Custom Cabinetry for Somerset Hills Homes
Built to fit your walls, not a catalog. Inset and full-overlay, painted or stained, made for older homes with out-of-square rooms.
Stock cabinetry is built in three-inch increments on the assumption that the room is square, the floor is level, and the walls are plumb. In a 1935 colonial in Bernardsville or a 1950s farmhouse conversion in Bedminster, none of those three things is true.
The result is familiar to anyone who has lived through a budget kitchen install: filler strips at every corner, a run that dies two inches short of the wall, scribe molding doing work it was never meant to do, and a countertop with a visible gap at the back. The cabinets weren’t wrong. The room was never going to accept them.
Custom cabinetry solves a fitting problem, not a taste problem.
When custom is worth it and when it isn't
Worth being straight about this, because custom is not the right answer for every kitchen.
Custom makes sense when:
- The room is genuinely out of square, which is most pre-1970 construction here
- You need a specific dimension a catalog doesn’t offer — an odd wall run, a window that sits low, a radiator or chase that has to be worked around
- You want inset doors, which are far less forgiving of imprecise carcass work
- The house has a particular character and stock profiles would fight it
- You’re building around an existing element you’re keeping, like an original hearth or a stair bulkhead
Semi-custom or stock is fine when:
- The room is newer construction and reasonably true
- The layout is a straightforward galley or L
- Budget is the binding constraint and the money is better spent on counters and appliances
We’ll tell you which situation you’re in. A kitchen that doesn’t need custom cabinetry is not a kitchen we’ll try to sell custom cabinetry into.
Inset versus full overlay
Full overlay doors sit on top of the face frame and cover most of it. More forgiving of movement, more common, and generally less expensive to build and to hang.
Inset doors sit flush inside the face frame. It’s the traditional look, it suits older Somerset Hills houses, and it is much harder to execute — the reveal around each door has to be consistent, and wood moves with the seasons. Inset done badly looks worse than full overlay done well.
If you want inset, the question to ask any cabinetmaker is how they handle seasonal movement. There should be a real answer.
What you should ask before you order cabinets
Whether you buy from us or anyone else:
- What’s the box construction? Plywood carcasses versus particleboard is the durability difference that matters most and is easiest to check.
- What’s the drawer box and slide? Dovetailed drawer boxes on full-extension soft-close hardware is the standard worth holding to.
- Who measures, and when? Final measurements should be taken after demolition, not before. Ordering off pre-demo measurements in an old house is how runs come up short.
- What’s the lead time? Cabinetry is almost always the longest lead item in a kitchen project. Everything else schedules around it.
- What happens if something arrives wrong? Get the answer before you need it.
And on the contract itself: New Jersey requires any home improvement contract over $500 to be in writing, with specific start and completion dates and a list of the principal products and materials being used. Deposits are capped at one-third of the contract price. Both of those exist to protect you on exactly this kind of long-lead purchase.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does custom cabinetry take?
Typically 8 to 12 weeks from final measure to delivery, sometimes longer for complex painted work. It’s the item that sets the project schedule.
Painted or stained?
Painted is more common in this market right now, and it hides joinery in wood species that stain would highlight. Stained shows the grain and is less forgiving of substitution across a run. Both are fine choices; they’re just different maintenance stories.
Can you match existing cabinetry in another room?
Often yes, for a butler’s pantry or a mudroom running off an existing kitchen. Matching an older painted finish exactly is harder than matching a stain.
Do you do cabinetry outside the kitchen?
Yes — built-ins, mudroom lockers, bath vanities, laundry storage. The same fitting logic applies, and it applies even more in oddly shaped rooms.
Get a Free Design Consultation
Call (848) 356-4733 or send us a few details. Storm calls get priority scheduling.
