Custom Cabinets Lynn prices your Malden refit against a rent roll and a plaster wall at the same time. Under half of the 27,721 units here are owner-occupied, and the stock you are buying into is late 19th century.
The wall-fitting work goes on your quote as its own $450 to $1,600 line, because on a rent roll you need to know which costs repeat. A filler strip is the cheap way past that wall, and it is the first thing a tenant sees from the doorway.
Your lead-safe work is a separate $350 to $1,200 line for the same reason, since the rule attaches to each pre-1978 room you own. The threshold is 6 square feet of disturbed paint in one room, and a wall of original doors clears it before lunch.
The floor under most base runs here has dropped enough to tilt every cabinet above it. A run hung square to a level line will not sit against that wall. So the fix is cutting your end panel to follow the plaster instead. That spends hours rather than material, and it is the line most quotes bury.
We tell you what each of those lines costs per unit rather than per job. A figure you can carry from a unit in Maplewood to the next one in Linden is the only one that plans anything. Painting works out at $30 to $70 a linear foot and a front swap at $180 to $330 a door. Both of those scale cleanly across your building.
The Malden River joins the Mystic well upstream of Massachusetts Bay, so the salt that rules hardware on the coast never reaches your kitchen. What moves your doors instead is the heating season. That is why we leave the gaps a shade wider than a February fit would want.
Malden at a glance
Painting what you already own at $2,000 to $6,500 changes more per dollar than anything else we do. Cabinets in poor condition add 20% to 45%, because peeling finish and cracked varnish are stripping time rather than paint.
We spray Benjamin Moore ADVANCE where a unit can sit idle for a week, since it levels like an oil and will not yellow on a white door. Keep weight off your shelves for the first 3 to 5 days, and it is fully cured at 30.
Where your unit has to be back on the market fast, refacing at $5,000 to $13,000 leaves every dimension standing. A semi-custom rebuild at $150 to $700 a foot covers the units where the boxes have already rotted out.
- Coastal exposure
- None. Inland on the Malden River
- Housing era
- Late 19th century expansion into early 20th century development
- What changes the job
- 47.2% owner-occupied, so most of the work is priced against a rent roll
- Sets your permit rules
- City of Malden building department, under 780 CMR
What cabinets cost in Malden
We took on a three-family in Edgeworth where all three kitchens had the same 1890s layout. Each had the same bowed back wall behind the sink. We fitted each run to the wall at $450 to $1,600 and sprayed the boxes at $2,000 to $6,500 a unit. We took one kitchen per vacancy across fourteen months. The lead-safe setup was carried at $350 to $1,200 on all three, because the rule attaches to the room and not to the address.
| What the job is | Typical range | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Fully custom cabinetry, built to the openingDrawn to your kitchen rather than assembled from catalog sizes. Any width, any height, any depth, and no filler strips standing in for a wall that is not straight. | $500 – $1,200 | per linear foot, installed |
| High-end custom: inset doors, specialty species, hand-applied finishInset doors sit inside the frame rather than over it, which means every reveal has to be even and every one is visible. That is where the hours go. | $1,200 – $2,500 | per linear foot, installed |
| Semi-custom cabinetryCatalog boxes with real choices on door style, finish and some sizes. The middle of the market and the honest answer for most Lynn kitchens. | $150 – $700 | per linear foot, installed |
| Stock cabinetryFixed sizes off a shelf, usually in three-inch increments. Cheapest per foot, and the version most likely to need filler strips against a pre-1940 wall. | $100 – $400 | per linear foot, installed |
| Fully custom 10x10 kitchenThe standard comparison kitchen the industry prices against, roughly 20 linear feet of cabinetry. Use it to sanity-check a quote, not to price your own room. | $10,000 – $26,500 | installed |
| Stock or semi-custom 10x10 kitchenThe same comparison kitchen in catalog boxes. The gap against the custom line above is the whole decision in one number. | $3,000 – $11,000 | installed |
| Building and installation labor alone, on custom workRuns 25% to 40% of the total on a custom job. Worth knowing, because a quote where labor is far under that is either using catalog boxes or leaving something out. | $200 – $300 | per linear foot |
| Installing cabinets you already haveHanging, leveling, scribing, joining and setting the doors on boxes bought elsewhere. The spread is mostly about how true the walls and floor are. | $4,500 – $15,000 | per kitchen |
| A published North Shore figure for the same job, Salem MAOne live, published, local number for a full cabinet installation. Carried because it is the only one in this table that came from this side of the state, and because it sits above the top of the national custom range. | $28,564 | as quoted |
| Scribing and leveling a run into a pre-1940 openingPlaster over lath, a floor that has settled, and no corner at a true 90 degrees. Scribing the end panels and stiles to the real wall instead of filling the gap. On a 1946 kitchen this is normal work, not an extra. | $450 – $1,600 | added to the job |
Want yours measured properly?
We come out, measure the opening at three heights and check how far off square your walls sit, then put a written number on it before anything is ordered.
Questions we get from Malden
What does a landlord actually need on a cabinet quote here?
Two lines, and both of them repeat. The wall-fitting at $450 to $1,600 and the lead-safe setup at $350 to $1,200 are per-room costs, so they land again in the next unit you turn over. We put both on the estimate rather than inside the rate. Your second kitchen is then a number you already hold rather than another site visit.
Is it worth painting a rental kitchen rather than replacing it?
$2,000 to $6,500 against $10,000 to $26,500 answers most of that on its own. Painting keeps your boxes, your layout and your countertop, and it finishes in about a week rather than in months. What it will not fix is a cabinet that has already failed under your sink. That one is $400 to $1,400 to put right whatever color goes over it.
How much does the age of the building add to the job?
$450 to $1,600 a kitchen, and your quote should carry it twice if you own two. Stock from the 1890s has had a hundred and thirty years to settle, so we fit your run to the wall that is actually there. Skip it and a tapered filler strip goes against the plaster instead. Everyone who walks through your door sees it.