Cabinet repair in Lynn, MA starts with your hardware more often than with your wood, and Custom Cabinets Lynn does most of these jobs in one visit. Your hinges are $30 to $80 a door in parts and labor, and a drawer runner is $60 to $180 a drawer fitted. Taking a whole kitchen over to soft-close runs $600 to $1,600. We change hinges in pairs rather than one at a time, because once one has pulled out of a door the other is already loosening. Those figures and the rest of our repair table sit on the cabinet price guide.
Most people call us about a door and describe a wood problem. About half the time your wood is fine and the hardware moved.
A modern hinge sits in a round hole bored into the back of your door. In a particleboard door that hole holds its screws for as long as nobody leans on the open door. Once it starts to pull, your door drops at the outer corner and catches its neighbor. From three feet away that looks exactly like a warp.
Your drawers do the same thing. A runner that has worn, bent under a heavy load or lost a bearing makes the drawer drag, tip or refuse the last inch. The box itself is usually fine. Pull the drawer right out and you will know which one you have in about ten seconds.
What has actually failed
The hinges you already have, adjusted or replaced
Your hinges adjust three ways: up and down, in and out, and side to side. Plenty of the doors we are called to look at need nothing more than someone running all three properly. Where the hinge has torn out of the door edge, we replace it at $30 to $80 with the mounting plate. Blum hinges drop into the same round hole most other makes use, so we can usually match what is on your kitchen rather than redrilling the run.
Old hinges with no adjustment in them at all
Plenty of Lynn kitchens still carry an old hinge that screws to the front frame and cannot be adjusted. A door that has dropped on those can only be shimmed. Moving your run to modern hinges means drilling a 35mm hole in every door, which is a real job rather than a swap. We say so at the quote, because it turns a $30 to $80 a door figure into something a good deal larger.
Runners that hide under the drawer, and runners that do not
Undermount runners sit beneath your drawer where you never see them. Side-mount runners screw to the sides of the box, carry more weight and suit an odd-sized drawer. A Blum undermount runner is rated for a drawer full of pots, and your widest pan drawer beside the range is the one that gets past that first. It is nearly always the runner that failed there. We fit runners at $60 to $180 a drawer, and the hardware on its own is $7 to $15 a pair.
Taking a whole kitchen over to soft-close
We fit soft-close hinges and runners across a kitchen for $600 to $1,600, and doing them as a set costs far less per door than one at a time. It is the change people notice most in a kitchen they otherwise like, and it takes about a day. Pull-outs and a waste unit can go in on the same visit. That is worth thinking about in a small pre-1940 Lynn kitchen, where nothing reaches the back of a corner.
When the hardware is not the answer
Look at the gaps between your doors. Where they taper the same way all along the run, your boxes have moved with the floor and no hinge adjustment will hold. That is a rehang and re-square at $220 to $700. Adjusting one door on a tilted run just moves the problem one cabinet over, and we would rather say so than take your money for a fix we know will fail.
How we find out which one it is
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We ask you to open the door and pull the drawer out
We can settle most of these on the phone. A drawer that comes out and looks sound points at a runner. A door that catches its neighbor points at a hinge. You save yourself a visit when the answer is a part we can bring with us.
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We check every hinge on the run, not just the loud one
We look at every hinge in your kitchen while we are there, because a door that has lost one is rarely the only one heading that way. That is why we replace them in pairs. It costs you less than having us come back.
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We identify what you already have before ordering
We measure the hole in your door, the height of the mounting plate and the length of your runners. Matching what is already there is what keeps this a same-week job. Our hardware supplier in North Reading is about twelve miles from your kitchen, so most parts land in a couple of days.
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We repair the hole rather than filling it
We plug a torn-out hole with hardwood and drill it again. A screw hole packed with filler and a toothpick lasts about a month under a door you open daily. Where your door edge has broken right through, we say so, because a new front at $180 to $330 is then the honest answer.
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We set every gap before we leave
We run all three adjustments on every hinge and set your gaps for the damp end of the year. Doors here grow through the summer, so gaps that look right in February are tight by August. You walk the run with us at the end, because a gap you can live with is your call rather than ours.
What the hardware on a quote should actually promise
Why people here call us about a door and get a part
No one wants to be told the kitchen needs replacing when a hinge has come loose. So we start with the part, not the catalog. Most Lynn kitchens went up around 1946 and are on their second or third set of hinges by now. We change yours in pairs at $30 to $80 a door and fit drawer runners at $60 to $180. If you want the whole kitchen done at once, that is $600 to $1,600 and about a day's work.
Soft-close is two claims wearing one word
Soft-close is a damper in the hinge or the runner that catches the last inch of travel. It does not make a tired particleboard door hold a screw any better. So a quote that says soft-close has described the hardware and told you nothing about the door or what it hangs from. On an old door the mounting is the half that gives out, so ask about both.
