Kitchen cabinet refacing in Dubai

Refacing is how you repair kitchen cabinets whose faces have aged while the boxes behind them have not. The carcasses stay on the wall, and so do the worktop, the sink and the hob. What changes is everything you touch and see: the doors, the drawer fronts, the handles and, where they are tired too, the end panels and plinths. MBC Renovation Services prints a price for the whole job and Bamboo Woodworks prints one per door; both are set out below.

Refacing prices, by the job and by the door

The two units answer different questions. MBC's band shows what a whole makeover costs at one Dubai contractor. Bamboo's door prices let you build a figure for your own kitchen: count every door and drawer front, multiply by the starting price of the finish you want, then add the handles, the hinges and the fitting, which neither company prices separately. The door figures are starting prices, so a tall larder door or a wide pan drawer can land above them.

Send us a photo of the doors

Can you repair kitchen cabinets instead of replacing them?

Yes, when the boxes are worth keeping. That is decided by the carcass, not by the doors, so a refacer should open every unit before quoting and look for four things.

1. Hinge holes that still bite. New doors hang on hinges screwed into the side panels. Where the board around the old holes has crumbled, the screws will not hold and the new door will sag.
2. Edges that have not swollen. MDF and particleboard take in water at a cut edge and do not shrink back. A side panel that has bellied beside the sink or the dishwasher belongs to a box that needs replacing.
3. Boxes that are square. Hold a level to each unit. A twisted carcass sets new doors out of line with their neighbours, however good the doors are.
4. A layout you will keep. Refacing assumes every unit stays where it is. Once the sink or the hob is due to move, the job has become a refit.

Most refacing jobs mix the two: sound runs keep their boxes, and one failed unit, often the one under the sink, is rebuilt to match. Ask for that unit as its own line so the rest of the quote stays comparable. Our wood or MDF comparison explains why some boards cope with steam and spills better than others.

Which door finish holds up in a Dubai kitchen?

Bamboo Woodworks prices four finishes, and its own page carries the warning that matters most in this climate: PVC-wrapped doors harden in direct sunlight and can peel away from the MDF beneath. A door run under a sunny window is the wrong place for them.

• Prelaminated board, from AED 140. A decorative face bonded to the board at the factory. The cheapest door and the plainest, and only as good as the edging strip that keeps steam out of its core.
• Painted, from AED 180. Any colour, in a matte, semi-matte, semi-gloss or gloss finish. Paint shows knocks at the edges first, so ask how the edges are sealed before choosing the sheen.
• PVC, from AED 200. A foil pressed over shaped MDF, often in white gloss. Keep it out of strong sun and away from the heat of an oven door.
• Veneer, from AED 280. A thin layer of real timber over a stable board: the dearest of the four, and the one that can be lightly sanded and refinished later.

Solid timber doors appear on neither price list. Timber swells and shrinks with the humidity around it, which is why veneer on a stable board is the usual way to give a kitchen a wood face.

What does refacing change, and what does it leave alone?

A refacing quote should list every part it replaces, because the word covers anything from new handles to a new front on every unit.

• Replaced: doors, drawer fronts and handles, and often the hinges and drawer runners.
• Often replaced: end panels, plinths and cornice, so the new finish runs down to the floor and up to the ceiling line.
• Kept: the carcasses, the worktop, the sink and tap, the hob and the appliances, all on the services they use today.
• Worth a look while the doors are off: the sink base, the seal along the back of the worktop and the extractor filter, all easier to reach with the fronts removed.

Keeping the worktop sets one limit. New fronts have to clear it by the same gap as the old ones, so the refacer measures from the worktop down rather than from drawings. Where the worktop is being replaced as well, the job has moved into the refit rows of our cabinet cost guide.

Do kitchen cabinets need approval to be refaced in Dubai?

Rarely more than the lightest kind, because nothing structural and no service moves. The question is which class your community files it under.

• Emaar: its Home Modifications factsheet exempts furniture installations and regular maintenance from the NOC and says nothing about cabinet doors, so ask Emaar Community Management how it classes the job. The contractor needs an Entry Permit through ecmpermits.ae whatever the answer.
• Town Square: kitchen cabinets taken out and replaced count as a minor alteration, AED 1,000 and 2 working days. Its manual does not list a job that keeps the cabinets and changes only their fronts, so ask Community Management which tier it applies.
• Dubai Holding communities: a like-for-like swap needs no permit; a job of more than one day needs a Minor Modifications Permit, applied for on the app no later than the day before.
• Tilal Al Ghaf: a work permit before any work, and two days' written notice giving the contractors' names.

Outside Dubai, ask whether the job needs the emirate's maintenance permit: the contractor files it in Abu Dhabi, owners may apply in Ajman at AED 1,000, and in Sharjah it comes from the Inspection and Follow-up Section of the Municipality. Each Dubai developer's rules are set out on our Dubai rules page.

When are new kitchen cabinets better than refacing?

Refacing wins while the boxes are sound and the plan stays. Three things tip the balance the other way.

• A new worktop. Lifting the old top off is the moment boxes are easiest to change, and the published rows that add worktops start at AED 15,000 for a 3 x 3 metre kitchen on MBC's list.
• A new layout. A unit that moves needs a new box anyway, and a sink or hob that moves brings the approvals on our layout permits page.
• Failed carcasses in more than one run. Rebuilding one sink base is a line on a refacing quote. Rebuilding several is a new kitchen priced as a refacing job.

Where the choice is close, ask for both prices on one brief: refacing in a named door finish, and new cabinets in the same layout. Our kitchen cabinets page covers what new boxes are made of, and our kitchen renovation brief puts both versions to the same contractors.

Ask for both prices

Common questions: Cheapest Way to Renovate a Kitchen in Dubai: What It Costs and Most Expensive Part of a Kitchen Renovation in Dubai.