Installation only
Cabinet Installation in San Mateo, CA
Yes, you can hire us to install cabinets you already own. We do installation-only work for homeowners and general contractors throughout San Mateo and the Peninsula, whether the boxes came from a showroom, arrived flat-packed from IKEA, or have been sitting in your garage since the project stalled. You end up with a run that is level, scribed tight to the walls, and tuned so the door gaps line up.
We build cabinets too, but that is not a condition of hiring us to hang them. Plenty of our install days start with a delivery someone else sold.
What Installation-Only Cabinet Service Covers
Installation-only means you supply the cabinetry and we supply the carpentry. Four kinds of jobs make up most of what we install.
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Cabinets you bought yourself
Semi-custom or stock boxes ordered from a showroom, a dealer, or online. You handle the order and the delivery, we handle everything from unboxing to the last hinge adjustment.
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IKEA and other RTA carcasses
Ready-to-assemble kitchens arrive as flat panels and a rail system. We assemble the boxes, lay out and level the rail, hang the fronts, and cut the toe kicks and end panels to fit the room.
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General contractor handoffs
GCs bring us in for the cabinetry phase when they would rather not pull a finish carpenter off other work. We coordinate with your plumber, electrician, and stone fabricator directly.
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Partial and add-on runs
A single vanity, a laundry wall, a pantry cabinet, or one bank of uppers. Small jobs are welcome and are usually a half day to a day on site.
On an install day the work runs in a fixed order. We check the floor and walls for level and square and mark a reference line, set and shim the base cabinets to that line, fasten them to studs and to each other, then hang the uppers. Fillers, end panels, toe kicks, and crown get cut and fitted on site. Doors and drawer fronts go on last, and every hinge gets adjusted until the reveals read even down the whole run.
A few things fall outside this service, and it is better to know up front. We do not connect plumbing or run electrical, so a plumber sets your sink and disposal and an electrician handles new circuits. We do not fabricate stone, though we coordinate the template visit with your fabricator. And we do not order cabinets on your behalf.
Why Precise Cabinet Installation Matters in Older San Mateo Homes
Cabinets are made in a factory where every surface is flat and every corner is 90 degrees. San Mateo houses are not. Most of the local housing stock is 60 to 100 years old, sitting on soil that has moved, with subfloors that have taken decades of load. A 12-foot kitchen wall that drops three-eighths of an inch from one end to the other is completely ordinary here, and so are walls that bow in the middle and inside corners that open a quarter inch. That holds for a 1920s bungalow in Burlingame and for a 1960s house in Foster City sitting on fill.
None of that is a problem if the installer accounts for it. All of it is a problem if the installer starts at one end and works down the wall. Set the first base cabinet to the floor instead of to a level line and by the fourth box the counter runs visibly downhill, the drawers drift closed on their own, and the dishwasher will not sit flush with the cabinet fronts.
So we do it the other way around. We find the high point of the floor first, strike a level reference line across the entire run, and shim every cabinet up to that line. The gap that creates at the low end disappears under the toe kick. Where a cabinet meets a wall that is out of plumb or bowed, we scribe the stile: mark the actual wall contour on the cabinet, cut to that line, and the cabinet lands tight against real plaster instead of leaving a wedge of shadow.
This is also why counter coordination belongs in the install conversation. Stone fabricators template off installed cabinets, so anything out of level or out of line at that moment gets permanently recorded in a slab of quartz. Getting the boxes right before the templater arrives is the cheapest insurance in the whole project.
What Cabinet Installation Costs in San Mateo
Installation is priced per box, because box count is what actually predicts labor. Most cabinets run $100 to $200 apiece to hang. A wall cabinet costs more than a base cabinet, and a tall pantry unit costs more than either, since both have to be lifted, held, and fastened into studs while somebody checks them for plumb. For a kitchen of 18 to 25 boxes that puts the cabinetry labor between $1,800 and $5,000, before any of the four separate lines below. A single vanity or one short run gets a flat price instead. On top of the boxes, four things are priced separately.
- Assembly. Flat-packed carcasses reach you as a stack of panels, and building them is real time that a pre-assembled cabinet does not cost you.
