What a linear foot of cabinet actually means
Cabinet suppliers quote per linear foot because cabinets come in a fixed depth and a fixed height, so the only dimension that varies is how much wall they occupy. A linear foot of base cabinet is twelve inches of run at 24 in deep and 34.5 in high; a linear foot of wall cabinet is twelve inches at 12 in deep. That is the whole convention, and it is why a per-linear-foot price can be compared between suppliers even when their door styles and construction differ wildly.
Where it gets slippery is the measuring. A linear foot is measured along the wall, at counter height, wall to wall — including into the corners. That last point is the one that generates almost every error, because if you measure two walls that meet, you have measured the corner square twice. The cabinet in that corner is one cabinet occupying one square of floor, not two.
The fix is a fixed deduction per inside corner: 24 inches from the base run, because a base cabinet is 24 in deep, and 12 inches from the wall run, because a wall cabinet is 12 in deep. This calculator applies both automatically from the corner count. An L-shaped kitchen has one corner, a U has two, a single wall or a galley has none, and an island has none because nothing meets it at a right angle in the same run.
Why the countertop run is longer than the cabinet run
Four kinds of opening interrupt a kitchen run, and they behave differently. Getting them into the right category is the second thing this calculator does for you.
Full-height appliances — the refrigerator and a slide-in range — break both the cabinets and the countertop. Nothing sits above them and nothing sits below. Their width comes out of both the base run and the countertop run.
Under-counter appliances — dishwasher, wine cooler, undercounter refrigerator — replace a cabinet box but the countertop runs continuously over the top. Their width comes out of the base cabinet run but stays in the countertop run. That is why the countertop run in the worked example below is 11.75 ft while the base run is only 9.75 ft: the dishwasher removes two feet of cabinetry and no countertop.
Tall units — a pantry, a broom cupboard, a double oven housing — occupy the run at full height, so they take floor space away from the base cabinets and carry no countertop. They are priced separately because a full-height cabinet costs substantially more per foot than a base cabinet: it is roughly two and a half times the height for the same footprint.
Sinks and hobs interrupt neither. A sink base is a cabinet and a drop-in sink sits in the countertop, so both continue underneath and around. Do not deduct for them. What a sink and a hob do affect is countertop fabrication cost — cutouts, edge work and seams are usually priced as extras, which is why the countertop figure here is an area price rather than a finished quote.
The wall cabinet run gets its own measurement rather than being derived from the base run, because the two are rarely the same length. Windows, a range hood, a refrigerator that stands proud, and open shelving all break the upper run while leaving the lower one intact. Measure the wall that will actually carry uppers, into any corner, and let the 12 in corner deduction do the rest.
Worked example: an L-shaped kitchen, 12 ft and 10 ft runs
An L-shaped kitchen with a 12 ft wall and a 10 ft wall meeting at one corner. A 36 in refrigerator and a 30 in slide-in range break the run completely; a 24 in dishwasher sits under the counter; a 33 in pantry stands full height. Sixteen feet of wall will carry upper cabinets. Base cabinets are quoted at $220 a linear foot, wall at $165, tall units at $330, and the countertop at $55/ft² over a 25.5 in finished depth.
- Gross run. 12 + 10 = 22 ft.
- Corner deduction. 1 corner × 24 in = 2 ft, leaving 20 ft.
- Full-height openings. 36 + 30 = 66 in = 5.5 ft.
- Under-counter opening. 24 in = 2 ft.
- Tall unit. 33 in = 2.75 ft.
- Base cabinet run. 22 − 2 − 5.5 − 2 − 2.75 = 9.75 linear feet.
- Countertop run. 9.75 + 2 = 11.75 ft — the dishwasher gets a top even though it is not a cabinet.
- Countertop area. 11.75 × 25.5 ÷ 12 = 11.75 × 2.125 = 24.97 ft².
- Wall cabinet run. 16 − 1 = 15 linear feet.
- Cabinetry. 9.75 × $220 = $2,145, plus 15 × $165 = $2,475, plus 2.75 × $330 = $907.50 → $5,527.50.
- Countertop. 24.96875 × $55 = $1,373.28.
- Total. 5,527.50 + 1,373.28 = $6,900.78.
Look at step 6 against step 1. A kitchen with 22 feet of wall yields fewer than ten feet of base cabinets, because the corner, three appliances and a pantry consume 12.25 of the 22 feet. That ratio is worth internalising before you shop: the wall length tells you very little about how much cabinetry you are buying, and two kitchens with identical footprints can differ by half in cabinet cost depending on how many appliances break the run.
How to use the numbers when you go shopping
The linear-foot figures are the ones to carry into a showroom, because they let you price the same kitchen across suppliers whose quotations are otherwise incomparable. Ask each supplier for a rate per linear foot for base, wall and tall separately in the door style you want, then apply your own measured runs. Where a supplier quotes only a single blended rate, ask what mix it assumes — a blended rate derived from a kitchen with a lot of cheap wall cabinets will understate a kitchen that is mostly base and pantry.
