Cabinet Updates
Handis cabinet updates is the kitchen-cabinetry trade that resets the look and feel of a kitchen without a gut remodel — from a $400 whole-kitchen hardware swap to a $15,000 full cabinet refacing with replacement doors and drawer faces and new veneer skins on the boxes. The 1990s honey-oak kitchen that still has good bones in the cabinet boxes but reads as twenty-five years old at every door front. The painted-white shaker that has soft-shut every drawer since the day it was installed and is starting to slam. The 36-inch single-bowl sink cabinet that has soft-bottomed under the trap. The peninsula that wants to be an island and has never had the carpentry to make it one. Seven sub-services cover the real cabinet-update work honestly — cabinet painting and refinishing, full refacing, door and drawer-face replacement, hardware upgrades, soft-close hinge and slide upgrades, stock and RTA install, and island install with no plumbing or electrical moves. Every in-wall plumbing or new electrical circuit routes to a licensed Washington L&I sub.
Services
What Do Handis Cabinet Updates Cover?
Cabinet updates is the kitchen-cabinetry trade that resets the look and feel of a kitchen without a gut — every door, drawer face, finish, hardware piece, hinge, slide, and any new cabinet install or island carpentry. Seven sub-services from $400 to $15,000, each with its own scope, its own price floor, and its own licensed-sub handoff line where regulated work is in scope. Handis runs the cabinetry end-to-end — degrease, sand, prime, paint, veneer, door swap, hardware drill, hinge swap, slide swap, RTA build and install, and island carpentry. Where the scope crosses into licensed plumbing or electrical (rare on this hub — most cabinet work has none), we name the sub on the quote so you see Handis scope and licensed-trade scope line by line.
Cabinet Painting / Refinishing
Full cabinet paint or refinishing on existing boxes and doors. We TSP-degrease every box and door face (cooking-grease aerosol that no primer bonds through, skipped at your peril), sand to a fine grit (220 on doors, 320 on profile detail), prime with a bonding primer (BIN, STIX, or Cover Stain), and finish in two coats of cabinet-grade enamel (Sherwin-Williams Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel, Benjamin Moore Advance) sprayed off-site on the doors and brushed-and-rolled on the boxes. Stain-grade refinishing (sand to bare wood, re-stain, lacquer or poly topcoat) on a true wood door. From $2,500 for a partial paint to $15,000 for a full kitchen of 30 to 50 doors and drawers in a premium urethane enamel.
Cabinet Painting / Refinishing — TSP degrease, prime, two-coat enamel finish on doors and boxes
Cabinet Refacing
Full cabinet refacing — new veneer skins on the existing cabinet boxes, replacement doors and drawer faces in your chosen style (shaker, slab, raised-panel, beadboard), new hinges, new pulls, and a new toe-kick. The box stays, the face changes. Costs a fraction of a full cabinet replacement and finishes in a fraction of the time. We measure every door and drawer face, order the replacement faces in your finish (paint-grade poplar or MDF, stain-grade oak or maple, white or cherry thermofoil, or veneer over MDF), apply the veneer to every visible box face, hang the new doors, mount the new pulls. From $6,500 for a partial kitchen to $15,000 for a full kitchen with premium hardware.
Cabinet Refacing — new veneer skins, replacement doors and drawer faces, new hinges and pulls
Cabinet Door Replacement
Just the doors and drawer fronts — no veneer on the boxes, no full refacing. The work for a kitchen where the boxes are in good shape and unpainted (or already painted in a color you like) and the doors are the look you want to change. We measure every opening, order the replacement doors and drawer fronts in your style and finish, swap the hinges if needed, hang the new doors, mount the new pulls. From $2,500 for a partial kitchen to $7,000 for a full kitchen of 30 to 50 doors and drawers.
Cabinet Door Replacement — replacement doors and drawer fronts on existing boxes
Cabinet Hardware Upgrade
Whole-kitchen cabinet hardware install or upgrade — every pull, every knob, drilled or jig-set on a single horizontal reference line across the kitchen. We use a Kreg or Rockler drill jig clamped to every door and drawer front, mark and drill on a single reference edge, and run a backer block behind the door to keep the bit from blowing out the back face. Pitch conversion from 3-inch factory drilling to 96, 128, 160, or 192 mm pulls with color-matched filler on the old holes. From $400 for a whole-kitchen set on existing holes to $1,200 for a full kitchen with pitch conversion.
