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Cover Kitchen Remodeling: The Austin Owner’s Guide
If you own a Cover home in Austin and the kitchen is starting to show its age, a full remodel typically runs $14,000 – $45,000 in this market, and we install Cover-compatible kitchens year-round. Most owners call us after living with the original builder-grade kitchen for five to ten years – drawers that stick, laminate counters peeling at the seams, the island layout that never quite worked. The good news is you’re not locked into whatever Cover originally installed. We spec everything to your home’s dimensions, and we give you a written price before any work starts.
Which Cover Models This Applies To
Mason Remodeling Co Austin is an independent service provider, not affiliated with Cover. What matters for your remodel is the rough opening dimensions and cabinet footprint Cover built into your specific house, not a model name. Most Cover homes in the Austin area fall into two kitchen layouts: a straight-run or L-shape kitchen of roughly 10×12 feet, or an open-plan kitchen with a peninsula or island. Before you replace anything, we measure cabinet box sizes, door swing clearances, and the exact counter overhang – because Cover’s standard cabinet boxes are sometimes 3/4 inch shallower than what you find at a big-box store, and that changes how a new countertop lands.
On the cabinetry side, you’re making a real decision between OEM-style replacement doors and boxes versus a full new cabinet system. For Cover homes, we often recommend KraftMaid or Wellborn semi-custom lines because the frame dimensions track closely to what Cover originally installed, which means fewer filler strips and a cleaner look. For counters, Cambria, Silestone, and Caesarstone all cut cleanly to Cover’s typical 25-1/2 inch depths. If you want to keep the cabinet boxes and just swap doors, hinges, and drawer fronts, that’s doable – but the cost gap between refacing and full replacement narrows fast once you account for the labor of prepping twenty-year-old boxes.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Cover Kitchen Remodeling Is Failing
- Drawer slides bind or catch mid-travel. Builder-grade slides wear out after 7 – 10 years of daily use. The ball bearings flatten, and the drawer starts to ride crooked, which then gouges the cabinet sides.
- Laminate counter seams lift or darken at the edges. Austin’s humidity plus years of water exposure from the sink breaks down the adhesive. Once the substrate swells, the counter is done – no repair will hold for long.
- Hinges snap or doors won’t stay closed. The original concealed hinges on Cover cabinetry are often a light-duty version rated for limited cycles. When the spring inside fails, the door sags and the reveal gap widens.
- Base cabinets show water staining under the sink. This is the #1 structural failure we see in Cover kitchens in Austin. A slow drip sits in the cabinet floor, MDF absorbs it, and the bottom panel swells apart over months.
- Tile backsplash cracks along the counter line. If the house shifted – and Austin’s clay-heavy soils do shift – the settler movement transmits right through the counter and into the tile at the weakest grout joints.
See the difference
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After
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
For a Cover kitchen remodel in Austin, here’s what you can expect before you pick up the phone:
- Full kitchen remodel: $14,000 – $45,000 – tear-out, new cabinets, counters, backsplash, sink, faucet, and often a layout change.
- Small kitchen remodel: $9,000 – $20,000 – same work in a compact footprint, maybe 60 – 80 square feet.
- Cabinet installation only: $4,000 – $13,000 – new boxes, doors, hardware, and crown, keeping the existing counters where feasible.
- Countertop installation only: $2,000 – $6,500 – depends heavily on the material, square footage, and edge profile.
- Backsplash installation: $800 – $2,500 – demolition, prep, tile, grout, and Schluter strip, which is the metal trim that seals the edge where tile meets the counter.
- Kitchen island installation: $3,000 – $10,000 – building out a new island, including plumbing or electrical if you want a prep sink or outlets.
Every quote includes the tear-out, the debris hauling, the materials, and the labor in one written price. No change orders when the scope stays the same. The workmanship is covered by our 365-Day Done Right Promise – if something isn’t right within a year of completion, we make it right at our cost.
DIY or Call Us?
You can absolutely handle the demolition phase – pulling cabinet doors off, removing drawer fronts, and prying off a dated backsplash are within most homeowner skills, as long as you kill the power to any outlets first. Replacing cabinet hardware is also fair game. Where DIY goes sideways is the structural and mechanical work: leveling cabinets on a slab that’s shifted, cutting stone counters without chipping the edge, and re-plumbing a sink so it doesn’t leak into the cabinet below. We’ve rebuilt several kitchens in Austin where a homeowner started confident and ended up with an out-of-square island and a counter seam that wouldn’t close. One honest piece of advice from Isaac Pruett: “Tell me what’s wrong with it. We’ll figure out what it actually needs.” If you’re in over your head, call us at (903) 623-1966 before the problem compounds.
FAQs
A well-installed kitchen with mid-to-upper-tier materials will give you 20 – 25 years in a Cover home. Counters may go longer – stone is indefinite if the base is stable – but cabinets, slides, and hinges all have a mechanical life. Austin’s heat and humidity accelerate adhesive breakdown in laminate, which is why we recommend stone or quartz for any counter you plan to keep beyond ten years. Call (903) 623-1966 and we’ll walk through material options with your actual kitchen dimensions.
It depends on what failed. Drawer slides, hinges, and door fronts are repairable. Swollen cabinet boxes, delaminated counters, and cracked tiles at the substrate are not. A repair quote tells you the truth – if the repair costs hit 60% of replacement, you’re better off putting that money toward new. Estimates are free.
A straight cabinet-and-counter swap in a Cover home runs 2 – 3 weeks. A full remodel with layout changes, electrical, plumbing, and new flooring runs 6 – 10 weeks. We give you the schedule in writing with the price, and Isaac is on-site at key milestones to check the work himself.
We stock the commonly failing hardware – hinges, slides, drawer guides, shelf pins – and we have direct relationships with KraftMaid, Wellborn, Cambria, Silestone, and Caesarstone for fast turnaround on cabinets and counters. If we don’t have your exact part on the truck, we can source it quickly and show you the part price before we install it. Call (903) 623-1966 for a free estimate.
Written by Isaac Pruett, Owner, Mason Remodeling Co Austin at Mason Remodeling Co Austin, serving Austin and nearby areas.
