Custom Cabinets in San Diego
Built-to-fit cabinetry designed, built and installed by one accountable crew, so every drawer, door and shelf fits your San Diego home the way you actually use it. Fixed written pricing before anything is cut.
- Licensed CSLB #1004363
- Fixed written pricing
- Owner-led since 2014
- Workmanship warranty
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CSLB #1004363
50+ Google reviews
Across San Diego County
Owner-led, fixed-bid
Stock cabinets come in fixed 3-inch increments and force your room to work around them. Custom cabinetry does the opposite. It is built around your walls, your appliances, your storage habits and the way your kitchen, bath or family room actually gets used. Since 2014 we have designed, built and installed custom cabinets for homes across San Diego County, from 1920s Craftsman bungalows in North Park and Kensington to coastal remodels in La Jolla and Encinitas and newer tract homes in Carmel Valley, Poway and 4S Ranch. We are an owner-led, licensed, bonded and insured general contractor (CSLB #1004363), led by owner Dave Romero, and cabinetry is built in our own shop and installed by our own crew, from the first measurement to the final hinge adjustment, so you get a tighter fit, better materials and one team accountable for the result.
What We Build
Custom cabinetry covers far more than a run of kitchen boxes. These are the projects we scope most often in San Diego:
- Full custom kitchen cabinetry: base cabinets, wall cabinets to the ceiling, tall pantry and oven cabinets, islands with seating overhangs, appliance garages and built-in refrigerator panels.
- Custom bathroom vanities: single and double vanities, floating (wall-hung) vanities, furniture-style pieces, linen towers and recessed medicine cabinets.
- Custom closets and built-ins: walk-in and reach-in closet systems, mudroom lockers, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, media walls, window seats, home-office desks and garage cabinets.
- Specialty pieces: fireplace surrounds with flanking cabinets, wet bars and coffee stations, laundry-room storage, banquette seating with drawers underneath.
- Cabinet refacing: when the boxes are sound but the doors are dated, we can scope refacing with new doors, drawer fronts and hardware instead of a full replacement.
Design, permits where the work touches plumbing or electrical, countertop coordination and installation are all included in one written scope. Countertops (quartz, granite, natural stone) are templated and installed by our fabrication partners and coordinated by us, so you are not chasing two contractors.
Custom vs. Semi-Custom vs. Stock Cabinets
Understanding the three tiers helps you spend wisely. The right choice depends on your layout, your budget and how particular you are about fit and finish.
- Stock cabinets come pre-built in standard widths, usually in 3-inch increments, in a handful of door styles and colours. They are the most affordable and fastest to install, but odd walls, tall ceilings and tight corners leave you with filler strips, soffits and dead space.
- Semi-custom cabinets start from stock boxes but allow some changes: more door styles and finishes, reduced depths, a few modified widths. A reasonable middle ground when your layout is standard and you want a specific look.
- Custom cabinets are built to your exact measurements with no size restrictions. Awkward nooks become usable storage, uppers run to the ceiling, an island can be exactly the width the room allows, and the design answers your needs instead of a catalogue’s limits. In older San Diego homes where nothing is square, custom is often the only way to get a clean, built-in look.
Custom cabinetry costs more per linear foot than semi-custom, but it also removes the fillers, the wasted corners and the compromises that make a remodel look like a retrofit. On a small kitchen the difference in total price is often smaller than homeowners expect because there are simply fewer cabinets.
Materials, Construction, Door Styles and Finishes
What your cabinets are made of determines how they look, how long they last and how they hold up to San Diego’s coastal humidity and dry inland summers. We walk you through each choice with real samples at the design stage.
- Box construction: 3/4-inch cabinet-grade plywood boxes (glued and screwed, with a full back panel) for strength, screw-holding and moisture resistance, or MDF where a perfectly smooth painted surface matters most. We do not build boxes from particleboard.
- Framed or frameless: traditional face-frame construction (a solid hardwood frame on the front of the box, which suits Craftsman and transitional homes) or frameless, full-access construction (the European style, with roughly 10 percent more usable interior and a clean, modern look).
- Overlay: full-overlay doors that cover almost the whole cabinet face, partial overlay for a more traditional reveal, or inset doors that sit flush inside the frame for a furniture-grade look.
- Drawers: solid-wood dovetailed drawer boxes on full-extension, soft-close undermount slides, so a fully loaded pot drawer glides and closes silently for decades.
