Madison Quality Custom Cabinets | Kitchen Cabinets, Commercial Cabinets & Cabinet Installation
Experienced and trusted contractor serving Madison, WI
Madison Quality Custom Cabinets has designed and installed custom cabinets for homes and businesses in Madison, Wisconsin for over 20 years. Our lead cabinetmaker, Garrett Olson, built fine furniture for 12 years before opening our Madison workshop. Our own crew builds and installs every cabinet, never a subcontractor.
This spring we finished a $24,500 kitchen in a 1920s home with no wall within half an inch of plumb. We hand-scribed every filler and end panel on site, built inset Shaker doors in quartersawn white oak, and swapped a cramped corner pantry for a 9-foot wall of pull-out drawers. We’ve completed more than 800 cabinet projects, from $2,800 vanities to $45,000 kitchens, plus commercial casework for dental offices, law firms, and medical clinics.
We kiln-dry our hardwoods to 6–8% moisture and acclimate them in the shop before cutting. Boxes are furniture-grade plywood, drawers are dovetailed, and hinges are Blum soft-close. In our experience, that’s what keeps doors closing flush in year ten. Most kitchens take 6 to 10 weeks from measurement to install, with a 50% deposit and a 10-year workmanship guarantee.
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Commercial Custom Cabinetry in Madison, WI
Medical Clinic Cabinets
Exam room casework is built for fast access and easy disinfection, with nonporous surfaces, sealed seams, and Blum soft-close hinges that keep noise down. We plan seated-height charting sections, cutouts for glove and PPE dispensers, and ventilation clearance around vaccine refrigerators.
Storage is mapped against your actual inventory before we build, with adjustable shelving for supplies that turn over, keyed-alike cylinders so one key runs the clinic, and lockable compartments for controlled substances. Last winter we outfitted a 6-exam-room family practice in Fitchburg, including the nurse station and check-in desk, and installed it over two weekends so the clinic never closed.
Dental Office Cabinets
Dental casework has to support a one-directional sterilization workflow, so we lay out receiving, cleaning, packaging, and storage zones in sequence rather than clustering them. Sterilization centers get recessed openings for ultrasonic cleaners, heat clearance around autoclave placement, and drawers built for tub-and-tray systems.
Treatment room cabinetry is built around your operatory layout, including assistant-side pull-out trays, slim units that clear delivery arms and chair travel, and dedicated storage for handpieces and sensors. In our experience, a badly placed sterilization center costs a practice more time than any other layout mistake. Our most recent 4-operatory build-out in Middleton ran about $9,500 per operatory and was done in 6 weeks.
Law Firm Millwork and Cabinets
Law firm millwork tends toward quartersawn white oak, walnut, and cherry, and quartersawn oak fits Madison’s Prairie School tradition if you want the space to reference it. We build reception desks, private office storage, and conference credenzas with book-matched panels and finishes carried across every room.
File storage is sized for legal-size folders, with full-extension ball-bearing slides and anti-tip interlocks on lateral units so only one drawer opens at a time. Locking sections are built in for confidential files. Our largest legal project covered 18 private offices and a 30-foot quartersawn oak credenza wall for a downtown firm, with media equipment hidden behind the matched panels.
Professional Office Cabinets
We build reception counters, workstation storage, and full storage walls sized to your floor plan, with plywood boxes and hardwood fronts that hold their finish through daily contact. Cable grommets and pass-throughs are cut in during fabrication rather than drilled on site afterward.
Break rooms get upper and lower cabinets with appliance counter space and separate waste and recycling cutouts. Given Madison winters, we build closed lockers or cubby walls into entry and staff areas for real coat and boot storage. We recently built a 28-foot reception counter and full break room run for a 40-person tech office, installed after hours in three nights.
Salon and Spa Cabinets
Stylist stations are built around the tools, with heat-resistant holsters for irons and dryers, drawers sized for shears and combs, and outlet placement that keeps cords off the work surface. Color bars get a mixing counter, a bowl and drain, and ventilated storage kept separate from retail product.
Backwash surrounds, treatment room casework, and retail display use moisture-resistant substrates and sealed finishes, since these rooms run humid and see constant chemical contact. For an 8-chair salon in Sun Prairie, we built every station, the color bar, and a 12-foot retail wall in 4 weeks, and the shop closed for only two days during install.
