Free written scope consultation - allowances, timeline, and change-order rules on paper before a single trade is scheduled
KraftMaid Home Additions & ADU: The Los Angeles Owner’s Guide
Home additions and ADUs built around KraftMaid cabinetry in Los Angeles typically run $53,100 to $153,400, depending on square footage, foundation work, and how much of the existing structure we’re tying into. Most owners call us when a previous addition starts showing its age: cabinet frames pulling away from walls, moisture damage at the seams, or a permit that never got closed and now blocks a sale. If your KraftMaid kitchen or bath is inside an addition or ADU that’s failing, the fix usually isn’t just one part replaced; it’s the structural envelope addressed first, then the cabinetry.
We’re an independent Los Angeles remodeling contractor. We install and work on KraftMaid cabinetry inside additions and ADUs, but we’re not a KraftMaid dealer or affiliate. That independence means we tell you straight when a cabinet is worth saving and when the wall behind it is the real problem.
Which KraftMaid Models This Applies To
KraftMaid cabinetry shows up in three places inside additions and ADUs across Los Angeles: kitchens, bathroom vanities, and built-in storage walls. The compatibility question is less about the cabinet door style and more about the box construction and how it was hung. KraftMaid builds two cabinet lines that matter here: their standard framed boxes (the classic look with a face frame around the opening) and their Vantage line, which uses full-overlay doors on frameless boxes. The Vantage boxes are slightly deeper and require different hinge plates than the framed series, and we’ve seen more than one handyman hang a Vantage door on a standard hinge and wonder why it binds.
If you’re trying to match a failed cabinet or door, look inside the cabinet box for a white KraftMaid label with a manufacturing date and a series code. The code will tell you framed versus Vantage, and that determines which replacement hinge, drawer glide, and door profile we order. KraftMaid also changed their drawer glide supplier around 2019, so older additions (pre-2019) using the old undermount glides can’t always take the current-gen glides without a retrofit bracket. That’s a real compatibility gotcha we run into on ADU kitchen remodels in the Valley.
For O-EM versus aftermarket: KraftMaid door and drawer fronts are made to order with a 4-to-6-week lead time from their Ohio plant. Aftermarket doors from local Los Angeles cabinet shops can be made faster, but matching the KraftMaid finish sheen and door profile exactly is where the trouble lives. If you’re replacing one door on a 10-year-old kitchen, the color has shifted from sun exposure and cooking oils, so even a KraftMaid O-EM door will look slightly off. We usually recommend refinishing the whole run of doors at that point rather than chasing a perfect single match.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your KraftMaid Home Addition or ADU Is Failing
- Cabinet doors no longer close flush, especially after rain. In Los Angeles, most additions built before 2010 sat on slabs without proper vapor barriers. Moisture wicks up through the slab, the cabinet boxes swell, and the reveals between doors get tight or uneven. The cabinet didn’t fail; the floor assembly did.
- Drawers stick in summer and slide fine in winter. KraftMaid wood drawer boxes are solid maple, but they still move with humidity. If your ADU is within five miles of the coast in neighborhoods like Playa del Rey or San Pedro, seasonal swelling is worse. Undermount glides that skip or grind tell us the box is rubbing against the face frame.
- Soft-close hinges slamming instead of cushioning. KraftMaid uses Blum clip-top hinges on most lines. When they slam, the damper has worn out or the hinge plate has loosened from the cabinet wall. On frameless Vantage boxes, a loose plate means the screw holes in the particleboard side have stripped out, and just tightening them again won’t hold.
- Laminate peeling at the bottom of sink base cabinets. This is the classic ADU failure we see from Sylmar to Long Beach. A slow drain leak or a failed sink gasket sits unnoticed under the cabinet, the particleboard wicks it up, and the laminate delaminates. By the time you see the peeling, the cabinet floor is usually too far gone to save.