Read the total as a supplied cost, not an installed one. Cabinet quotations conventionally exclude installation, delivery, filler strips, finished end panels, crown moulding, toe-kick trim, and the scribing needed where walls are not straight. Those items are individually small and collectively significant, and they are where a low headline rate is often recovered. When you compare bids, confirm each one covers the same list — the same exercise as normalising any set of contractor quotes.
The countertop figure is an area, not a fabricated price. Stone and quartz are fabricated from slabs, so the price depends on how your run nests into a slab as well as on the area, and cutouts, seams, edge profiles and splashbacks are priced separately. Take the area to a fabricator and get a real quote; use the number here to sanity-check it and to compare materials at the concept stage.
Standard North American cabinet dimensions
| Component | Depth | Height | Common widths |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base cabinet | 24 in | 34.5 in (36 in with countertop) | 9–48 in in 3 in steps |
| Wall cabinet | 12 in | 30, 36 or 42 in | 9–48 in in 3 in steps |
| Tall / pantry unit | 24 in | 84, 90 or 96 in | 18, 24, 30, 33, 36 in |
| Countertop | 25.5 in with a 1.5 in overhang | 36 in from the floor | continuous |
| Toe kick | 3 in recess | 4.5 in | continuous |
The 3 in width increment is why a run almost never divides exactly into cabinets. The remainder is taken up by filler strips, which is normal and is the reason cabinet layouts are drawn before they are ordered.
Clearances that constrain the layout
Linear feet tell you what a kitchen costs; clearances tell you whether it works. The National Kitchen & Bath Association's planning guidelines recommend a work aisle of at least 42 inches between facing runs in a one-cook kitchen, and 48 inches where two people work at once. A walkway that passes through the kitchen without being a work zone wants at least 36 inches.
Those numbers set the minimum room width for each layout. A galley with base cabinets on both walls consumes 24 in on each side, so a 42 in aisle needs a room at least 90 in — 7 ft 6 in — wide, and a two-cook 48 in aisle needs 8 ft. An island is subject to the same rule on every side that is used, which is why islands frequently do not fit in rooms that look large enough on paper.
Appliance doors are the other constraint the linear measurement hides. A dishwasher door drops into the aisle, an oven door swings into it, and a refrigerator needs clearance to open past 90 degrees for the drawers to come out. Check those before finalising a layout, not after the cabinets are ordered.
Measuring mistakes that change the order
- Measuring to the corner twice. The single most common error. Measure each wall fully, then let the 24 in per corner deduction handle the overlap rather than guessing at it.
- Measuring at floor level. Baseboard, out-of-plumb walls and pipe boxing all change the usable length. Measure at counter height, roughly 36 in, which is where the cabinets actually sit.
- Assuming appliance widths. A “30 inch” range is 30 in, but a counter-depth refrigerator needs its own specified opening, often wider than the cabinet nominal. Take the opening width from the appliance specification sheet.
- Forgetting the tall units eat the base run. A pantry occupies the same floor as base cabinets would. Counting it as an addition rather than a substitution overstates both the cabinet cost and the countertop area.
- Deducting for the sink or hob. Neither interrupts the run. Both sit within a cabinet and within the countertop.
- Ignoring filler strips. Cabinets come in 3 in increments and walls do not. Every run needs a filler somewhere, and out-of-square rooms need scribing at the ends.
- Treating countertop area as a countertop quote. Area drives the material; cutouts, edges, seams and splashbacks drive a large part of the price on stone and quartz.
Where cabinets sit in the whole kitchen budget
Cabinets and countertops are typically the largest single line in a kitchen renovation, which makes the linear-foot count the most consequential measurement in the project. Everything else scales off the room rather than off the layout: flooring off the floor area, painting off the wall area, electrical off the fixture count. Get the runs wrong and the error is concentrated in the most expensive item.
Two decisions move the total more than any negotiation. The first is door style and construction, which is what a per-linear-foot rate mostly encodes — the same physical run of cabinetry can differ several-fold between a stock melamine range and a custom painted one. The second is how many appliances break the run, which you control at the layout stage: consolidating tall units and appliances onto one wall generally leaves longer uninterrupted runs, and long runs are cheaper per foot to build and to top than the same footage broken into short segments.
Feed the total from here into the overall renovation budget alongside the other trades, and hold a contingency — kitchens routinely uncover plumbing and electrical that has to be moved once the old units come out. If the floor is being replaced at the same time, run the flooring cost calculator on the full room area rather than the exposed area, since flooring under cabinets is normal practice in some regions and cutting around them is normal in others. And if the case for the whole project is financial rather than practical, put the finished number through the renovation equity calculator before you commit.