Seems "normal" but not what I call reasonable. I updated my 1980 kitchen myself for $500 this included painting all the cabinets, new porcelain sink new pull down faucet hardware and poured concrete countertop. I am also in the SF Bay Area. If you are planning to sell or rent it out those eventualities are different goals. For a rental, a nice laminate countertop would be fine. For sale, granite or quartz would be a better idea. Unless the cabinets are terrible terrible just prime and paint for either eventuality. New hardware will dress it up a lot I got nice knobs on amazon for $1 each and some drawer pulls for $4.50. This post was edited by tinan on Tue, Jun 4, 13 at 19:15

@HU-694292508 I feel your pain. We ordered a cabinet refacing of our kitchen and upstairs bathrooms in mid-February. They were promised in 6-8 weeks. Nine weeks out they scheduled the install for the second week of May. Two days before then, they called to move it out two more weeks. We were getting our house ready to list and the cabinet refacing was the last (and biggest/most expensive) thing left to do. The installer came on the appointed day, did the kitchen installation but discovered that the bathroom materials were never ordered. He placed the order that day but the ETA was mid-July. I was SO mad. But I was very lucky. Our installer was a nice guy who gave me numbers of some higher-ups to call (so I overlooked the HUGE mess he and his crew made). I was very polite but firm to everyone I called. A regional installation manager arranged for a custom cabinet maker to make some temporary doors/drawer for our bathrooms so we could list our house. The installer also found that a pair of cabinet doors in the kitchen had been measured wrong. He had to trim one of them to get them installed. He took the measurements for those too. No one could give me an ETA of those doors. They were ordered on 5/19. Thursday 7/22 we closed on our house. Friday 7/23 in the middle of moving out I got a call from Home Depot Installations to schedule installation of that last pair of cabinet doors. HA! I left a note for the new owners. I am so glad to be done with Home Depot and I won't buy so much as a pack of yard bags from them again.

newer, white oak is much better looking than that old 80's-90's oak Refacing does not cost as much as replacing. I just had my cabs painted and chose to reface the doors and drawer fronts. It was only 2K more. (on top of the painting. I got solid wood doors/drawers w/mdf center panels on the doors) I think your cabs would look great painted in a soft white . absolutely do the new doors. Here's what a nice white would look like w/shaker style doors and your granite: If you like the two tone, paint the granite in a black or a charcoal gray if you go w/the white. or, do the island in dark wood stain, and the other cabs in the white. Since you also have the granite up the back, I think the white would really help to lighten up the kitchen. (look into under cabinet lighting too) And of course once you remove that horrible florescent lighting, the new lighting will make a huge difference. Any way you could raise the ceiling while you're at it? there was a poster on here who had Cosmos granite and went w/Amish built quarter sawn white oak cabs. (I think all of her cabs were in the 10K range) they are beautiful and well made This is not the same oak that's on your cabs. if you want to reface them, go w/something like this and have the bases stained to match If you want to stay w/the wood, then do this. Do not do cherry. Cherry wood has a very red undertone and I don't think it will look good w/your granite. I'd stick w/the oak or even Hickory or Walnut. Yes, reface them. Do not go w/Lowes or HD, they will cost you double what you could procure on your own. contact a local cabinet maker. similar granite to yours. I like how they did glass in some of the uppers. also like the black subway tile w/the white grout. Notice the under cabinet lighting. your granite with more of a traditional style white cab If you want to paint them, you could get solid maple doors like I did and have those painted along w/your skeleton base cabinets. this wood is knotty alder w/a dark walnut stain and another one w/red oak cabs with a lighter stain. the doors are shaker and the drawers are a slab-front. The granite is leathered. if you did a cherry, it would look something like these.

Thanks for the recommendations on the facebook group - I'm already addicted. I am definitely new to this and appreciate all the feedback. I'm hoping someone can help me more specifically so I understand. And just to be clear I am NOT be doing veneers. The basic steps as I understand them are: Measure doors and drawer fronts correctly (my current overlay is good so I don't think I need to do any math here, but I will measure multiple times). Order the correct prebore for hinges - I think what I have are the traditional screw in hinge with the 3mm distance from the cup. Order matching hinges. I'll admit this is the most confusing part - I will need to call the company and have someone walk me through this. Sand, prime, paint cabinet frames and boxes Everything arrives Have my painter paint the doors/drawers. Unless I order them pre-painted. Not sure which I should do here. .Attach hinges. Attach to cabinet boxes (can I just use the current hinge holes in my boxes to line this up?) Attach new drawer fronts. Drill for hardware What am I missing? This is all very overwhelming, thanks for your help!