- Wall cabinets pulling away from the studs at the top corners. Additions settle, especially on Los Angeles hillside lots and in neighborhoods with expansive clay soil like Porter Ranch or Granada Hills. When the top corner of an upper cabinet gaps off the wall by more than an eighth of an inch, the cabinet wasn’t hung on enough studs with the right fasteners for the load it’s carrying.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
In Los Angeles, a full KraftMaid cabinet replacement inside an existing kitchen runs $16,520 to $53,100. A small kitchen or ADU kitchenette remodel lands between $10,620 and $23,600. Cabinet installation alone, where the boxes and doors are supplied and we’re doing the labor, runs $4,720 to $15,340. For a home addition or ADU from the ground up, the full project range is $53,100 to $153,400; that’s framing, foundation, electrical, plumbing, drywall, finish, and the KraftMaid cabinetry installed and adjusted.
The range depends on three things: whether we’re working inside an existing footprint or adding new square footage, how much of the existing electrical and plumbing is usable, and which KraftMaid line you choose. Vantage runs about 25 to 30 percent higher than the standard framed line because of the hardware and the full-overlay door construction. You get a written price before any work starts, no exceptions. That price covers parts, labor, haul-away, and adjustment of every door and drawer before we call the job done. Our workmanship carries a written guarantee for 365 days from the completion date, and if something’s not right inside that year, we come back and make it right at no cost.
DIY or Call Us?
You can check a few things yourself before you call. Look under the sink base with a flashlight and run a dry paper towel along the cabinet floor to check for moisture. Open and close every door and note which ones bind or have uneven reveals. Take a photo of the KraftMaid label inside a cabinet box so we know exactly which series we’re dealing with. Those three steps take ten minutes and give us a real head start.
What we don’t recommend is pulling cabinet boxes off walls or rebuilding a failed addition envelope yourself. Once cabinets start coming off the studs, you’re into structural territory: shear walls, load paths, and earthquake strapping that Los Angeles building inspectors will check against current code. We’ve fixed more than one DIY cabinet removal where the homeowner discovered the addition was never properly tied to the main house. That becomes a structural and permitting issue, not a cabinet issue. If you’re unsure whether the problem is the cabinet or the wall behind it, call (803) 680-2547 and we’ll help you figure it out over the phone before anyone schedules a visit.
FAQs
KraftMaid cabinets are built to last 20 to 30 years in a properly built addition with good ventilation and a dry slab. In Los Angeles, the real lifespan depends more on the building envelope than the cabinet: coastal moisture, hillside settling, and unvented ADU kitchens all shorten cabinet life to 10 to 15 years because the box absorbs moisture the structure never should have let in. Call (803) 680-2547 and we’ll give you an honest read on whether your cabinets are worth saving.
Yes, in many cases. Hinges, glides, door fronts, and drawer boxes are all serviceable parts. What usually can’t be repaired is a cabinet box that has swollen from water: the particleboard loses its structure permanently, and we recommend replacing the box rather than patching it. The deciding factor is whether the underlying moisture source is fixed first.
A standard ADU kitchen cabinet swap, where the footprint stays the same and no structural repairs are needed, takes two to three days of on-site work. That includes demo of the old cabinets, wall repair if the drywall is damaged, hanging and leveling the new KraftMaid boxes, door and drawer adjustment, and a final walk-through with you. Custom door orders from KraftMaid add four to six weeks of lead time before install begins.
Our crews carry common service parts on the truck for KraftMaid framed and Vantage cabinets: Blum hinges and mounting plates, soft-close dampers, drawer glide clips, shelf pins, and touch-up kits. Full door fronts and drawer boxes are made to order from KraftMaid, so those are scheduled. We also stock parts for Cambria, Silestone, and Kohler, which matter when your addition or ADU includes countertop or fixture work alongside the cabinetry.
If your KraftMaid addition or ADU is showing problems, start with a phone call. We’ll tell you over the phone whether this is a cabinet replacement, a structural repair, or both, and what a realistic price looks like before anyone steps foot on the property. Know who’s coming, know what it costs, know it’s backed up; everything else is just noise. Call (803) 680-2547 for a free estimate.
Written by Isaac Pruett, Owner, Mason Remodeling at Mason Remodeling, serving Los Angeles and nearby areas.