Cabinet Hardware Upgrade — jig-drilled whole-kitchen sets, pitch conversion, filler match
Soft-Close Hinge & Slide Upgrade
Conversion of 1990s and early-2000s slam-shut bare-metal hinges and metal-on-metal drawer slides to European concealed hinges with built-in soft-close (Blum BLUMOTION, Salice, Grass) and Blum or Salice under-mount soft-close drawer glides. The work that turns a slam-shut kitchen into a quiet, soft-landing kitchen in one visit. Includes drawer-glide replacement where the existing slides are not compatible with a damper add-on. From $400 for a partial conversion to $1,200 for a full kitchen of 30 to 50 doors and drawers.
Soft-Close Hinge & Slide Upgrade — European concealed hinges, Blum and Salice under-mount glides
Stock / RTA Cabinet Installation
Stock and ready-to-assemble (RTA) cabinet installation — IKEA Sektion, Cabinets to Go, Lily Ann, Conestoga (RTA), Diamond Now (Lowe's stock), KraftMaid Vantage (stock), and similar. We assemble the boxes per the manufacturer instructions (RTA assembly takes two-thirds of the install time on most lines), set the cabinets on a level rail or directly on a shimmed toe-kick, scribe end panels to the actual wall, plumb the run, secure to studs with the manufacturer-spec screws, hang the doors, install the drawer fronts and pulls. From $4,500 for a partial run to $12,000 for a full kitchen of 25 to 40 cabinets including RTA assembly.
Stock / RTA Cabinet Installation — IKEA Sektion, Cabinets to Go, Lily Ann, Diamond Now
Island Installation (no plumbing/electrical moves)
Pure carpentry island install — a stock or pre-built island set on the kitchen floor, shimmed to level on the floor that actually exists, scribed to any wall or peninsula it attaches to, secured into the floor through the toe-kick (lag screws into joists where the joist runs the right way, lag-and-anchor into a concrete slab on a slab-on-grade build), counter set on top. No plumbing supply or drain, no disposal, no dishwasher, no new outlet or under-counter lighting circuit on the island itself — pure carpentry scope. Adding any of those routes the project to the Sinks & Fixtures hub or a licensed electrician. From $2,000 for a stock island install to $6,000 for a custom-built island with a stone counter.
Island Installation (no plumbing/electrical moves) — stock or custom island, carpentry only
Cabinet Updates Pricing
Final pricing depends on cabinet count, door style, finish, hardware choice, and whether any veneer or replacement-door work is in scope. Each child page lists detailed pricing for that sub-service. Licensed-sub fees on rare plumbing or electrical add-ons pass through transparently with the line item named on the quote. Request a free estimate for an accurate quote.
Tell us the kitchen, the cabinet count, and the scope — we will quote the whole project, sub coordination included where needed.
Why Seattle Homeowners Book Handis for Cabinet Updates
Most cabinet updates we are asked to redo were started by a contractor who skipped the degrease, sprayed cabinet paint over a cooking-grease film, and watched the finish flake at the door pulls within six months. Or a refacing job where the veneer was glued to a face that was not sanded smooth and lifted at the corners by year two. Or a hardware install drilled freehand off a tape measure — the first ten doors look fine, by door fifteen the drift has started, by door twenty-five the eye picks up that nothing is on the same line. Cabinet updates is finish-grade carpentry — the prep work that does not show is what decides whether the finish lasts ten years or six months. After enough cabinets, every common failure mode has a fix in the truck and a named line on the quote.
TSP degrease, bonding primer, two coats — no shortcuts on cabinet paint
Every cabinet paint and refinishing project starts with a TSP (or TSP-substitute) wash on every box and door face. Kitchen cabinet boxes carry a film of cooking-grease aerosol that no primer bonds through. We then sand to a fine grit, prime with a bonding primer (BIN, STIX, or Cover Stain), and finish in two coats of cabinet-grade urethane enamel sprayed off-site on the doors and brushed-and-rolled on the boxes. Done right the first time, the finish lasts a decade.
Veneer applied to a sanded, dust-free, contact-glued surface
Refacing veneer is only as good as the surface it is glued to. We sand every visible box face flat, vacuum the dust, wipe with denatured alcohol, apply contact cement to both surfaces, and roll the veneer down with a J-roller from the center out. No air bubbles, no lifting at the corners at year two. The replacement doors and drawer faces match the new veneer finish exactly because they are ordered together from the same supplier in the same finish.
