Custom Cabinets Lynn asks which part of Medford you are in before we talk about cabinets. A South Medford two-family and a house up in the Brooks Estates are two different jobs.
Three centuries of housing sit inside nine square miles here, and the eras meet at street corners. So we measure your room first, since a layout drawn for one of them is wrong for the next.
The salt spec does not travel this far, because you are up the Mystic River rather than out on the bay. What governs a kitchen here is the heating season, and a door panel glued into its frame is the first thing it cracks.
A two-family in South Medford is turnaround work with a tenant date attached. A house in the Brooks Estates is a design conversation with no date at all. We price both off the same tables, so the lines your job carries and the lines it does not are visible to you.
We take your fit-out in the order the room can stand. In an occupied kitchen your sink goes back before the trim does. On an empty house that order flips, and the whole run lands before anything gets adjusted.
Where the walls have leaned we cut your end panels to follow them, at $450 to $1,600. The alternative is packing the gap behind a strip. A century of settlement puts the taper at the top of the run, where your eye lands, and not down at the floor.
Medford at a glance
Refacing at $5,000 to $13,000 is most of what the two-family stock buys, and it leaves your plumbing, your counter and your layout alone. Doors and fronts across a whole kitchen come to $2,200 to $6,600, or $180 to $330 a door where only some are going.
For a house on the hill we build to your opening at $500 to $1,200 a linear foot, and semi-custom sits at $150 to $700. Most of that gap is whether the room is square, which is a question about the decade the house went up.
We spray Benjamin Moore ADVANCE on site at $2,000 to $6,500 where your boxes are sound and only the finish has failed. Nothing on this page is a number we invented, and our cost guide names the source for each one.
- Coastal exposure
- None. Inland on the Mystic River
- Housing era
- 1692 through the 1840s through post-war, all inside nine square miles
- What changes the job
- The neighborhood predicts the job. The city name does not
- Sets your permit rules
- City of Medford building department, under 780 CMR
What cabinets cost in Medford
A house in West Medford where the kitchen had been extended once in the fifties. The two halves of the floor sat three quarters of an inch apart. We set the base run to the low side and cut the uppers to follow the ceiling line. That came to $450 to $1,600 on top of $500 to $1,200 a linear foot. We left the step in the floor alone, because that is a flooring job rather than a cabinet job. We said so before anybody paid for a drawing.
| 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 Medford
Why does my neighbor's quote look nothing like mine?
Because you probably do not have the same house. Three centuries of stock sit inside these nine square miles, and a colonial frame carries a $450 to $1,600 wall-fitting line that a post-war frame never does. We write that line on its own, so two quotes from the same street can be compared rather than guessed at.
Can you work in a kitchen we are still living in?
Most of ours are. We take the fit in an order that puts your sink and your range back in service at the end of each day. The trim and the adjustment go last. That adds time to the job rather than money, so what you are trading is a week and not a budget line.
How does painting compare with replacing in a house like this?
$2,000 to $6,500 against $500 to $1,200 a linear foot for new cabinets. Painting is the right answer where your boxes are sound and only the finish has gone. In this Middlesex County stock that is more often than most people expect. Where the cabinet under your sink has already rotted, replacing that one box is $400 to $1,400.