Lake County, Illinois
Kitchen Remodeling in Lake County, IL
We handle the carpentry side of a kitchen remodel — cabinets set level and scribed to the wall, islands and peninsulas, pantry and open shelving, crown, light rail and trim. Plumbing, gas, electrical and countertop fabrication go to the licensed trades.
The work
Kitchen Remodeling services across Lake County, IL
We're not a full remodel company, and that's the point. We do the carpentry in your kitchen project and work alongside whoever's doing the rest.
That means setting and trimming out cabinets, island and peninsula paneling, crown on top of the uppers, toe kick and light rail, window and door casing, and the baseboard that ties it all back into the rest of the house.
What we don't do is plumbing, electrical, countertops or tile. If you need one company for all of it, you want a general contractor and we'll say so. If you've already got those trades and need the wood done right, that's us.
What's included
Kitchen Remodeling: what the job covers
- Cabinet installation — stock, semi-custom and RTA, set level and scribed to the wall
- Island and peninsula builds, with seated overhangs supported properly
- Pantry cabinets, walk-in shelving and closet-to-pantry conversions
- Crown molding, light rail, scribe molding, toe kick and finished end panels
- Butcher block cut, sealed and fitted
- Floating shelves on real blocking and cleats, not decorative brackets
- Built-in banquettes and window seats
- Cabinet door and drawer adjustment, hinge and hardware replacement
- Re-setting cabinets that were hung out of level the first time
Cabinet installation
Cabinets are unforgiving in a way most carpentry isn't. Run a level line across a long wall, hang a dozen boxes off it, and every one has to land within a hair of the next — a run of upper doors is essentially a row of straight lines pinned to your wall at eye height. Floors slope, walls bow, and corners in an older Lake County house are rarely ninety degrees.
We set and scribe rather than shim and caulk. New boxes, replacement boxes, or a re-set of cabinets hung badly the first time — stock, semi-custom or RTA. If an order is short a filler or an end panel we flag it before assembly, because it is far easier to fix in the box than on the wall.
Layout gets checked against the actual room before anything goes up. Cabinet runs are ordered off a drawing, and drawings assume square. Better to find out the fridge opening is tight before the first screw than after the counters are templated.
Islands, peninsulas and butcher block
An island is where a kitchen stops being a galley. We build the base — boxes ganged and levelled, panelled and trimmed on the visible sides, and the overhang supported so a seated edge does not flex. Seating overhangs need real support back into the cabinet: corbels or steel brackets, not a countertop cantilevered and hoped for.
Butcher block gets cut, sealed and fitted — on an island, as a run of counter, or as a landing beside a range. It wants sealing on every face including the underside and the sink cutout, which is the edge that fails first when somebody skips it.
If you are adding power or a sink to an island, that runs through the floor and belongs to the licensed trades. We build around what they run and we will tell you the order the work should go in so nobody is cutting into somebody else's finished job.
Pantry, closet and open shelving
Walk-in pantry shelving, a tall pantry cabinet, or the job we get asked for most — turning a useless coat closet beside the kitchen into a real pantry with adjustable shelves that hold canned goods without sagging. Shelf depth matters more than people expect: a 16-inch shelf swallows whatever goes to the back, and 12 is usually the better number.
Open shelving instead of upper cabinets is a common ask and worth thinking about honestly. It looks excellent and it means everything on it stays visible and collects dust. We will build either one. We would rather you knew which you were choosing.
Floating shelves that carry real weight need blocking in the wall and a cleat. A decorative bracket into drywall anchors will hold a photo frame and not much else.
Crown molding, light rail and the trim package
The trim package is what makes a run of cabinets look built-in rather than delivered. Crown to close the gap to the ceiling, light rail under the uppers to hide the fixtures, scribe molding where the run meets an out-of-plumb wall, toe kick, and finished end panels on anything that shows.
On mitred outside corners we cut and fit rather than relying on caulk to close the joint. Caulk shrinks, and it reappears about a year later in exactly the spot your eye goes to most.
If your cabinets are sound and only look tired, that is refinishing and hardware rather than replacement, and it costs a fraction of new boxes.
Where we stop
What we don't do — and who does it
Plumbing, gas, electrical and countertop fabrication go to the licensed trades. Stone and quartz get templated and installed by a fabricator after the cabinets are set and levelled — that order matters, and getting it backwards costs a re-template. We do not take on work that needs a licence we do not hold, and we will say so early rather than sub it out at a markup.
More of this work
Kitchen Remodeling near you
Kitchen Remodeling in every town in Lake County
We cover all 26 towns in Lake County. Pick yours, or call and we'll come measure.
Common questions
Kitchen Remodeling, answered
Do you do full kitchen remodels?
We do the carpentry: cabinets, islands, shelving, trim and built-ins. Plumbing, gas, electrical and countertop fabrication go to licensed trades. Most of our kitchens run alongside other trades and that works fine.
Can you install cabinets I bought myself?
Yes — IKEA, a big-box order, a semi-custom line or RTA. We check the order against the room before assembly and flag anything missing while it is still fixable.
Do cabinets go in before or after the countertops?
Cabinets first, levelled, then the fabricator templates off the installed boxes. Templating before the cabinets are set means paying to template twice.
Can you build an island with seating?
Yes. The seated overhang needs real support back into the cabinet — corbels or steel brackets — or the edge flexes. Power or a sink in the island is licensed-trade work run through the floor, and we build around it.
