Anyone know where I should go to find someone who will make decent cabinets for fairly cheap? I want an upgrade from the home depot preassembled one's, but I'd rather pay a fella locally to build them.
What should I look for in the phone book? Or should I even be looking in the phone book? How can i determine if they are reputable, and how much $$$ should I give them up front to build them?
-Jason KS
One thing you can always do, is ask the local guy for references. If he will not give you any, run not walk away from him. The ones that do give you references, call the people for an appointment and go see the quality of the work they received and ask them about how happy they were using that supplier.
Paul
First you may want to look and cruise on the web for Canadian or US manufacturers One things I learned is now the cabinet doors are made in large plant using mass production procedures. Some are made in the US and Canada. More and more manufacturers and re-sellers are dealing directly with China and other low cost labour countries. In turn they adapt their designs and install their selected hardware. Shipping is not a problem every thing is packed in flat boxes (like Ikea) and shipped all over the world. If you have the time, check with the Chinese embassy and others as who is making kitchen cabinet in their country of origin. Lots of CEO's and well dressed lawyers are buying their tailor made suits right on the internet from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The other solution is to make your own design and buy custom make doors direct and make the framing and installation yourself. If you feel you can have access to a good source of lumber and you have the tools you can make your own cabinet. After your design is completed you wail to make some prototypes and design some jigs and fixtures to facilitate the making of your cabinet. To recap. the best approach would be to buy custom made doors and do they installation yourself.
Where do you live? If you live in my area, I can name names.
Always good to have references, but who the heck would ever give out bad references? A guy could do 20 bad jobs and 100 bad ones and give out 10 references from the good jobs.
I suppose references are good if you actually want to see someone's work other than the showroom.
Brian Elfert
Who or where you look might depend on what you need. Do you need a finished cabinet built off site? Do you need an unfinished cabinet built off site? Do you need the cabinets installed? Do you need someone to tear out and build cabinets onsite?
Some companies can and will do it all and some companies will just build cabinets. Make sure you both have the same expectations.
If you know a good builder ask about the companies he uses. Also you probably can find good cabinet shops in the phone book. In either case, you'll need to do your own research about references and quality.
Another thing I might mention is that I rarely have the chance to use the words quality and cheap in the same sentence.
Mike O.
Am reminded of the business card that has the following printed on it:
"Good", "Fast", "Cheap", pick any two.
Lew
Try Gourmet Kitchens Design based out of Sacramento, CA they should be within 3500 miles of you......
Tin Woodsmn (Couldn't resist.)
Nowadays you only get to pick one.
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