Why is custom cabinetry so expensive?

[Ben Franz]

What Tony sez. The glut of home improvement shows has convinced the general public that anyone can do woodworking, construction, landscaping, etc. I'm just waiting for the debut of the "Brain Surgery Network". Almost every trade has become more complex as the technology and materials become more involved. We're not in 7th grade shop class anymore. My $2.00 (adjusted for client attitude).

[John Gornall]

I've done custom work (not kitchens) for over 30 years. At the point when the customer asks why it costs so much I've put in about 1000 dollars worth of time with the customer and designing but the customer usually can't see this and thinks they have got nothing so far.

And the customer is sitting on a stool in a nice showroom that has heat, light, insurance, and parking which if I didn't have and pay for the customer wouldn't have come to me.

And of course there's my truck which I use to deliver the product.

Gee - how does the cost of a few pieces of wood and some glue add up to such a price?

Did I mention the cost of my accountant and the city taxes on my shop?

Business licence?

185.00 a month average for saw blade sharpening?

[Per Swenson]

I know its a bad attitude.
But if you have to ask.....
please buy the store bought cabs and we will see if we can schedule you for a install.
Saves a lot of grief and hurt feelings.
Besides the Smith's down the street really don't care.

Per

[David DeCristoforo]

"But if you have to ask.....etc."

That says it all. Why waste your time even trying to explain...

[M. A. Espinoza]

Jeff, I make furniture for a living, but hired Crown-Point to make my kitchen. This is my kitchen (my kitchen is the one in the photos), $27,000.00 in cabs alone (in 2003). I wouldn't do it for that. Counting finished side panels, there are 50 'doors'.

http://www.crown-point.com/styles/ac...ndCrafts1.html
.

Wow, you got your money's worth. That is a beautiful kitchen.

If a cabinet shop can please a woodworker they are really on top of their game.

We can be a bit fussy on the details at times.

[Karl Brogger]

I know its a bad attitude.
But if you have to ask.....
please buy the store bought cabs and we will see if we can schedule you for a install.
Saves a lot of grief and hurt feelings.
Besides the Smith's down the street really don't care.

Per

Totally agree. If I go to bid something and they mention that they went to a box store to price stuff out..... I'm usually at least twice what the average box cabinet costs, and I tell them can't compete with the low end products. The really wierd thing is some of the high end box cabinets are actually more than what I charge. I've never understood that.

This kitchen was $15k for just the cabinets. Doesn't include the countertops, appliance's, lighting, or the "special" glass in the doors that the home owner's wife just had to have. Which wasn't that special. There was a couple other cabinets too, but nothing major. 9' cabinets (except the hood was at 9'-6", 4-1/4" crown with a rope moulding. Basically a flat panel door with a moulding on the inside. Maple dovetail drawers with soft close undermount slides. Maple plywood interiors.

For a while there, the more I charged the more people wanted to pay. Keeping up with the Jones' means alot to some people.

[Sonny Edmonds]

Because it is worth it.
If you can't tell the difference, shop at Ikea.

[John Callahan]

Often no tearing apart necessary -- they fall apart all on their own.

I've been appalled at what passes for commercially acceptable in some of the mid- to lower-end stuff that gets installed in houses.

......... +1 Worked on a bunch of condo projects the past couple of years and much of what I saw was pitiful. Drawer faces and other parts falling off before you got the cabinet out of the box. A lot of shipping damage- some were not even packed in boxes; just a cardboard band wrapped around and stapled to the back. Big national builder- just about everything is strictly lowest bid and quality be damned.

[Larry Edgerton]

Actually this question is why I moved away from cabinets and back to home construction. I got tired of people talking to me like I am a thief because I charge so much more than Home Depot. After kicking a few people out of my shop I decided it was time for a change.

The house I am finishing right now has a nasty version of the "Unfitted Kitchen" with overlay doors and the people paid over 70K for the cabinets, and they are the same old particleboard crap you find at HD but with a better salesman. Absolute junk! The design has no flow pattern that makes sense, its ten steps from the fridge to the stove and six to the sink, but it was "computor designed" by some jerk that up until last year was sorting rough lumber in the back of a local mill.

So I guess my real answer is if you have to ask, go to Home Depot, they have just what you need.......

[Ed Peters]

That seems a little on the low side. Is that for paint grade or stain grade?

If you check my website, you'll notice that I don't paint anything. Won't even quote on it. I like seeing the wood.

Yes my pricing is a real bargain compaired to most. It's meant to be but I still turn a very acceptable dollar on each job. Keeping in mind that I don't have a lot of overhead (like healthcare etc). In addition, I stock pile Red Oak, the only wood I offer. I buy it low, normaly never above $1.00 per bdft so this also works in the clients best interest. So, can I cover 20' of wall with uppers and lowers for under $7K and realize an acceptable profit? You betcha.

