Reface while your boxes are still sound. Refacing a kitchen here runs $5,000 to $13,000 against $10,000 to $26,500 for fully custom replacement. Replace once the sink cabinet has swollen through, the frames have gone out of square, or the layout itself is what you want changed.
Most of the kitchens people bring to Custom Cabinets Lynn as replacements turn out to be refaces, so we open three doors before quoting either one. The boxes decide this. The doors you are looking at tell you almost nothing about them.
Start under your sink, because that is where the failure lives. Push a blade into the floor of your sink cabinet at the back corner where the trap drips. If it goes in like cheese, your box has swollen and will not dry back. New veneer over a box in that state lifts within a year, and the veneer gets blamed for a fault that was already there. Replacing one failed box during a reface is $400 to $1,400, which is why we price it as its own line rather than folding it into a total.
Next, pull one of your loaded shelves. A shelf that bows under your plates was never built to carry them. That is a testable question about your boxes rather than a claim about the shop that made them.
Third, put a level on a base cabinet and look down the gaps between your doors. We can often re-square frames that have shifted with a settling floor for $220 to $700. Where the joints themselves have opened, you would be refacing a box that is already coming apart.
The layout question overrides all three. Refacing keeps every dimension of your kitchen exactly where it is. If you want the sink moved, an island in, or the run taken to the ceiling, you are replacing, whatever the boxes are worth. Nobody should spend $9,000 skinning a kitchen they were going to redraw anyway.
One thing lands on both of your quotes here. Lynn's median construction year is 1946, so your kitchen most likely sits under lead-safe work rules once more than 6 square feet of painted surface gets disturbed. Containment and cleanup run $350 to $1,200 whichever route you take. If it is on one quote and missing from the other, your two quotes are not comparable.
Our cabinet cost guide puts refacing, painting and full replacement in the same tables so you can read the gap yourself.
Related questions
How do I know whether my cabinet boxes are worth keeping?
Probe the floor of your sink cabinet with a blade and pull a loaded shelf. A box that takes the blade has swollen, and we replace it at $400 to $1,400. A shelf that bows was never built to carry your weight. Sound boxes reface for $5,000 to $13,000.
Is refacing ever a waste of money?
Yes, in two cases. It wastes money on a kitchen whose layout you want changed, because refacing keeps every dimension where it is. It also wastes money on failed boxes, where you pay $150 to $450 a foot to skin something with two years left in it.
Is painting cheaper than either?
Much cheaper. Painting a kitchen runs $2,000 to $6,500 sprayed against $5,000 to $13,000 to reface, and it keeps your existing doors. It is the right answer when your doors are dated in color rather than in style.