Quick answer
Replacing kitchen doors and drawer fronts in New Zealand usually costs 30 to 45 percent of a full replacement kitchen. The finish drives the price: melamine-faced fronts sit at the bottom of the range, painted 2-pac lacquer at the top, and a kitchen heavy on drawer banks costs more than the same run in cupboards because every drawer front is a separate piece.
Key points
- Price is driven by finish first, front count second, and the room itself barely at all.
- Count your fronts before asking for a price. A bank of four drawers is four fronts, not one.
- New hinges, handles and soft-close are usually worth doing at the same time and do move the number.
- Painted 2-pac roughly doubles the per-front cost of a melamine-faced door.
- If new doors are approaching 60 percent of a new kitchen, price both properly before deciding.
Almost nobody publishes a number for this, which is why it is such a frustrating thing to research. Part of the reason is genuine: the price depends far more on what you choose and how many pieces you have than on the size of the room, so a single figure would mislead more than it helped. But the structure of the price is easy to explain, and once you understand it you can estimate your own kitchen closely enough to decide.
You are buying pieces, not metres
A new kitchen is priced by the metre because you are buying cabinets. A re-front is priced by the piece, because that is what is being made. Two kitchens of identical length can differ by a third if one is mostly cupboards and the other is mostly drawers.
So the first thing to do is count. Every hinged door is one. Every drawer front is one, so a four-drawer bank is four. Any panel you want replaced to match, like the end of a run or a fridge surround, is one more. Most standard Auckland kitchens land somewhere in the high teens to high twenties.
| Choice | Relative cost | Why | Worth it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melamine-faced (Melteca and similar) | Lowest | Board is faced at the factory, no spray finishing, edge tape applied and done | Rentals, budget refresh, anywhere durability beats depth of finish |
| Vinyl-wrapped | Low to mid | Thermoformed over MDF, allows profiles without spraying | Shaker-look on a budget, though it can lift near heat over time |
| Painted 2-pac lacquer | Highest, roughly double melamine | MDF machined, primed, sprayed and cured, several stages with handling between each | Owner-occupier kitchens where the finish is the point |
| Real timber or veneer | High and variable | Material cost plus matching grain across a run | Character homes, feature runs, where the grain is the design |
What people forget to budget
The fronts themselves are the headline, but three things sit alongside them and regularly surprise people.
- Hinges. If you are replacing doors it is false economy to hang them on twenty-year-old hinges, and soft-close is a noticeable upgrade while everything is off anyway.
- Handles. Cheap on their own, but new holes rarely land where the old ones were, so there may be making good on any door being kept.
- The benchtop. Nothing shows up an old benchtop like a set of new doors. Doing both at once costs less than doing them a year apart.
When re-fronting stops making sense
There is a crossover point. If your kitchen needs new fronts, new hinges, new handles, a new benchtop and one or two carcasses replaced because of water damage, you are buying most of a kitchen in pieces and paying more for the awkwardness of working around what stays. Once the door option gets past roughly 60 percent of a full replacement, price both properly, because the new kitchen also fixes the layout and comes with a fresh set of carcasses.
The reverse is also true and worth saying. If your boxes are sound, your layout works and you simply cannot stand the colour, spending fifteen thousand to change what you could change for five is not a better outcome. It is just a bigger one.
Getting a number you can rely on
Any firm price needs a measure, because door replacement is dimensional work rather than nominal work. But you can get very close before anyone visits by counting your fronts, deciding on a finish and saying whether you want new hinges and handles. That is enough for a quote that will not move much.
Frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to replace kitchen doors than the whole kitchen?
Substantially, in most cases. Doors and drawer fronts typically run 30 to 45 percent of a full replacement, and you avoid the demolition, the benchtop and the disruption.
How much do painted doors cost compared to melamine?
Roughly double per front. Painted 2-pac is machined, primed, sprayed and cured with handling between each stage, where a melamine-faced door is cut from pre-finished board and edged.
Do I need new hinges?
Not always, but it is usually worth it. Old hinges are the reason doors sit unevenly, and adding soft-close is far easier while the doors are already off.
Why do quotes vary so much for the same kitchen?
Usually front count and finish, occasionally scope. Check that every quote includes the same number of pieces, the same hardware and the same making good, otherwise you are comparing different jobs.
Can I supply my own doors and have you fit them?
It is possible, but the risk sits with whoever measured. Door replacement lives or dies on the measure, and if the sizes are wrong the fit cannot fix it.