One standard hole is why matching is cheap and converting is not
Modern hinges are all built around the same 35mm round hole in the back of the door, set the same distance in from the edge. That is why one make drops into another's hole and matching yours costs almost nothing. A kitchen with old front-frame hardware has no such hole, so converting means drilling every door. That single difference is why one quote reads $30 to $80 a door and another reads several times that.
Nothing here is filed, and some of it is still regulated
Your plumbing, wiring, walls and gas all stay where they are on a hardware job, so the state treats it as an ordinary repair and nothing gets filed. Where we have to drill or sand a painted pre-1978 door, the state lead-safe rules still apply past 6 square feet of disturbed paint, 454 CMR 22.00. On a hardware-only job we rarely get near that. It is one of the few times a 1946 kitchen is the easy case.
Numbers worth knowing
| Hinge repair or replacement | $30 to $80 per door |
|---|---|
| Drawer runner replacement, fitted | $60 to $180 per drawer |
| Drawer runner hardware, materials only | $7 to $15 per pair |
| Soft-close retrofit across a kitchen | $600 to $1,600 |
| Rehanging and re-squaring a run | $220 to $700 |
| Hinge hole in the back of the door | 35mm |
A simple cabinet repair in Lynn runs $120 to $600. A hinge is $30 to $80 per door and a drawer runner $60 to $180 per drawer installed. A water-damaged sink base runs $400 to $1,400. What moves the number is whether the box is still sound underneath.
| What the job is | Typical range | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Simple cabinet repairA loose door, a broken shelf, a cabinet floor that has given way, a face frame joint that has opened. The visit and the fix together. | $120 – $600 | per repair |
| Hinge repair or replacementUsually done in pairs, because when one hinge cup has pulled out of the door the other is already loosening. Cheapest repair on the table. | $30 – $80 | per door, parts and labor |
| Drawer runner hardware, materials onlySide-mount runners at the bottom of that. An undermount soft-close set costs several times this and is a different line. | $7 – $15 | per pair |
| Drawer runner replacement, installedPulling the drawer, taking off the old runner, drilling and setting the new one, then adjusting the front so the reveal matches its neighbors. | $60 – $180 | per drawer |
| Soft-close hinge retrofit across a kitchenEvery door in a normal kitchen changed over at once. Worth doing as a set rather than one at a time, because the doors need re-adjusting either way. | $600 – $1,600 | per kitchen |
| Rehanging and re-squaring a run of doors after settlementWhere nothing is broken and nothing lines up. Common in older houses where the floor has moved under the base cabinets and taken every reveal with it. | $220 – $700 | per run |
| Rebuilding a drawer box in dovetailed hardwoodWhere the old box has split at the corners or the bottom has dropped out. Made to the opening rather than to a standard size, so the front and the reveals stay as they were. | $180 – $450 | per drawer |
| Replacing a water-damaged sink base or dishwasher end panelA particleboard base that has swollen under a slow leak does not dry back. It gets replaced, and the neighboring boxes get checked before anything new goes in. | $400 – $1,400 | per box |
Tell us about the problem
Send photos and one measurement across it, and we will tell you whether you are looking at a repair at $120 to $600, a reface at $5,000 to $13,000, or new boxes.
Questions we get asked
How much does it cost to replace cabinet hinges?
$30 to $80 per door in parts and labor, and we do them in pairs. Once one has pulled out of your door the second is already loosening. Doing both now costs you less than having us come back in six months.
How much are new drawer slides fitted?
$60 to $180 per drawer fitted, with the hardware itself at $7 to $15 a pair for a side-mount runner. Soft-close runners that hide under the drawer cost several times that in parts. We price a whole-kitchen soft-close change at $600 to $1,600.
Will soft-close hinges fix a door that sticks?
No. Soft-close changes how your door lands, not how wide it is or where it hangs. If the door binds on the frame, the hinge is doing the least of anything involved. That is worth knowing before you spend $600 to $1,600.
Can any hinge fit my cabinet doors?
Any modern hinge built for the standard 35mm hole will fit, which covers Blum and most of the market. Older front-frame hinges have no such hole, so moving your run over means drilling every door. We price that as a real job.
How much weight can a kitchen drawer slide hold?
A Blum runner that hides under the drawer is rated for a drawer full of pots. Your widest pan drawer gets past that easily, which is why we put a heavier side-mount runner under it rather than one chosen by width.
Who repairs cabinet hinges and drawers near me in Lynn?
Custom Cabinets Lynn repairs hardware across Lynn and the North Shore at $30 to $80 a door and $60 to $180 a drawer. We match what is already on your kitchen where we can, and parts come through North Reading in a couple of days.
Hardware is the cheapest way into this trade and the fastest job to book. Plenty of the calls we take here end with a part rather than a visit. We would rather tell you which screwdriver to reach for than charge you to hold it.
If your doors move with the seasons rather than having dropped, warped and sticking cabinet doors is the page for that. Where the drawer boxes themselves have opened up, sagging shelves and broken drawer boxes covers it, and everything we handle lists the rest.