- Wood species: maple and poplar for painted work; white oak, rift-sawn white oak, walnut, alder, cherry and hickory for stained and natural finishes, each with its own grain, movement and price point.
- Door styles: shaker, recessed panel, raised panel, slab (flat panel), beadboard and mullion glass doors, in profiles chosen to match the home.
- Finishes: sprayed paint, stain, glaze or a natural clear coat, protected with a catalyzed conversion-varnish or lacquer topcoat that resists water, grease and the UV that pours through San Diego windows.
All sheet goods we specify are CARB Phase 2 / TSCA Title VI compliant for formaldehyde emissions, which matters in a room where your family eats.
Hardware and Storage That Actually Works
Hardware is where a custom kitchen earns its keep every single day. We specify soft-close concealed hinges and undermount drawer slides from established brands such as Blum, which carry a lifetime hardware warranty, and we plan the interiors around how you cook and store:
- Full-extension pot and pan drawers with peg dividers instead of low base cabinets you have to crawl into.
- Pull-out trash and recycling, pull-out spice racks, tray dividers for sheet pans and cutting boards.
- Corner solutions: blind-corner pull-outs and lazy Susans that reclaim the deadest space in the room.
- Roll-out pantry shelves, appliance garages for the mixer and coffee maker, charging drawers with hidden outlets.
- Under-cabinet LED task lighting, in-cabinet lighting behind glass doors and toe-kick lighting for night use.
- Pulls and knobs in brushed nickel, matte black, satin brass or unlacquered brass to match your plumbing fixtures.
What Custom Cabinets Cost in San Diego
Custom cabinetry is an investment, and honest numbers help you plan. These are typical 2026 ranges for San Diego County projects; your written bid will be itemized after we measure the room.
| Scope | Typical San Diego range (2026) | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Custom cabinetry, per linear foot (installed) | $500 to $1,200 | Wood species, painted vs stained, inset vs overlay, interior accessories |
| Premium and exotic builds, per linear foot | $1,000 to $2,200 | Walnut, rift-sawn white oak, inset doors, glass, integrated lighting |
| Full custom kitchen cabinet package | $35,000 to $80,000 | Kitchen size, island, pantry wall, appliance panels |
| Cabinet refacing (existing boxes kept) | $7,000 to $20,000 | Door count, door material, new drawer boxes, hardware |
| Replacement with semi-custom lines | $20,000 to $65,000 | Brand tier, door style, layout changes |
Ranges reflect current San Diego pricing and are for planning only. Countertops, plumbing, electrical and permits are quoted separately in the same written bid.
The main cost drivers are linear footage, wood and finish (paint-grade maple costs less than hand-finished walnut), design complexity (inset doors, glass, lighting and specialty inserts add labour) and site conditions, because older homes in Point Loma, La Mesa and Kensington often need walls and floors trued before cabinets can sit plumb. Financing is available on qualifying projects; ask at your consultation.
How Long Custom Cabinets Take
Because every box is built to your measurements, custom cabinetry takes longer than pulling stock boxes off a shelf. A realistic San Diego timeline looks like this:
- Design and selections: 1 to 4 weeks. In-home measure, layout drawings you approve before anything is cut, wood, door style, finish and hardware selections with samples.
- Build and finish: 6 to 12 weeks. Cabinet fabrication, drawer boxes, doors and sprayed finish, with curing time before delivery.
- Installation: 2 to 7 days. Set, level and scribe the cabinets, install doors and drawers, adjust every hinge, then template countertops.
Most projects run 8 to 14 weeks from approved design to installed cabinets. Design revisions, exotic wood lead times and countertop fabrication (usually 1 to 2 weeks after templating) are the things that stretch a schedule, and we flag them in writing before you commit.
Built for San Diego Homes and Climate
Wood moves. Within a few miles you can go from the marine layer in Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach to dry 95-degree afternoons in Escondido and Santee, and cabinets have to be built and finished for that. We favour plywood boxes over solid-wood panels where moisture matters, seal every edge and the back of every door, and leave the right expansion allowance in floating panels so painted shaker doors do not show hairline cracks at the joints after the first summer.
Style-wise, San Diego leans transitional and coastal: painted white or greige shaker with a natural white-oak island is the most requested combination, mid-century homes in Clairemont and Del Cerro suit flat-slab walnut or rift-oak doors, and Craftsman homes in North Park and Mission Hills call for inset doors, exposed hinges and quarter-sawn oak.