Drill jig on every cabinet door, indexed off one reference edge
Every hardware install — whole-kitchen pulls, hinge cup drilling, drawer pulls — runs on a Kreg or Rockler drill jig clamped to every door and drawer front, indexed off the same edge across the entire kitchen (typically the inside-of-frame edge for a standard overlay door). Pulls end up on a single horizontal line that you can sight down. The jig does in twelve seconds what freehand cannot do in a minute. Backer block behind every door to keep the bit from blowing out the back face.
Scribed end panels, level toe-kicks, plumbed runs
Every stock, RTA, and refacing project requires scribing end panels to the actual wall (almost no kitchen walls are plumb), shimming the toe-kick to level on the actual floor (almost no kitchen floors are flat), and plumbing every cabinet face before any door goes on. We scribe with a compass transfer and a belt sander, shim with cabinet shims, plumb with a 4-foot level. Cabinets sit flush, drawers close to the same reveal, doors hang square at the strike side.
European concealed hinges and Blum under-mount glides — quiet, soft-landing, adjustable
Every soft-close hinge upgrade uses European concealed hinges from Blum, Salice, or Grass with built-in BLUMOTION (Blum) or SilentSystem (Salice) damping. Drawer slide upgrades use Blum TANDEM or Salice FUTURA under-mount glides with built-in soft-close. Three-way adjustability on every hinge for door alignment after install. Quiet operation, no slam, doors and drawers stay in alignment for a decade.
Insured, background-checked, one-year project warranty
Handis carries general liability and workers' compensation; every technician has cleared a background screening before the first job. The one-year project warranty covers our scope — cabinetry, refacing, painting, install, hardware, hinges, slides, and finish carpentry. If a finish flakes at a door pull, a veneer lifts at a corner, a drawer slide loses its soft-close, a hinge sags, or a scribed end panel pulls away from the wall within the year, we come back and fix it at no extra charge. The licensed-sub portion on the rare plumbing or electrical add-on carries the sub's own Washington L&I trade warranty, also named on the quote.
Estimate
Tell us the kitchen (galley, U-shape, L-shape with island, walk-in pantry, rental turnover), the cabinet count (count door fronts and drawer fronts), the scope you have in mind (hardware, soft-close, paint, refacing, door replacement, RTA install, island carpentry), and any known constraints — an out-of-plumb wall, an out-of-level floor, an existing tile floor you want to preserve. We send a clear estimate with any licensed-sub portion called out separately when applicable.
What Our Customers Say
Recent cabinet updates reviews from verified Seattle-area customers.
Full cabinet refacing on our 1998 oak kitchen — 38 doors, 22 drawers. Handis ordered shaker-style replacement doors and drawer faces in soft white, applied new veneer skins on every visible box face, swapped to European concealed soft-close hinges, and ran a whole-kitchen jig-drilled pull set. Eight working days. The veneer is flat, the doors hang square, and the finish looks factory.
Cabinet paint on a 1992 maple kitchen — 32 doors and 18 drawers. The tech degreased every box and door with TSP before he touched a sander, sprayed off-site on the doors, brushed-and-rolled the boxes, two coats of urethane enamel. Six months in, no chip at the door pulls. Worth the extra day of prep.
RTA install of a full IKEA Sektion kitchen — 28 cabinets, including the assembly. Handis built every box, set them on a level rail, scribed the end panels on both ends of every run, plumbed the faces, hung the doors. Four working days. Every door has a clean shadow line, every drawer closes square.
Just the cabinet hardware — 60 doors and drawer fronts, brushed-brass pulls at 96 mm on center, cabinets drilled at 3 inch from the factory. The tech filled every old hole, color-matched the stain on our walnut cabinets, jig-drilled new positions. Three hours, looks like the kitchen was built for them.
Soft-close hinge and slide upgrade on a 1990s slam-shut kitchen — 32 doors and 18 drawers. Old hinges were bare-metal European, old slides were metal-on-metal. Handis converted to Blum BLUMOTION hinges on every door and Blum TANDEM under-mount glides on every drawer. Single day. The kitchen is silent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Handis cabinet updates — pricing, scope, refacing versus painting versus full replacement, and what fits each sub-service.