Walk into any kitchen supply showroom and the cabinets look perfect. Crisp lines, level doors, even gaps from top to bottom. They look that way because they were installed in a room with square corners, plumb walls, and level floors.
A Pawtucket kitchen from 1905 has none of those things.
The walls in a pre-war Pawtucket triple-decker are plaster over wood lath. They bow slightly. They are not plumb in two directions simultaneously. The floor, after a century of seasonal movement and the footsteps of multiple families, is not level. The corner where the two runs of cabinets meet is probably not square — and the degree to which it isn't square is something you only discover when the cabinets arrive.
Installing cabinets in these conditions requires a contractor who scribes, shims, and builds out correctly — who makes the cabinets look like they were made for the kitchen rather than forced into it. The difference between a cabinet installation done correctly in an older home and one done carelessly shows every time you open the doors.
What we install:
- Stock cabinets — selected and installed for best fit in a non-standard kitchen
- Semi-custom cabinets — sized to the space rather than the space sized to them
- Custom cabinets — built for the specific dimensions and character of your kitchen
The installation process in an older home
We begin by measuring the kitchen accurately — not the nominal dimensions, but the actual dimensions at multiple points. We identify where the walls bow, where the floor drops, where the corner diverges from square. We use that information to plan the layout so the cabinets fit correctly from the start.
During installation, we scribe where the cabinets meet the walls, shim where the floor is uneven, and build out where the wall doesn't provide a flat surface to fasten to. Every door is adjusted to hang correctly. Every drawer is tested for smooth operation. The finished installation looks like it was built for the kitchen.
Hardware and accessories
We install all hardware — pulls, knobs, soft-close hinges, drawer slides. We also install under-cabinet lighting, pull-out shelving, drawer organizers, and other accessories as part of the cabinet package.