Restaurant and Cafe Cabinets
Restaurant fixtures take more abuse than any other commercial cabinetry we build, so service counters get stainless edging on impact points, spill-resistant surfaces, and sealed toe kicks with coved bases for washdowns. Host stands are built with tablet and POS mounts integrated rather than added on top.
Bar and back-of-house cabinetry is built around your equipment, with clearance for undercounter refrigeration, cutouts for ice bins and drain lines, and bottle storage sized to your service. When we rebuilt a 32-foot bar for a supper club in Verona, the guest side got a solid cherry front and the working side got washable surfaces and coved bases end to end.
Retail Store Cabinets and Display Cases
Retail cabinetry has to sell and store at the same time. We build display cases with locking sliding glass fronts and Grade 1-rated hardware, adjustable standards so displays can be reset seasonally, and fixtures sized to your merchandise rather than a general shelf depth.
Checkout counters are built with storage for bags, wrap, registers, and POS hardware, plus a drop safe cutout where cash handling requires one. For a downtown Madison boutique, we built 22 feet of glass display cases and a checkout counter with hidden back-stock drawers, finished in the same walnut stain as their logo wall. Every fixture is finished to match your existing branding.
Design Studio Cabinets
Studios need somewhere real to put samples, so we build slotted bins for tile and stone, shallow drawer banks for fabric and finish boards, and vertical tube storage for rolled drawings. Flat files are sized to hold full architectural sheets flat rather than folded.
Workstations are built with monitor and plotter cutouts, cable management routed through the box, and tackable panel sections above the work surface for active projects. Because we finish in-house, display cabinetry can double as a live sample of the species, stains, and hardware you specify. Our sample library for an interior design firm in Monona holds 120 tile slots and flat files for more than 400 sheets.
Residential Cabinetry Options in the Madison, WI
Kitchen Cabinet Installation
Kitchens are the largest projects we take on, built with base, wall, and full-height cabinets laid out around your work triangle and appliance placement. Drawer banks are configured for what goes in them, with deep pot drawers, divided utensil trays, and vertical dividers for sheet pans and cutting boards.
A family of five in Waunakee came to us with a 1990s builder-grade kitchen and barely 11 feet of usable counter. We reworked the layout around a 9-foot island with pot drawers on the range side, added about 40% more storage, and finished in 7 weeks for $31,000.
Pantry and Storage Cabinet Installation
Pantry cabinetry is built around adjustable shelving, pull-out shelves for canned goods, and door-mounted racks that recover the space a swinging door usually wastes. Shelf spacing is set to what you store rather than a standard interval.
For mudrooms, hall closets, and utility spaces, we size units to the available footprint instead of standard dimensions. Wisconsin winters make a real mudroom worth building, with bench seating, closed boot storage, and a locker per person. A four-locker mudroom wall typically runs about $4,500 and installs in a single day.
Bathroom Vanity Cabinet Installation
Vanities need precise cutouts for supply lines and drains plus materials that hold up to daily moisture, so we build with water-resistant substrates and finishes rated for humid conditions. Single and double-sink configurations, floating vanities, and built-in linen towers are all standard options.
Each unit is measured on site to account for plumbing rough-in and existing fixture finishes. One west side couple had a 1950s bathroom with no linen closet, so we built a 60-inch floating double vanity and a matching full-height linen tower for $6,800.
Laundry Room Cabinet Installation
Laundry cabinetry has to handle moisture, detergent contact, and constant use. We build uppers for supply storage above the washer and dryer, base cabinets with folding counter space, and a tall unit for brooms and vacuums where the floor plan allows.
Common additions include built-in tilt-out hampers, pull-out drying racks, and a slot for the ironing board, with hardware and finishes rated for humid basements. When a Shorewood Hills family moved their laundry up to a second-floor closet, we fit uppers, a folding counter, and a pull-out drying rack into 7 feet of wall for $3,900.
Entertainment Center and Living Room Cabinetry
Living room cabinetry centers on media storage, built-in shelving, and fireplace surrounds sized around your television, components, and speaker placement, with wiring chases and ventilated compartments so equipment isn’t sealed in.
