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CGI Kitchen Remodeling: The Houston Owner’s Guide
A full CGI kitchen remodel in Houston typically runs $14,000 to $45,000 installed, and most homeowners call us after living with a kitchen that stopped working years before the cabinets did. We stock CGI-compatible components and match them to your existing layout, cabinet footprint, and plumbing rough-ins. You’ll know it’s time when doors stick in July humidity, drawer slides bind, or the cabinet boxes themselves start pulling away from the wall.
What usually brings Houston homeowners to this page is a specific failure: a warped cabinet door, a delaminating counter edge, a hinge that stripped out of the particleboard, or a sink base that’s gone soft from years of slow drips. Sometimes it’s one cabinet. Sometimes it’s the whole run along the back wall. Either way, the question is the same: can this be matched, or does the whole kitchen need to come out? The answer depends on what’s behind the doors.
Which CGI Models This Applies To
CGI cabinetry comes in two distinct product lines that Houston homeowners confuse constantly: the original builder-grade series with 5/8-inch particleboard boxes and PVC edge banding, and the mid-tier line with 3/4-inch plywood boxes that was spec’d in a lot of 1990s and early 2000s custom homes in Meyerland, Westbury, and the Memorial villages. The difference matters. The 5/8-inch boxes fail at the hinge and at the floor of the sink base first. The 3/4-inch plywood boxes usually survive but the doors and drawer fronts don’t.
Identifying your series is straightforward. Open a cabinet door and look at the exposed edge of the box where the hinge mounts. Particleboard looks like pressed sawdust with a smooth paper-like coating. Plywood shows visible wood layers. Also check the drawer boxes: CGI’s builder series used stapled particleboard drawers with a plastic bracket clip, while the mid-tier used dovetailed solid wood. Both are serviceable, but the remediation is different. A particleboard box with water damage gets replaced. A plywood box with a stripped hinge gets a dowel-and-redrill with an oversized screw. Aftermarket doors from KraftMaid and custom local mill shops can match CGI’s door profiles within an 1/8 inch, but you need a caliper on the original hinge cup to get the overlay right. That’s the gotcha: CGI used 35mm hinge cups on a 1/2-inch overlay on most builder doors, which is common, but a few series shipped with a 9/16-inch overlay that no stock door matches without modification.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your CGI Kitchen Remodeling Is Failing
- Doors that won’t close flush in summer. Houston’s humidity soaks into particleboard and swells the hinge-side edge. You’ll see the gap close up at the striker side first. If the door has warped more than 1/8 inch across its face, the fix is a new door, not a hinge adjustment.
- Drawer slides that catch or drop. CGI’s builder drawers ran on 3/4-extension epoxy slides rated for 75 pounds. When those wear, the drawer sags and scrapes the cabinet floor. Once the slide is worn, pumping grease into it just makes a mess. The slide, and usually the drawer box, get replaced as a unit.
- A soft floor in the sink base. If the cabinet floor flexes when you set a bottle of dish soap on it, water has already wicked into the particleboard core. That cabinet is structurally done. It gets rebuilt, not patched, because the moisture is never just at the seam.
- Hinges that strip out of the cabinet side. The two screws that hold each hinge to the cabinet frame have maybe 5/8 inch of bite in particleboard. Once they strip, it’s a progressively bigger hole. A contractor with the right jig can drill and insert a threaded insert. A handyman with a bigger screw makes the next repair more expensive.
- Counter edge delaminating at the sink. CGI’s builder countertops were post-formed laminate, meaning the top surface curves down into a water-resistant front edge as one sheet. When that edge lifts, water gets behind it and into the substrate. That edge can’t be re-laminated and hold. Replace the top or the whole cabinet run.
See the difference
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After
Before
After
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
Here’s what we quote to Houston homeowners for CGI kitchen work, and how the numbers break.
| Scope | Typical Houston Installed Range |
|---|---|
| Full gut-and-replace kitchen remodel | $14,000 – $45,000 |
| Cabinet installation (new boxes, doors, hardware) | $4,000 – $13,000 |
| Countertop installation (laminate or solid surface) | $2,000 – $6,500 |
| Backsplash installation | $800 – $2,500 |
| Kitchen island installation | $3,000 – $10,000 |
The range on a full remodel swings on three things: linear footage of cabinets, whether the electrical and plumbing rough-ins need to move, and whether the floor substrate is solid enough to tile. A 10-by-10 kitchen with stock cabinets, a laminate top, and no structural surprises lands near the bottom. A 200-square-foot kitchen with a load-bearing wall removed, new panel feeds for appliances, and stone tops lands near the top. Every price we give is written before work starts, with a line-item scope and a number that does not move. The 365-Day Done Right Promise covers the installation: if anything we set fails inside one year, we come back and correct it at no charge. Written guarantee, not a verbal one.
DIY or Call Us?
You can diagnose a lot from a tape measure and a level. Check drawer reveals, door gaps, and cabinet-to-ceiling lines. If a door sits 1/4 inch lower on the striker side and the hinge screws turn freely, that’s a stripped hole. If the cabinet side is otherwise solid, we can repair it on-site with a threaded insert drill-and-fill. No drama, no upsell.
Where DIY goes wrong is cabinet box repair after water damage and any countertop work involving a router or undermount sink cutout. Particleboard doesn’t sand, patch, or bond like wood. Once it has swelled, it loses structure permanently. And electricity sits close in a kitchen: adding under-cabinet lighting, moving appliance feeds, or relocating a receptacle touches code. Houston requires permits for electrical modifications and inspections for any new circuits. We pull the permits, pass the inspections, and leave the printed sign-off in the client’s hand. If you’re looking at a single cabinet needing a door match, call us at (940) 289-7658 and describe what you’re seeing. We’ll tell you over the phone whether it’s a service call or a bigger conversation.
FAQs
CGI builder-grade cabinets hold up 12 to 18 years in Houston’s climate before door warping and sink base water damage force replacements. The mid-tier plywood boxes can last 25 years or more if the doors are replaced once. Humidity is the killer, not normal wear. A kitchen with good venting above the cooktop and a sealed dishwasher installation will outlast one without either, sometimes by a decade.
Hinges, slides, and door alignment issues can be repaired. Warped doors, water-damaged boxes, and delaminated countertops get replaced. The decision is structural: if particleboard has absorbed moisture and swelled, no repair holds. For an honest read on a specific cabinet, call (940) 289-7658 and describe the location and what the failure looks like. A quick phone call usually answers it.
Most Houston kitchen remodels in this scope run 3 to 6 weeks from first tear-out to final inspection, depending on cabinet lead time and whether plumbing or electrical lines move. Counter fabrication adds 1 to 3 weeks if it’s stone. We set the schedule in writing at contract, including material arrival dates, so the kitchen isn’t torn apart while cabinets sit in a warehouse.
We carry common 35mm hinge cups, drawer slides, shelf clips, and touch-up kits for CGI cabinet series, plus the tools to machine door blanks on-site. Full door sets and replacement boxes are ordered to match the existing profile and arrive before the tear-out begins. If it’s a discontinued hinge style, we re-machine the door for a current spec rather than leaving the kitchen mismatched.
Straight scope, straight number, that’s the whole conversation. If your CGI kitchen is failing anywhere in Houston, call (940) 289-7658 for a free estimate. We’ll put eyes on it, tell you what’s salvageable and what isn’t, and hand you a written price before any tool comes out of the truck.
Written by Curtis Lane, Owner, Bradford Remodeling Co Houston at Bradford Remodeling Co Houston, serving Houston and nearby areas.
