Kitchen cabinet restoration in Lynn, MA means keeping the woodwork your house already has rather than replacing it. Custom Cabinets Lynn prices a full strip and refinish of your run at $1,500 to $5,000. Where your old finish has gone brittle, or somebody has painted over a failing surface, we add 20% to 45% for the extra preparation. Those hours land before your finish goes on, not after. Original butler's pantries, glass-fronted uppers and built-in dressers in Marblehead, Salem and Beverly Farms are the work we take most often. Our cabinet price guide carries the restoration and refinishing lines with their sources.
Your original cabinetry is worth more than what would replace it, and it is fragile in ways new work is not.
The shapes cut into your period doors are shallow. A power sander rounds every one of them in about ten seconds, and nothing puts that back. The glass in your old uppers is often original, thinner than anything made today, and the putty holding it is a century old. The hinges and latches on your butler's pantry are usually unavailable now, and worth more than the labor to rehang them.
So we work these kitchens by hand. You get chemical stripper and hand scrapers rather than machines. Your hardware comes off and gets labeled before anything else happens. And we tell you which pieces are worth restoring and which are past it.
What we restore
Original built-ins, dressers and butler's pantries
Built-in dressers and pantry runs in a pre-1940 house were made on site by a carpenter. Nothing about yours repeats, and nothing about it is standard. We strip, repair and refinish yours in place wherever the woodwork is sound, at $1,500 to $5,000 for a run. Building a butler's pantry from scratch runs $3,000 to $12,000, so restoring the one you own is nearly always the better spend.
Glass-fronted uppers and original glass
Old glass is thinner and less even than anything made today, and that unevenness is exactly what makes a period upper look right. Where the putty has failed we take the glass out and reset it in fresh putty rather than replacing the pane. A modern pane in your old door is visible from across the room. Where one of yours is broken, we look for salvaged glass before we buy new.
Hardware that cannot be bought again
We take your original latches, catches, bin pulls and hinges off, label them and clean them rather than replacing them. Most of yours are no longer made in any form. Where a piece is genuinely missing, Emtek works in solid brass and bronze, including an unlacquered brass that ages instead of staying bright. We would rather match one missing pull than change twenty that are fine.
A period kitchen that needs more cabinets than it has
Your original kitchen was built for a household that shopped daily, so it is short on storage by any modern measure. We build new cabinets to match rather than trying to blend catalog boxes into hand-made work. Your new run gets finished alongside the old, so the two land together. Matching a finish afterwards is how your new run ends up looking new.
Where restoration is the wrong answer
If your boxes have rotted at the floor, your front frames have split right through, or the run was rebuilt badly in the seventies, it is not worth restoring. We will say so, because charging you $5,000 to restore something already finished helps nobody. You would get more out of that money in new cabinets built to the same shapes.
How we work on original cabinetry
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We record what you have before we touch it
We photograph the run, label every door, drawer and piece of hardware, and note which shapes repeat and which are one-offs. In a hand-built kitchen nothing is interchangeable, so putting yours back the way it came apart depends entirely on that record.
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We contain the room, because these houses are pre-1978
We seal your doorways and lay sheeting first. The state lead-safe rules, 454 CMR 22.00, cover any pre-1978 room past 6 square feet of disturbed paint, and a period kitchen passes that in minutes. Sealing the room and cleaning it down runs $350 to $1,200, and it goes on your quote where you can read it.
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We strip chemically and scrape by hand
We use stripper and hand scrapers on your doors and frames rather than any machine. That is both the lead-safe method and the only way your shapes survive. Dry sanding rounds every one of them, and you would be looking at that damage for good.
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We repair the woodwork rather than replacing the part
We glue split front frames back up, let in patches where a hinge has torn out, and rebuild a drawer box in matching wood rather than fitting a new one. Where a piece of yours is genuinely gone, our shop in Lawrence cuts a replacement in maple, white oak or walnut on a 1 to 2 week lead.
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We finish to the period rather than to the catalog
We build your finish up in thin coats. Where you want a hard shop surface, we spray it off site rather than brushing a varnish that was never meant for a brush. You get the same note any refinished kitchen gets: 3 to 5 days before the shelves carry weight, and 30 days to full hardness.
What restoring original cabinetry actually requires
Why people in Marblehead and Salem call us
No one wants to hand a hundred-year-old kitchen to somebody with a power sander. So we strip yours by hand and take the hardware off first. Between 45.7% and 58.0% of the housing around here went up before 1940, and the cabinets in those houses were made on site. We strip and refinish a run at $1,500 to $5,000. Where your old finish has gone brittle we add 20% to 45% for the extra preparation, and we say so before we start.
A pre-1940 kitchen is lead-safe work in every practical case
The state lead-safe rules and the federal rule behind them apply to any pre-1978 home once more than 6 square feet of painted surface is disturbed in a room. Stripping a full run of your original cabinetry is the largest disturbance in this trade. Dry sanding is out, and so is anything using an open flame or high heat. We seal your room and clean it down wet at $350 to $1,200.
Machine sanding a period door is not reversible
The shapes cut into a hand-made door are shallow and crisp, and a power sander flattens them in a single pass. The damage reads as new work in your old room, and no finish disguises it. That is why hand scraping is our method here rather than a preference. It is also most of the reason your restoration costs more than a repaint.