Our Design, Build and Install Process
Building cabinetry in our own shop is the difference between cabinets that merely fit the wall and cabinets that fit your home. When the people who design the work also build and install it, nothing gets lost in translation.
- Free in-home consultation: we measure the room, talk through how you use it and what is not working today.
- Design and fixed written bid: layout drawings, material and finish selections and a single itemized price for the agreed scope. If it is not in the contract, you do not pay for it.
- Build: cabinets are constructed in our own shop to your exact measurements, so the fit is dialled in before they reach your home.
- Install: our own crew sets, levels and scribes everything to your walls, then handles the punch list that makes custom work look seamless.
- Warranty: every project is backed by a written workmanship warranty on top of the manufacturer warranties on hardware and finishes.
Read more about how a project runs and what we guarantee.
The difference is in the contract
| What matters | San Diego Custom Remodeling | Typical contractor |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed written bid before any work starts | Always | Often vague or hourly |
| One accountable team, never subcontracted out | Yes | Frequently subbed |
| Licensed, bonded & insured (CSLB #1004363) | Yes | Not always |
| Permits pulled and inspections coordinated | Every job | Sometimes skipped |
| Written workmanship warranty | Yes | Rarely |
Project gallery
One written price. No surprise change orders.
After we walk your space, you get a single itemized bid for the agreed scope. If it is not in the contract, you do not pay for it. Every project is backed by a written workmanship warranty and the work of a licensed, bonded, and insured San Diego team.
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Frequently asked questions
How much do custom cabinets cost in San Diego?
Custom cabinetry in San Diego typically runs $500 to $1,200 per linear foot installed, and a full custom kitchen cabinet package usually lands between $35,000 and $80,000 depending on size, wood species and finish. Premium builds in walnut or rift-sawn white oak with inset doors can reach $2,200 per linear foot. You get one itemized, fixed written bid after we measure your room.
How long does custom cabinetry take to build and install?
Plan on 8 to 14 weeks from approved design to installed cabinets: 1 to 4 weeks for design and selections, 6 to 12 weeks for fabrication and finishing, then 2 to 7 days on site for installation. Countertops are templated after the cabinets are set and usually follow 1 to 2 weeks later.
Are custom cabinets worth the extra cost over stock or semi-custom?
If your space has odd dimensions, tall ceilings, tight corners or an island that needs to be a specific width, custom cabinets eliminate the fillers and wasted space you get with stock sizes. You also get plywood boxes, dovetailed drawers and a finish that lasts, which is especially valuable in older San Diego homes where nothing is square.
Do you build the cabinets yourselves or subcontract the work?
We build them ourselves. Cabinets are made in our own shop, and the same team that measures and designs them installs them, which means tighter tolerances, better accountability and one point of contact from the first sketch to the final adjustment.
What wood species and door styles do you offer?
Maple and poplar for painted cabinets; white oak, rift-sawn white oak, walnut, alder, cherry and hickory for stained or natural finishes. Door styles include shaker, recessed panel, raised panel, slab, beadboard and mullion glass, in framed or frameless construction with full-overlay, partial-overlay or inset doors.
What hardware do you use?
Soft-close concealed hinges and full-extension undermount drawer slides from established brands such as Blum, which carry a lifetime hardware warranty, plus interior organizers like pull-out trash, spice pull-outs, tray dividers, blind-corner solutions and roll-out pantry shelves.
Can you match new cabinets to my existing kitchen or home style?
Yes. Whether you are adding a pantry wall to an existing kitchen, building a matching media wall or designing built-ins for a 1920s Craftsman in North Park, we select wood species, door profile, finish and hardware to blend with what is already there.
Will painted cabinets crack at the joints in San Diego’s climate?
Hairline cracks at the joints of painted shaker doors come from wood movement between humid coastal mornings and dry inland afternoons. We build painted doors with stable materials, seal every edge and leave the correct expansion allowance in the panels, then finish them with a conversion-varnish topcoat, which keeps the joints tight.
Do you handle countertops, plumbing and electrical too?
Yes. As a licensed general contractor we coordinate quartz, granite and natural-stone countertops with our fabrication partners and handle any plumbing, electrical and permits the project needs, all in the same written scope.
Are you licensed and insured for cabinet work in San Diego?
Yes. We are a licensed, bonded and insured California general contractor (CSLB #1004363), owned by Dave Romero and serving San Diego County since 2014, so your cabinetry is built and installed to code by an accountable team with a written workmanship warranty.