- Site conditions. Shimming a bad floor, adding blocking for floating cabinets or a heavy upper run, and furring out a bowed wall are quoted once we have seen the room.
- Fillers, panels, and trim. Scribe fillers, finished end panels, toe kicks, light rail, and crown are fabrication on site rather than assembly.
- Counter coordination. Setting the bases early for the template visit, then returning after the stone is installed to reinstall the sink cabinet front, hang doors, and do the final hinge pass.
Removing and disposing of your existing cabinets is a separate line as well. Everything is itemized in writing before install day. For what it costs to have cabinets built rather than supplied, see our custom cabinet cost guide.
Scheduling Your Cabinet Installation
Book the install as soon as your cabinets have a delivery date, not after they arrive. Install slots on the Peninsula fill several weeks out in spring and summer, and a kitchen sitting in boxes in your garage is a kitchen you are not using. We work across San Mateo County, from Millbrae down through Belmont and Redwood City.
Before we schedule, we do a free in-home visit to see the room, count the boxes against your order, and check the floor and walls. That visit is what makes the quote firm. It also catches the two things that most often derail an install: a missing or damaged item in the delivery, and a plumbing or electrical rough-in that has to move before cabinets can go against the wall.
Three things need to be true on install day. The cabinets are on site and unwrapped enough to inspect. The room is empty, with the old cabinetry out if we are not doing the demo. And the plumbing and electrical rough-in is finished, since anything inside a wall is far harder to reach once boxes are screwed over it. Get those right and a kitchen goes in over 2 to 5 days.
If it turns out that what you bought will not work in the room, we will say so at the visit instead of on install day. Sometimes the better answer is building the run instead. See custom kitchen cabinets or custom bathroom cabinets for what that involves, and the cities we serve to confirm we cover your street.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does installation-only cabinet service cost in San Mateo?
We price install-only work by the box. Most cabinets in San Mateo come out between $100 and $200 apiece, so an 18 to 25 box kitchen generally totals $1,800 to $5,000 in cabinetry labor. Small jobs get a flat price instead, because box count stops being a useful measure below about six cabinets, such as a single laundry run. What that figure does not include is worth knowing up front. Assembling flat-packed carcasses is extra. So is demolition and haul-away of your old cabinets. So is anything the room turns out to need once the old boxes are off the wall, such as levelling a floor that has settled or packing out a wall that bows. Every one of those is a line we price after seeing the room, not a surprise invented on install day.
Do you install IKEA kitchen cabinets?
Yes. IKEA kitchens are one of the most common install-only jobs we take in San Mateo. The system is well engineered and the labor is real: the boxes arrive flat and have to be assembled, the suspension rail has to be laid out dead level across the whole run, and the fronts, panels, and toe kicks need cutting and fitting to the room. Two things are worth knowing before you order. Check your delivery against the packing list the day it arrives, because a missing part found on install day stops the job. And IKEA end panels and fillers are made for square rooms, so in an older house we often build a scribe filler to close the gap cleanly. We install other ready-to-assemble brands on the same terms.
How long does cabinet installation take?
A typical kitchen takes 2 to 5 days on site. Assembling ready-to-assemble boxes adds roughly a day to that, since the carcasses have to be built before anything can be hung. A single bathroom vanity, a laundry run, or one bank of cabinets is generally a single day. Where the schedule stretches is stone countertops: the fabricator templates off your installed base cabinets rather than off a drawing, which adds 1 to 2 weeks between the cabinet install and the finished counter. To keep that wait short we get the bases in and level early, so your fabricator can template on day one rather than day four, then we come back to tune everything once the stone is down.
Do you handle demolition and haul-away of the old cabinets?
Yes, and it is quoted as its own line so you can decide. Removing an existing kitchen usually takes most of a day: disconnecting under the sink, taking down the uppers, pulling the base cabinets, and cutting out an old laminate counter. Stone counters are heavier and are removed in sections. We bag and haul the debris and get it to a transfer station rather than leaving a pile in your driveway. If you would rather do the demo yourself to save money, that is fine and it genuinely does save money. Just leave the walls and floor intact, do not cut any live plumbing or electrical, and have it clear the day before we arrive.
Related: garage cabinets, pantry cabinets, and book a free in-home visit.
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