A kitchen renovation in North Vancouver comes down to one early decision: a new custom kitchen, or a refresh of the cabinets you already have with new doors, drawer fronts, and hardware. Go custom when the layout or the boxes are the problem. Refresh when the boxes are sound and the room already works. DADO does both, designed at our Kitsilano showroom and installed across the North Shore.
Most of the houses we see in Lynn Valley, Upper Lonsdale, Delbrook, and Deep Cove were built between the 1960s and the 1980s. They are split-levels, post-and-beam homes, and two-storey family houses with kitchens closed off from the living room, eight-foot ceilings, a soffit above the uppers, and original boxes that have been through two or three sets of owners. Down the hill in Lower Lonsdale, Moodyville, and around Seylynn, the stock is newer: townhomes and infill houses with builder-grade cabinets that are only a few years old and were chosen for the developer, not for the family cooking in them.
Those two kinds of home usually want two different answers.
A new kitchen is the right call when the room itself is wrong. The wall between the kitchen and the living room is coming out. You want an island where there has never been one. You want deep drawers for pots instead of the base doors you crouch into, and a tall pantry instead of a cupboard over the fridge. Or the boxes are original particleboard that has swollen under the sink and will not hold a hinge screw.
Older North Shore rooms are rarely square, and ceilings and floors in a 1970s split-level are rarely level, which is exactly what made-to-order cabinetry is for. We measure before anything is built, cabinets are made to the room, and they arrive pre-assembled about four weeks after design sign-off, which is our standard lead time rather than a promise for every project. As planning ranges, a smaller kitchen runs about $18,000 to $28,000, most projects land between $30,000 and $50,000, and a large high-end build starts past $100,000. Cabinetry alone starts at about $15,000.
A refresh keeps your boxes, your counter, your sink, and your layout, and replaces the doors, the drawer fronts, the hinges, the slides, and the handles. It is the right call when the boxes are plywood or solid wood, they are dry and square, and you can cook in the room without fighting it. The newer infill homes and townhomes in Lower Lonsdale are often the best candidates: sound boxes, a workable layout, and flat builder doors that make the whole kitchen look cheaper than it is.
New fronts in painted slab MDF, rift white oak veneer, or walnut veneer, with soft-close hinges and integrated handles, change how the kitchen looks and feels without the trades that follow a full replacement. We quote a refresh per project after a look at the existing cabinets, because the number depends on how many doors, which finish, and whether end panels need matching skins. It costs a fraction of a new kitchen, and we would rather tell you that plainly than publish a number that does not fit your cabinets.
North Vancouver is wetter and darker than the rest of the city. Homes backing onto the forest in Lynn Valley and Deep Cove get less direct light and more moisture in the air, and that shapes finish choices whichever path you take. Factory-finished painted MDF doors handle humidity better than paint brushed on site. Wood veneer in rift white oak or walnut brings warmth into a north-facing room that white cabinets can leave cold. Plywood boxes shrug off the damp that ruins particleboard. On the hardware side, the soft-close hinges and slides we use carry a lifetime warranty, and wood and laminate finishes typically carry a one-year manufacturer warranty.
We have one showroom, at 1737 West 3rd Ave in Vancouver, open by appointment. Most North Vancouver clients visit once to see materials and door styles in person, and the rest happens with photos, measurements, and 3D renderings. We measure your kitchen before manufacturing. Cabinets are delivered pre-assembled over the bridge and installed by our team or your own contractor, with plumbing, electrical, and other trades handled separately and coordinated around the install. For a fuller look at how we work on this side of the water, read our post on custom kitchens for the North Shore.
If you are leaning toward a new kitchen, the Vancouver Kitchen Cost Calculator gives you a planning range in three inputs. If you are leaning toward a refresh, photograph the inside of your sink base and a drawer opening and bring them along. Either way, book a free consultation and we will tell you honestly which path your kitchen is asking for.