand-new front, and you still see the old box.
If your drawer boxes are solid, square, and running on slides you like, keeping them can make sense.
Getting New Drawer Boxes
What you gain:
- A little more drawer width. New boxes usually add about 3/8" of width over the old ones. That's because a box built for undermount slides can be wider than one built for side-mount slides, which take up room on each side.
- Much better slides. New boxes are the time to move up to soft-close slides, so drawers close gently every time.
- A clean, new look inside. New boxes have a fresh clear-coated finish, so the inside of the drawer looks as new as the front.
The trade-off: new boxes and slides cost more than fronts alone.
For a full rundown of slide types and quality levels, including soft-close vs. soft-stop, see my post on undermount vs. side-mount drawer slides. I won't repeat it all here, but the short version is this: the slide you choose decides how wide the drawer box can be, so pick the slide first.
If you're putting in new boxes and slides yourself, the Kreg drawer slide jig holds each slide straight and level while you screw it in, which takes most of the guesswork out of the install.
How My Drawer Boxes Are Built
On my Ready to Paint cabinets, drawer boxes are made from 1/2" Baltic birch with glued and stapled joints, with a 1/4" sanded plywood bottom set in a groove. That's the same kind of sturdy box you'd want in a reface.
A Quick Way to Decide
Open each drawer and ask:
- Does it open all the way and close smoothly?
- Is the box square, with tight joints and a flat bottom?
- Will you be happy looking at the inside every day next to your new fronts?
If the answer to all three is yes, keep your boxes and save the money. If not, new drawer boxes are one of the upgrades you'll notice most, because you use your drawers every day.
Whichever way you go, put a few clear self-adhesive cabinet bumpers on the back of each drawer front. They're cheap, they keep drawers quiet when they close, and they protect the finish.
Thinking About a Reface?
I'm Christopher Webb, a custom cabinetmaker serving San Angelo, Ballinger, Abilene, and the surrounding area. Through Reface Texas, I put new doors and drawer fronts on existing cabinet boxes. Reface Texas can install new drawer boxes as part of your reface. Just ask when you schedule your estimate. If you'd rather start fresh in part of your kitchen, you can also browse my Ready to Paint Flat Panel Shaker cabinets and Raised Panel Shaker cabinets.
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