We also build bookcases and display cabinets matched to existing trim and molding. In older Madison homes that often means replicating a Craftsman or Prairie-style profile so the new work reads as original to the house. Our most detailed match was a pair of 7-foot built-ins flanking a brick fireplace in a 1912 Craftsman, with every casing profile copied from the original trim.
Home Office Cabinetry and Shelving
Home office cabinetry has become a steady request as more Madison-area work moves home. We build desks, bookcases, and file storage fitted to the room’s dimensions, with drawers sized for letter or legal folders and adjustable shelving above.
Cable management is planned into the build rather than drilled in afterward, with grommets, rear pass-throughs, and a closed cabinet for the router and power strip so cords stay off the floor. Last year we built a two-person office for a couple who both work from home: facing desks, 16 feet of shared bookcase wall, and a closed printer cabinet, done in 5 weeks for $12,500.
Our Quality Materials
Solid Wood
We use kiln-dried solid hardwoods for door fronts, face frames, and anywhere strength and visible grain carry the design, with maple, cherry, oak, and hickory as the usual species. Kiln drying brings moisture content down before fabrication, which limits the warping and joint separation Wisconsin's humidity cycle causes in air-dried stock.
Solid wood takes stain evenly and can be sanded and repaired years later, which manufactured panels cannot. It costs more than the alternatives, so we recommend it where the wood itself is meant to be seen rather than for hidden boxes.
Plywood
Cabinet boxes are built from furniture-grade plywood rather than particleboard. Cross-grained veneer layers distribute stress across the panel, which gives plywood its screw-holding strength and keeps shelves from sagging under dishes, cookware, and pantry loads.
That layered construction also resists splitting at joints and hinge points, and it handles humidity changes better than particleboard where it matters most, under sinks and along exterior walls. It costs less than solid wood while outperforming it for box construction.
MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard)
MDF has a dense, uniform composition with no grain, which is exactly what a painted door needs. Routed and raised profiles come out crisp, edges finish smooth, and paint lays down without the grain-raising that shows through on solid wood over time.
We use it for door and panel applications only, never for cabinet boxes or drawer bodies. It is heavier than plywood and swells if it takes on prolonged moisture, so it stays out of structural locations and away from sinks and dishwashers...
Wood Veneer
Veneer is a thin layer of real hardwood over a plywood or MDF substrate, which delivers the look of solid wood on wide panels without the seasonal movement solid stock develops at those widths. Cabinet ends, island panels, and oversized door fronts are the typical applications.
We match grain across adjacent panels so a run reads as continuous rather than assembled from unrelated pieces. Finish quality depends on veneer thickness, so we source higher-grade material to keep it consistent with the solid wood around it.
Thermofoil
Thermofoil is a vinyl layer heat-fused to an MDF core, producing a seamless surface with uniform color and texture across every door in a kitchen. It resists surface moisture, cleans with ordinary household products, and costs less than painted or stained wood.
Heat is the limitation. Prolonged exposure can break the vinyl bond, so we advise against it beside ovens, above unvented cooktops, and next to dishwasher vents. We go through the layout with you before recommending it for a kitchen.
Painted vs. Stained Finishes
Painted finishes go over MDF or prepared solid wood and give you an opaque, uniform surface in any color, built up in multiple coats with sanding between layers. The tradeoff is that chips need touching up, since there is no grain underneath to disguise them.
Stained finishes need solid wood or quality veneer to work, and shade selection depends on species because each absorbs color differently. Stain ages more forgivingly, since natural tone variation hides scuffs that paint would show. Both get a protective topcoat as standard.
Our Process: From Quote Request to Final Cabinet Installation
Step 1: Initial Project Consultation
We start with a free conversation about the space, the budget, and what the cabinetry actually has to do, whether that’s a kitchen you cook in daily or a clinic that needs storage mapped to a workflow. If you have a designer, architect, or general contractor involved, we bring them in now rather than working around them later. Most calls take 20 minutes and tell us whether the project is ready for a site visit.
Step 2: Onsite Measurement & Verification
Our team measures every project. We laser-measure wall dimensions, ceiling height, window and door placement, plumbing rough-in, outlets, and appliance specs, then check every wall for plumb and every floor for level across the full run. Older homes on the near west and east sides regularly run half an inch or more out of square, and we’d rather build to that than shim around it on install day. The visit usually takes about 90 minutes.
