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Wellborn Home Additions & ADU: The Fort Worth Owner’s Guide
If you’re planning a home addition or ADU with Wellborn cabinetry and built-ins, the installed price in Fort Worth typically runs $45,000 to $130,000 for a room addition, and $90,000 to $220,000 for a full ADU. We install Wellborn-compatible cabinetry and millwork across those project types, and we can usually have someone on your site within a few days to measure and price the work. Most families reach out to us after they’ve noticed their current space simply doesn’t function anymore: a kitchen that can’t hold the cookware, a garage that’s become a storage war zone, or a growing household that needs a second living area. Wellborn’s cabinet lines are the part of those additions that has to fit exactly, because a half-inch error in the rough opening means a cabinet bank doesn’t sit flush against the wall. That’s the detail that separates a finished room from a room that always looks slightly off.
Which Wellborn Models This Applies To
Wellborn builds cabinet lines in three broad tiers, and each one has a different door profile, box construction, and hinge spec. The Estate Series is their entry cabinet with 3/4-inch plywood boxes and standard overlay doors. The Premier Series moves to full-overlay doors, soft-close drawer glides, and more finish options. The Estate Select and Premier Select lines add taller wall cabinets, deeper base cabinets, and a wider catalog of drawer inserts and pull-outs. When we install Wellborn in a Fort Worth addition or ADU, the part that matters most at rough-in is the cabinet depth: Wellborn base cabinets run 24 inches deep, and wall cabinets run 12 or 15 inches deep depending on the line. If a homeowner or a previous contractor framed a wall expecting 13-inch-deep uppers and the order comes in at 15, the crown molding won’t land where it should. That’s the kind of compatibility gotcha we catch at the pre-drywall walkthrough, not after the cabinets are unboxed.
You can identify your exact Wellborn configuration by opening a drawer and looking for a small printed label on the inside-left panel of the box. It lists the cabinet code, finish, and door style. Take a photo of that label and send it to us; it tells us more than any catalog page. On the OEM-versus-aftermarket question for Wellborn specifically, we almost always recommend OEM for door fronts and drawer boxes on existing cabinets. Aftermarket fronts from a third-party supplier rarely match the finish fade of a cabinet that’s been absorbing Texas sun for five years. For new additions where everything is ordered fresh, the whole Wellborn order ships together, so matching is a non-issue, and you get the manufacturer warranty that travels with the product.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Wellborn Home Additions & ADU Is Failing
Not “failing” in the door-falls-off sense, but in the slower way that tells you the original layout or installation wasn’t planned for how your family actually lives. These are the patterns we see across Fort Worth homes, from Mistletoe Heights bungalows to newer builds in Walsh:
- Drawer glides grind or catch when the weather shifts. Wellborn uses undermount soft-close glides on the Premier lines, and Fort Worth’s humidity swings from dry winter to wet spring can make a misaligned glide bind. It’s rarely the glide itself; it’s usually a cabinet box that was shimmed out of square.
- Doors rub against adjacent doors after a year. This signals hinge fatigue on a full-overlay cabinet. The hinges are adjustable, but if the door was never adjusted after the first month of settling, it can wear the hinge cup and need replacement.
- The toe kick has pulled away from the base. On a slab foundation in Fort Worth, seasonal soil movement is real. Toe kicks are cosmetic, but a gap tells us the base cabinets were screwed to the subfloor evenly. Fixing it means leveling the run, not just caulking the seam.
- Upper cabinets have visible gaps at the crown or scribe. This is the number-one tell of an addition where the ceilings weren’t checked for level before the cabinet order went in. The painter hides it with caulk for a month. Then the caulk cracks and you see the truth.
- Kitchen layout requires a walk around the island to reach the refrigerator, sink, or range. That’s not a hardware failure, it’s a design failure. The fix isn’t a new hinge; it’s a reconfiguration. And reconfiguring Wellborn cabinets means knowing exactly which boxes, fillers, and panels can be reused.