My kitchen floor slopes. Is that a problem?
It is normal in an older house and it is handled by setting the boxes to a level line and scribing the toe kick, rather than setting them off the floor. It is exactly why cabinets should never be run straight off a floor.
My cabinets are fine but they look tired. What are my options?
Refinishing and new hardware rather than replacement. It is a fraction of the cost of new boxes and it is a different page on this site — cabinet repair and refinishing.
More carpentry
Other things we build
Bathroom Remodeling
Vanity setting, trim, paneling and doors for a bathroom project.
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Finish & Trim Carpentry
Baseboards, casing, crown, and clean lines that make a room look finished.
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Crown Molding
Single-piece and built-up crown, coped corners, dead-level runs.
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Built-Ins & Shelving
Bookcases, window seats, mudrooms, and storage that looks original to the house.
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Interior Door Installation
Pre-hung and slab doors hung plumb, with even reveals and quiet latches.
View serviceCabinet Installation & Trim-Out
Kitchen and bath cabinet setting, leveling, scribe filler, and crown.
View serviceTowns we serve
Kitchen Remodeling across Lake County
We do kitchen remodeling in these towns and every one around them.
Comparing quotes
What to ask before you pick a bid
Two quotes on the same job can differ by half, and it is almost never because one is greedy. It is because they are describing different work. These are the questions that make them comparable.
What is carpentry and what is not. Cabinets, trim, doors, built-ins and framing are the carpentry. Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, tile, countertops and full drywall hanging are other trades. A single number covering all of it should still break down by scope, or you cannot compare anything.
Sequencing. A kitchen goes wrong on scheduling more than on skill. Ask who is coordinating the order of trades and what happens when one of them slips.
Is demolition included? And who hauls it. That is real cost and it is regularly assumed away.
Structural changes. Removing a wall or moving an opening needs the load path understood before anyone swings anything, and above a certain point an engineer's sign-off. If a quote treats a wall removal casually, that is a warning.
Kitchen downtime. Ask for a realistic number of days without a working kitchen. A quote that will not answer that has not planned the sequence.
Timing
When to book, and how the seasons affect the work
Interior carpentry runs every month of the year. Weather does not stop it, which makes winter the most available and often the most flexible time to book. January through March is when we have the widest choice of dates.
Wood moves with humidity, and Lake County has a real swing. Summers here are humid and winters, once the heat is on, are dry. Timber takes on moisture and gives it back, which means it expands and contracts through the year. That is normal and it is why joints are cut to allow for it rather than forced tight.
Let material acclimate. Trim, doors and hardwood delivered from a cold truck into a heated house need days in the room before they are cut and fitted. Installing straight off the van is why panels crack and joints open a season later. We build that wait into the schedule rather than skipping it to finish sooner.
Doors are the season's tell. A door that closes fine in February and drags in July has not broken — the slab has taken on moisture and swollen. Adjusting it in the wet season means it rattles in the dry one. The right fix depends on when you are standing there, and we will say so rather than planing something permanently.
Spring and autumn book fastest. Everyone decides at once. If your date is fixed, get on the calendar earlier than feels necessary.
Plain English
The words we use, explained
Carpentry has its own vocabulary and most of it is never explained to the person paying for the work. Here is what the terms on your estimate actually mean.
Cope. An inside corner cut where one piece is scribed to the profile of the other rather than both being cut at 45 degrees. Coped joints stay closed as a house moves through the seasons. Mitred inside corners open up. It is the single clearest tell of finish carpentry versus trim installation.
Scribe. Cutting a piece to follow the actual shape of a wall, floor or ceiling instead of assuming it is straight. Nothing in a house is straight, and scribing is what makes work sit tight against reality.
Reveal. The small deliberate setback where casing meets a door jamb, usually about a quarter inch. It gives the eye a line and hides the fact that the jamb edge is never perfectly flush. Zero reveal looks like a mistake.
Spring angle. The angle at which crown molding sits between wall and ceiling. It determines every cut on the run, and it changes on a vaulted or angled ceiling — which is why those get set off the actual ceiling rather than a chart.
Built-up. A profile assembled from several stock pieces to make a larger or more complex shape than any single piece offers. It is how original profiles in older houses get matched when the exact moulding is no longer made.
Shim. A thin tapered wedge used to bring something to plumb or level in an opening that is neither. Every door hung in an older house depends on them.
Blocking. Extra framing added inside a wall so something can be anchored to it later — a grab bar, a floating shelf, a heavy mirror, a wall-hung vanity. Cheap while the wall is open, expensive afterwards.
Plumb, level, square. Vertical, horizontal, and at right angles. Three separate things, and in an older house you often cannot have all three at once. Deciding which one to hold is a judgement call.
Face frame. The flat frame on the front of a cabinet carcase that the doors mount to. Frameless cabinets do without it, which is a different look and a different install.
Filler and scribe moulding. The narrow pieces that close the gap between a cabinet run and a wall that is not straight. They are what makes an installation look built in rather than pushed into place.
Jamb. The frame a door sits in. On exterior doors it is usually where the rot is, and replacing the slab without the jamb often solves nothing.
Stringer, tread, riser. The angled board carrying a staircase, the part you step on, and the vertical face between steps. Squeaks come from those three moving against each other.
Ready when you are
Need kitchen remodeling in Lake County?
Free written estimate, an honest price, and a start date you can plan around.
Call (224) 944-8652