Step 3: Design, Material Selection, and Shop Drawings
Within 7 to 10 days you get a 3D rendering and elevations showing every cabinet, and we go through species, door style, and finish with physical samples in hand. The written proposal breaks cost out by species, cabinet size, and finish complexity, so you can see what each choice does to the price.
Step 4: Review, Revision, and Approval
We revise until the drawings and the number both work. Changes cost nothing at this stage and a great deal after fabrication starts, so we’d rather spend an extra round here than find a problem in the shop. A signed agreement and a 50% deposit put you on the production calendar with a target install week.
Step 5: Shop Fabrication and In-House Installation
Your cabinets are cut on our CNC, assembled with dovetail-joined drawer boxes, and finished in our Madison shop, which takes 4 to 6 weeks for most kitchens. Our own crew handles installation, including demo and haul-away of the old cabinetry, scribing to the walls, leveling, and final hardware adjustment, usually over 2 to 4 days. We walk the job with you before calling it complete, and every install carries a 10-year workmanship guarantee.
Cabinet Hardware and Storage Organization Systems
Soft-Close Hinges & Full-Extension Drawer Slides
Blum soft-close hinges go on every cabinet door we build, controlling the closing motion so doors settle shut quietly instead of slamming against the frame. Every hinge adjusts in three directions, which lets us bring door reveals back into alignment as a house settles.
Full-extension slides let drawers pull out completely, so nothing gets lost at the back. Pot and dish drawers get slides rated for 100 pounds, enough that a full stack of cast iron won’t make the drawer sag or drag.
Corner & Blind Cabinet Solutions
Corner cabinets waste space without the right hardware, so we fit them with lazy Susans, LeMans swing-out units, or blind-corner pull-outs that bring stored items forward instead of leaving them buried against the back wall.
The right choice depends on cabinet width and door swing, so there’s no default. Upgrading a blind corner from fixed shelves to a swing-out unit typically adds $600 to $900, and it’s the upgrade clients most often tell us they’d make again.
Pull-Out Organization Systems
Pull-out systems replace stacking and digging with direct access. Narrow cabinets get tiered spice pull-outs, base cabinets get concealed trash and recycling bins on full-extension slides, and tall pantry units get shelves that extend fully so nothing sits unreachable at the back.
Drawer interiors use solid wood dividers or Blum ORGA-LINE inserts, cut to fit during fabrication instead of bought off the shelf. A recent McFarland kitchen got 14 pull-out systems across 12 feet of base cabinets, and the homeowners gave up their pantry closet entirely.
Commercial Cabinet Installation Cost
Commercial cabinet costs in Madison depend on the type of business, the casework specification, and how far the layout departs from standard sizes. We price by linear foot rather than a flat project rate. For comparison, stock commercial casework runs roughly $100 to $300 per linear foot and semi-custom $200 to $450, while our fully custom work runs $400 to $800 depending on materials, hardware grade, and equipment coordination.
What moves a project within that range is specification rather than square footage. Solid surface tops with coved, sealed edges, keyed locking systems, chemical-resistant finishes, anti-tip file hardware, and equipment-specific cutouts all add cost, and each one is a durability decision rather than an appearance decision. The 6-exam-room Fitchburg practice came in at $34,000, and the 32-foot supper club bar in Verona at $41,000. Every quote separates material, hardware, finish, and installation so you can adjust before fabrication starts.
Request a quote to get an accurate estimate on your next cabinet project.
Commercial Project Type | Typical Cost Range |
|---|---|
Office Break Room | $5,000-$12,000 |
Salon or Spa Stations | $1,500-$3,500 per station |
Reception and Office Millwork | $8,000–$25,000 |
Retail Display and Checkout | $10,000–$35,000 |
Law Firm Millwork (Hardwood) | $15,000–$40,000 |
Restaurant or Bar Build-Out | $20,000–$60,000 |
Medical or Dental Build-Out | $20,000–$50,000+ |
Servicing Madison and Surrounding Areas
Our Service Areas in Madison, WI:
Madison Quality Custom Cabinets proudly serves homeowners and businesses throughout Madison and the surrounding Dane County area, including:
- Shorewood Hills
- Maple Bluff
- Monona
- Middleton
- Fitchburg
- McFarland
- Verona
- Waunakee
- Cottage Grove
- Sun Prairie
- DeForest
- Oregon
- Cross Plains
- Stoughton
- Mount Horeb
If your neighborhood isn't listed, contact us. We regularly take on projects elsewhere in southern Wisconsin.