See the difference
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
For a new Wellborn kitchen inside a Fort Worth home addition, the cabinet package plus installation typically lands between $14,000 and $45,000 depending on the line (Estate, Premier, or Select), the linear feet of cabinetry, and whether you’re adding crown molding, under-cabinet lighting, or a custom island. A full home addition that includes those cabinets, framing, drywall, flooring, electrical, and HVAC runs $45,000 to $130,000 in Fort Worth. An ADU with a full kitchen and bath, including Wellborn cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom vanities, runs $90,000 to $220,000. A straight garage conversion, where the shell is already there, lands between $30,000 and $80,000.
Every estimate we write lists the cabinet line by name, the door style, the finish, and the labor separately. You’ll see the Wellborn item codes on the quote, not a vague “custom cabinetry” line. The written price we give you before work starts is the price you pay unless we uncover something structural that changes the scope, and if that happens, we explain it in writing before you approve anything. The 365-Day Done Right Promise covers the whole project: if a cabinet door is out of alignment a month after we leave, we come back and make it right.
DIY or Call Us?
You can do the detective work yourself, and I’d actually encourage it. Open every drawer in the cabinets you’re replacing or reusing. Look for those labels on the inside-left panel. Take photos. Check the cabinet depths I mentioned above. If your addition is still in planning, measure the ceiling height at the four corners of the room. None of that is dangerous. What is risky is trying to remove and reinstall Wellborn cabinets yourself after they’ve been carrying a stone countertop. A single loaded upper cabinet with a Cambria or Silestone top can weigh over 200 pounds, and if it comes off the wall wrong, it’s not a drywall patch; it’s a hospital visit. High cabinets over 6 feet, glass-front doors, and anything with electrical running through the toe kick are not weekend projects.
If you’d rather have a trained eye look at it, call us at (682) 708-9180. We’ll walk the space, check the labels, measure the openings, and hand you a written price. That part is always free.
FAQs
Wellborn boxes and door fronts are built to last 20 to 30 years with normal use when they’re installed level and square. The soft-close hinges and drawer glides are the parts that typically need adjustment or replacement sooner, usually in the 8 to 12 year range. Fort Worth’s humidity swings mean hinges on exterior-facing walls tend to need attention sooner than cabinets on interior walls. If your cabinets are over 15 years old and still opening cleanly, they were installed right. Call (682) 708-9180 to have your existing Wellborn cabinets assessed before you plan an addition around them.
Yes, in most cases. A drawer glide, a hinge, a door front, a toe kick, a shelf pin hole that’s wallowed out; those are all repairable parts, and we do that work regularly. Full replacement only makes sense when the cabinet box itself has water damage, has pulled away from the wall studs, or no longer matches the layout you need. If you’re adding on and want the new cabinets to match old ones, call (682) 708-9180 and we can tell you if Wellborn still produces your finish and door style.
A typical kitchen cabinet installation in a new addition takes 2 to 4 working days once the drywall is finished and the floors are down. An ADU with a kitchen and a bathroom vanity takes 3 to 5 days. If we’re reusing existing Wellborn cabinets as part of a reconfiguration, add a day for careful removal and prep. We’ll give you a schedule in writing before the job starts, and we’ll name the days the noisy work happens so you can plan around school pickups and nap time if you’re living in the house during the project.
We stock common replacement hardware: soft-close hinges, drawer glide clips, shelf pins, and touch-up kits for the most common Wellborn finishes in the Fort Worth market. Odd-size door fronts, custom drawer boxes, and finish-matched panels are ordered from Wellborn by item code, which takes a few weeks. That’s why we ask you to photograph the label inside the cabinet before the first visit; it lets us confirm the exact part and order it that day instead of a week later. For a parts match or a full addition quote, call (682) 708-9180.
We also install and service cabinetry from KraftMaid, Cambria, and Silestone for Fort Worth homeowners who are mixing brands in their addition or ADU.
Written by Graham Stein, Owner, Elmstead Remodeling Fort Worth at Elmstead Remodeling Fort Worth, serving Fort Worth and nearby areas. Graham grew up in Los Angeles and learned the trade at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College before spending decades doing construction work across North Texas. He writes every scope of work down before a single tool comes off the truck. The written price and the final invoice should read the same; if they don’t, that’s on us to explain before we hand you a pen.