Old woodwork beats what governs new work
A new cabinet shelf has to hold 15 lb per square foot for a week, and a new door has to survive 25,000 opens. A dovetailed drawer in solid wood and a front frame jointed in 1910 clear both comfortably, which is the real argument for keeping yours. What fails on period cabinetry is almost always the finish, the hardware and the drawer bottoms. None of that work is filed, either, because restoring a built-in leaves your plumbing, wiring and structure alone. Moving a sink out of an original dresser does cross that line.
Numbers worth knowing
| Stripping and refinishing a standard run | $1,500 to $5,000 |
|---|---|
| Heavy prep surcharge, brittle or failing finish | 20% to 45% added |
| Lead-safe containment and cleanup | $350 to $1,200 |
| Rebuilding a butler's pantry from scratch | $3,000 to $12,000 |
| Restaining, priced by area | $4 to $15 per square foot |
| Lynn housing predating 1940 | 45.7% to 58.0% |
Painting a Lynn kitchen runs $2,000 to $6,500 sprayed, or $30 to $70 per linear foot. Stripping and refinishing back to wood runs $1,500 to $5,000. A competitor publishes $2,800 to $5,800 on its own Lynn page. What moves the number is the prep, not the paint.
| What the job is | Typical range | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Painting a standard kitchen, doors off and sprayedDoors and fronts come off, get degreased, scuffed, primed and sprayed, and go back on adjusted. The boxes are cut in on site. This is the whole job for a kitchen whose boxes and layout are fine. | $2,000 – $6,500 | installed |
| Cabinet painting priced by the footThe comparison number. Measure the run of base and wall cabinets along the wall. Two quotes on the same kitchen are only comparable once they are both expressed this way. | $30 – $70 | per linear foot |
| Sprayed finish, priced by the footSpraying costs 30% to 70% more per foot than brush and roll, and it is the difference between a finish with no brush marks and one with them. On a door you touch six times a day, that gap shows. | $40 – $100 | per linear foot |
| Painting priced per door and drawer frontUseful on a partial job, an island only, or a kitchen where half the doors were already replaced. Counts fronts the same as doors because the prep is the same. | $100 – $250 | per door or front |
| Stripping and refinishing back to wood, standard kitchenWhere the wood is worth keeping and the finish is not. Strip, sand, stain if the color is changing, then a new topcoat. Different job from painting and a different result. | $1,500 – $5,000 | installed |
| Restaining, priced by areaMeasured across the visible door and front surface rather than the run. The spread is wide because oak takes a color change badly and maple takes it evenly, and one of those needs a toner coat. | $4 – $15 | per square foot |
| Published Lynn comparable, cabinet refinishingA live price published by a contractor on its own Lynn page. Carried here because it is the only local figure in this whole table, and it sits above the national range at both ends. | $2,800 – $5,800 | installed |
| Heavy prep surcharge, cabinets in poor conditionPeeling finish, water swelling, old varnish that has gone brittle, or a previous paint job that was never degreased. All of that is stripping time, and it is added rather than absorbed. | $20 – $45 | percent added |
| Catalysed conversion varnish or pigmented lacquer, sprayed off siteThe shop finish rather than the brushable one. Doors go out, get sprayed in a booth and come back, which is why it costs more and why it holds up under a coffee pot. | $1,200 – $3,600 | added to the job |
| Lead-safe containment and cleanup on a pre-1978 kitchenSealing the room, no dry sanding, HEPA vacuum and a wet cleanup. On a kitchen built before 1978 this governs the method, so it is either on the quote or it is being skipped. | $350 – $1,200 | per 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 asked
How much does restoring antique kitchen cabinets cost in Lynn?
$1,500 to $5,000 to strip and refinish a standard run. We add 20% to 45% where your old finish has gone brittle. Sealing and cleaning a pre-1978 kitchen adds $350 to $1,200, and you will see it as its own line on our quote.
Can original built-in cabinets be restored, or should they be replaced?
Restored, in almost every case where the woodwork is sound. A dovetailed drawer and a front frame jointed in 1910 beat the 15 lb per square foot and 25,000 opens that govern new work. What fails on yours is the finish, the hardware and the drawer bottoms.
Why can't you sand antique cabinet doors?
Two reasons. A power sander flattens the shallow shapes on your door in one pass, and nothing brings them back. Dry sanding is also out under the lead-safe rules in any pre-1978 room past 6 square feet of disturbed paint.
What happens to original cabinet hardware during a restoration?
It comes off, gets labeled and cleaned, and goes back on. Most period latches, bin pulls and hinges are no longer made in any form, so replacing your set is not really an option. We match single missing pieces rather than changing the lot.
Can you add new cabinets to match an original kitchen?
Yes, built to match rather than blended in. Catalog boxes never sit right beside your hand-made work. We build the new run to your existing shapes and finish both together, so they land as one kitchen rather than being matched after the fact.
Who restores antique kitchen cabinets near me in Lynn?
Custom Cabinets Lynn restores period cabinetry across Lynn, Marblehead, Salem and the North Shore at $1,500 to $5,000 a run. We strip with chemicals and scrape by hand, because a machine takes the shape off a period door in a single pass.
Original cabinetry is one of the few things in an old house that is genuinely better than what would replace it. Most of what ruins it is done in good faith with the wrong tool. We work these kitchens by hand, and we tell you honestly when a run is past saving.
If the finish rather than the woodwork is what has failed, cabinet refinishing covers the strip and rebuild. Where the walls behind the run have moved with the house, cabinets for out-of-square walls is the one to read, and everything we handle lists the rest.