Custom Cabinet FAQs
We design and build cabinetry for kitchens, bathrooms, mudrooms, home offices, entertainment centers, and laundry rooms. Our work covers both residential and commercial projects.
Every piece is built in our own Madison workshop using kiln-dried hardwoods and furniture-grade plywood boxes. We rely on CNC-precision cutting to keep every component accurate and consistent.
Pricing depends on the size of your kitchen, the wood species you select, and the level of customization you want. Dovetail-joined drawers, Blum soft-close hinges, and full-extension ball-bearing slides are standard features that affect the final cost.
We provide detailed quotes after an in-home consultation so you know exactly what you're paying for. There are no hidden fees added after the project begins.
Most projects move from initial consultation to finished installation within 6 to 10 weeks. This timeline includes design revisions, fabrication in our workshop, and on-site installation.
Larger commercial jobs or highly customized designs may take longer. We give you a realistic timeline upfront and keep you updated as your project moves through each stage.
Yes, we build custom bathroom vanities, linen cabinets, and built-in storage for closets, hallways, and living spaces. Each piece is constructed with the same kiln-dried hardwoods and furniture-grade plywood we use in our kitchen cabinetry.
We work with you to match your storage needs to your available space. Every vanity and built-in is designed to fit your home rather than a standard template.
We offer a range of hardwood species, stain colors, and painted finishes to match your design preferences. Our drawer boxes use dovetail joinery for strength, and our doors are cut with CNC precision for consistent fit.
Hardware includes Blum soft-close hinges and full-extension ball-bearing slides on every drawer. All cabinetry is built to Architectural Woodwork Institute (AWI) quality standards.
We offer in-home consultations to measure your space, discuss design options, and answer your questions in person. This step helps us create an accurate plan before any building begins.
Installation is handled entirely by our own team; we never subcontract this part of the process. Every install comes with a workmanship guarantee, and we have over 20 years of experience installing cabinetry throughout Madison and the surrounding area.
Yes. We build sterilization casework, operatory and exam room cabinetry, reception millwork, and file storage for clinics, dental practices, law firms, and professional offices throughout Madison. Commercial casework is designed around your equipment placement and workflow rather than adapted from a residential layout.
Materials are specified for the setting, which usually means nonporous surfaces, sealed seams, keyed locking systems, and hardware rated for constant daily use. We measure on site before quoting rather than pricing off a floor plan.
Yes. We regularly replicate existing crown molding, casing, and door profiles so new built-ins read as original to the house. In Madison's older neighborhoods that often means matching a Craftsman or Prairie-style profile rather than a stock catalog option.
We bring samples to the consultation and confirm the match before fabrication begins. Older homes also tend to run out of plumb and out of square, so we build to the room's actual dimensions instead of shimming to close the gap.
Stock cabinets come in fixed widths and finishes and ship quickly, which works when a standard size fits the space. Semi-custom starts from a stock frame with upgraded doors, finishes, and interior options. Full custom means the cabinet is built to your dimensions with the species, joinery, and hardware you specify.
The practical difference shows up where the space is irregular. Stock runs end in filler strips, while custom runs end flush against the wall. We build custom, which is why we measure the room before anything is cut.
Yes. Demo and haul-away of existing cabinetry are part of the installation, and we quote them upfront rather than adding them later. Countertops, sinks, and appliances that need to come out are coordinated in the same schedule.
We protect floors and adjacent surfaces before demo starts and clean the space at the end of each day. Most kitchens go from demo to finished install without you needing to leave the house.
Madison runs a dry forced-air heating season followed by a humid summer, and that annual swing is what opens joints and racks doors on poorly built cabinets. Kiln-dried stock stabilizes moisture content before fabrication, and furniture-grade plywood boxes move far less across the cycle than particleboard.
We also let finished work acclimate before installing rather than moving it straight from a conditioned shop to a job site mid-winter. That step prevents panel checking and finish cracking in the first heating season.