Before Custom Cabinets Lynn orders anything for your Reading kitchen, we work out which of two houses you are in. The front of the house will not tell either of us.
A 20th century town with a 17th century core inside it puts a 1950s colonial revival and a genuinely old house on one street. So we look at your window casing depth first, since that is the tell and it takes about a minute.
Deep casings and thick trim mean plaster over lath and a wall that has been shifting for three hundred years. A shallow one means a stud wall that has not, and only one of the two carries a $450 to $1,600 wall-fitting line.
We only measure your opening at three heights where the house needs it. A room that came in true does not need that survey. Paying for it anyway is money that buys you nothing you will ever see.
In the older houses we cut your end panel to follow the plaster rather than closing the gap with a strip. A filler covers a gap without closing it, and in daylight the taper behind it reads from the doorway.
We hang your doors on hardware that adjusts in three directions, so your run can be brought back level a year later without new parts. Blum hinges do that, and our supplier stocks them a few miles up the road in North Reading. Once the floor has dropped another fraction, that adjustment is the whole repair.
Reading at a glance
Cabinets built to your opening run $500 to $1,200 a linear foot, and they earn that money in the older half of this town. Out on the 20th century streets past Burbank Arena and Route 128, semi-custom at $150 to $700 does the job.
We fit cabinets you have already bought at $4,500 to $15,000 a kitchen, and we tell you first whether they will sit against your walls. Boxes ordered to a catalog width for a room that was never square is the costly mistake in this trade.
The out-of-square work goes on your estimate as its own line, so you can see whether it applies to you at all. All seven tables and their sources are on our cost guide, which is where every figure on this page came from.
- Coastal exposure
- None. Inland, at 128 ft
- Housing era
- 20th century residential over a 17th century core
- What changes the job
- Two very different houses can sit on one street, so the casing depth decides the order
- Sets your permit rules
- Town of Reading building department, under 780 CMR
What cabinets cost in Reading
A house a few streets from Parker Tavern where the front looked like every colonial revival on the road. The casings said otherwise. We measured at three heights and found nearly an inch of run-out across 11 feet. The wall-fitting came in at $450 to $1,600 instead of turning up on install day. The cabinets ran $500 to $1,200 a linear foot, and that first hour with a tape was the cheapest one on the job.
| 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 Reading
How can you tell how old my house really is?
The casings and the trim, mostly. A deep casing means plaster over lath and a wall that has had centuries to move, while a shallow one means a stud wall that has not. Nothing this far back from Massachusetts Bay needs a salt spec either, so the heating season is the only thing left moving your doors.
Do I need a permit for a kitchen here?
Not for the cabinets. A straight swap that leaves your plumbing, your wiring and your walls alone counts as an ordinary repair, the same as anywhere else in Middlesex County. Move your sink, add a circuit for a range or take a wall out and the answer changes.
Is it cheaper to buy the cabinets myself?
Sometimes, and $4,500 to $15,000 is what fitting a kitchen you supplied costs. What that does not cover is boxes which will not sit against your walls. In the older half of this town that is a real risk rather than a theoretical one. We will look at the room before you order, because a return on a special-order box is usually not a return at all.