Ed

[Peter Quinn]

I hear what Larry is saying. i have had my "But the Home Depot can do it cheaper" potential customer in my little side business, and I told them they were fired, I would not work for them, please don't call me again. i am a wood worker, darn it, not a used car salesman. You can't buy a BMW for the price of KIA.

I'd say economies of scale come into play with custom versus stock cabinetry. Not all stock cabinetry is bottom end, some I have seen is quite good, and you can get very good doors/drawers from speciality outfits that are better than some of the less well made custom work. Not all 'custom' work is good work, some guys make junk one at a time too.

In my day job I work for a custom cabinet and millwork shop. We make things to order from architect's plans, or designers plans, or for contractors and design builders from our own plans. Every kitchen is laid out in the field using a story pole. It fits the space, no 4" filler strips at each end. Fridge boxes match the actual fridge being used and are not just a big sloppy generic hole in which to push an appliance. Ditto for all other appliance cabs. We make sink cabs scribed to porcelain farm house sinks, get the idea? Custom work that looks like built in furniture, seamless wall to wall.

So each kitchen requires a set of plans, a set of shop drawings, cut lists and set ups for each piece, molding run in the species in question. You pay the set up and design cost all by your self, but you get exactly what you want. With a big box kitchen, you get exactly what they offer, but the set up and design fees are spread over thousands of units, so you pay only a fraction of these costs, thus for the same quality it will still cost less to buy stock than custom. Make sense?

Now that said this is a VERY diverse business, the cabinet trade, and there are guys operating at many levels. Some book match door panels, cut door frames from a single stick, do it like furniture. Others think melamine is a god send, and there is a lot in between. So if you want to compare stock to custom cabinets, be sure to read the specs closely and kick the tires. That junk at the Borg with the thermo foil doors, 5/8" particle board cases, plastic corner braces and low end hardware cannot be compared to top flight hardwood cabinets with good hardware fairly on either price or quality.

Anyway, at any given quality level, custom will likely cost you more stock cabinets, but not so much as you might think, and for many the difference is worth it to get exactly what they want. For others stock cabinets work fine in their space and for their budget. Just make sure you are comparing apples to apples before you sign a contract.

[Kevin Godshall]

The funniest part of the whole deal with the borg......

As a Supervisor in the mass production facility, I occasionally got to go to the local retail outlets and pose as a customer, to see if we were being represented fairly and adequately. I don't know how many times I had to ask to speak to a Manager because most of what I was being told by the salesmen were pure lies.

At one heated point, I demanded they pull down one of the in store samples and remove the hinges. My initials were in the hinge hole because I had to sign off on the color match. There wasn't a color match for the Manager's face when the initials in inside the cab matched the ones I had just scribbled on his clipboard.

[Greg Cuetara]

...Why should the customer who goes to their clean safe high paying job not pay us our propers. We are under valued compared to other trades...

I'm sorry to say this but that is one of the most idiotic things I have heard someone say. It does not matter what the other person does for a job or how much money they make. You need to charge what you are worth and what the product is worth. It is that attitude why I have not been able to build a home yet. I went to a dozen builders and everyone looked at me and said, 'well you are building in this town so you can afford it." No I couldn't afford $200 / sq.ft. for a low end house. I typically work in an office but I do go out on large construction sites and that carries it's own risks so don't judge someone by where they work or what they do.

A set of custom cabinets is worth X amount of dollars. The location may adjust X up or down but the client should not adjust the value of the cabinets up or down.

Back to the OP people are paying for quality construction along with quality materials along with a custom fit. Is it worth it? Only you can decide.

[Frank Drew]

Greg,

I think you took Tony's comments the wrong way, at least as I understood them (This is hard work that takes thoughtfulness and intelligence and ought to be fairly compensated.)

[jack duren]

I understand that the wood and hardware itself isn't cheap, but I was wondering why custom kitchen cabinetry can cost $25k, $35k, or more? What percentage of that cost is material vs. labor? And is the customer paying more for the time that it takes to build them or the skill?

Hard to say. Without a kitchen theres no way to determine what the pricing is for.

One person commented he couldnt build the kitchen for what he payed, yet one state over it might have been half the price.

Comments on cheap products versus better products is mute. If one shop offers you a set of cabinets for 15k using PB yet the shop down the street uses plywood and cost 19k, whos to say its a better built cabinet and did one ask the price of the lower priced cabinets to price using plywood. For those on a high horse who will only build this or that to there specs only along with pricing....You'll build them out of Pb if your hungry enough.

People pay what people feel comfortable paying. Some are satisfied and some think its outrageous. Simply put its the market.

Personally....The price of cabinetry is low in comparison to some trades. Due to competition from competitors and DIYers......