Maybe the doors no longer line up, the finish has worn through around the pulls, or the sink base went soft from a slow leak nobody caught in time. Cabinets set the layout, the storage and most of what you see in a kitchen, so replacing them is usually the center of the project. Here is how new cabinets are planned and installed, and what is worth weighing before you choose.

Signs the cabinets are holding the kitchen back

Some cabinet problems are cosmetic and some are structural. Worn finish, a dated door style and loose hinges can often be handled without new boxes. Swollen particleboard under the sink, drawer boxes coming apart at the corners, face frames pulling away from the boxes, and shelves that bow under a stack of plates usually mean the boxes themselves are near the end of their life.

Then there is the storage you work around every day: a blind corner you can only reach on your knees, base cabinets with fixed shelves where pots end up stacked three deep, and upper cabinets that stop well short of the ceiling. New cabinets let you change how the kitchen stores things, not just how it looks.

How the boxes are built

Face-frame or frameless

Face-frame cabinets have a solid wood frame across the front of each box, and the doors hang from that frame. They are the traditional American style and can take partial overlay, full overlay or inset doors. Because the frame takes up part of each opening, drawers end up a little narrower than the box itself.

Frameless cabinets, often called European style, skip the frame. Doors mount to the box sides on concealed hinges and cover nearly the whole face, so you get wider drawers and full access to the interior. They suit a clean, modern look, but they call for precise installation, since there is no frame to hide an uneven gap.

Plywood or particleboard

Box material matters most where water shows up. Plywood holds screws well and tolerates an occasional splash better than particleboard, which can swell and crumble if it stays wet. Many cabinet lines use particleboard or MDF with a melamine interior that wipes clean, and that works in most locations. If you are comparing lines, look hardest at the sink base.

Doors, finishes and what goes inside

Door style sets the look. Shaker doors, a square frame around a flat recessed panel, are a popular choice because they suit almost any kitchen. Slab doors read modern and are the easiest to wipe down. Raised-panel doors look traditional and have more edges to catch grease.

Finish is as much a durability choice as a color choice:

• Painted finishes come in any color, but a painted five-piece wood door can show hairline lines at its joints as the wood moves with the seasons. Cabinet makers treat that as normal for painted wood, and one-piece MDF slab doors avoid it.

• Stained wood shows the grain and hides small dings better than paint. Wood also changes tone with light, so a cherry or maple door beside a sunny window will shift color over time.

• Thermofoil is a vinyl film heat-pressed over MDF. It is smooth and easy to clean, but heat from an oven can loosen the film, which is why manufacturers sell heat shields for doors next to ovens and ranges.

Fresno summers bring triple-digit days every year, and the run of cabinets beside a west-facing window takes a lot of afternoon sun. Shades help any finish last, and our guide to materials that hold up in Central Valley heat goes further.

Inside the boxes, drawer bases are often the most useful upgrade. Deep drawers on full-extension slides bring pots, lids and mixing bowls to you instead of making you unload a shelf. Soft-close hinges and slides stop the slamming, and pull-outs for trash, spices and sheet pans give awkward spaces a job.

Refacing, replacing or keeping what you have

Refacing keeps the existing boxes and covers them with new doors, drawer fronts and a matching veneer over the exposed frames and sides. It can make sense when the boxes are solid, the layout works and you are happy with where everything sits. It cannot repair a swollen sink base or change a cramped layout, and it leaves the inside of the boxes largely as it is.

Replacing gives you new boxes, new interior storage and the chance to rearrange. If you are not sure which side of that line your kitchen falls on, our guide to refacing versus replacing cabinets walks through the trade-offs.

What cabinets mean for your estimate

The kitchen estimator asks you to choose among four cabinet options: keep existing cabinets, reface existing cabinets, new cabinets, or premium and custom cabinets. Few answers move your planning range as much, because cabinets are usually one of the largest line items in a kitchen. Your size, layout and finish level answers shape it further.

For planning, most All American kitchen projects start around $25,000, and a typical kitchen remodel lands around $40,000. Premium or custom cabinetry is one of the selections that pushes larger projects to $50,000 to $60,000. The range you see is planning guidance rather than a quote, and our breakdown of stock, semi-custom and custom cabinet costs explains what separates those tiers.

From measurements to installed cabinets

If your range fits your plans, the next step is a free in-home consultation. The room is measured and existing conditions are checked: how level the floor is, how straight the walls are, and where plumbing and wiring come through. Permit needs are confirmed at the same visit. From there you get a cabinet plan with door style, finish, interior fittings and hardware settled before anything is ordered.

Cabinet lead times are one of the things that set the schedule, so demolition is planned around delivery rather than the other way around. Installation means setting boxes level and plumb, shimming over uneven floors, scribing fillers to walls that are not straight, and fastening everything to the framing. If a sink or outlet has to move, licensed electrical and plumbing trades we coordinate handle it while the walls are open. The countertop fabricator measures only once the cabinets are set, and the backsplash, hardware and final door adjustments follow.

When new cabinets become a full remodel

New cabinets touch everything around them. Stone and quartz counters are cut to fit the old boxes and are seldom reused, the backsplash usually comes off with them, and flooring that stopped at the old cabinet line may not cover the new footprint. Once those pieces are in play, many homeowners decide a full remodel is the more sensible plan. See how the parts fit together on our kitchen remodeling overview, or read about countertop replacement if the counters are next on your list.