I had the same concern of the longevity of a painted finish compared to that of a factory-baked on finish. I posted a question about it a couple of different times. The issue that got me over the edge to consider local custom was the issue of touch up painting. Since you've picked the paint color, you can get the same color to do any touch ups. With factory, you're picking one of their colors and don't get touch up paint. I still wonder though if factory is best.

Make sure you can see examples not just of the cabs of the maker you're considering, but of PAINTED cabs they've done. See how they are holding up. Question the painter, who may not be the cab maker, about the paint they use and how it's applied.

Thanks, breezy -- I saw your concerns and was spurred by them to wonder about all of it. I will be having stained cabinets, so the paint-matching won't be an issue for me. But I wonder about finish. In fact, I'm quite unclear on that (no pun intended) -- stain and finish seem to be separate parameters. Does the 'finish' pertain only to stained cabinets? Have I got this at all right? And is this finish what gets "baked" on in a factory and might not be comparable when the cabinets are fully custom-made "from scratch", so to speak?

And if custom-made cabinets don't benefit from some industrial "baking-on" process, does this mean one has to, say, refinish cabinets that are handmade with regularity? That might about finish me (so many puns in here). If we ever get a working kitchen back I don't EVER want to think about it ever again. Not in this life or any other. Never ever again.... I may be obsessive about shopping bags, but building is not my bag.

You know, Aliris, I've heard that point as well -- that the finish on custom/hand-finished cabinetry is not as durable as factory-sprayed finishes.

Personally, my experience says that isn't true at all and might even be a myth propagated by the cab industry. (That said, I don't doubt there are terrible hack custom finish jobs lurking out there that you'll hear about.)

Finish is generally understood as the last protective clear coating on the wood, although it can also include the stain/colorants used to change the wood's color.

Many custom cabinet makers have a finishing spray booth in their workshop, where they can achieve a coating that's comparable if not superior to the mass-produced items.

Factories generally use what's called a toner when they stain cabinets, which is a pigment added to the regular stain. This evens out all the color differences between boards, which is very important for mass production, but also muddies the grain just a bit. (Sometimes this is a desired effect for very light or dark cabinets, or when one wood is mimicking another or needs to be swung in a specific color direction.)

In my own kitchen remodel, I used 15-year-old recycled cherry cabinets and we had to make a number of filler bits and custom panels to match. After staining the wood, I used a sprayer and a specialty two-part catalysed lacquer finish that's comparable to the industrial version. (In the interim, I've learned a lot about finishes & chemicals and now I'd probably switch to a less environmentally damaging, durable low-VOC finish like PolyWhey.)

Going on three years of heavy use now, the finish I used has proven every bit as durable as the factory finish, and it's actually clearer, not as opaque/muddy. When you put them side by side, the factory cabinets definitely have a tinge of plastickiness. And these are very high-end custom cabinets, vastly out of my price range had I gotten them new.

If I get a chance I'll take some close-up photos for you to see what I mean. It's a subtle difference, but if I were starting all over, I'd definitely want to finish them all myself/have a local custom woodworker do them.

Bottom line: I think you just have to check the work of the finish carpenter in question. Tour a number of their custom kitchens and grill the homeowners about their experience with durability.

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck!

Oh! And in terms of re-dos, this finish is bombproof. I certainly don't expect to ever have to re-finish these suckers. At that point I'll probably want a whole new kitchen. :-)

Recourse can certainly be an issue, so it behooves you to thoroughly research any custom cabinetmaker you're considering to minimize any areas of contention beforehand.

The same applies to quality, but I have to say that my custom cabinets are better than any of the mid-priced cabinets I looked at, and I definitely got more for my money. You can also buy crap from a non-custom company.

Regarding finish, mine is fine, but there were a couple of spots that were scratched by the GC's guys after the cabinets were installed. My cabinetmaker came right back and fixed them and you can't tell they were damaged. This goes back to the recourse issue and the reliability of the person you're dealing with.

IMHO, the benefits of custom work far outweigh any negatives.

Recourse to someone who knew stuff, directly, face-to-face, is one reason I liked the custom cabinet maker I used. I dealt directly with the owner (and his dad) and the cabinet company did the installation. I was in and out of the shop during the building process ("so that cup shelf you wanted--do you want THIS shape?" "Nah, more like this!"). They installed the cabinets to look the way they knew they were supposed to look, the owner of the business was on site, and they (ugg!) liked to start installation early in the day so if they needed to change something they could pop over to the shop and do it.

It was nice that once I finalized my cabinet design, the cabinet shop looked at their calendar and told me when they'd install, and my GC scheduled his demo for the week before.

But if something had gone wrong, well, I guess as recourse I had a big chunk of the money. If I'd gone through my GC, he'd have been left holding the bag. But would it be any different with a big company?

Get references. I knew people who had used this company and even ran across a recommendation for them here on GW. I went to their shop and saw real equipment. :) I got samples. Samples samples samples! And a detailed contract.

What I didn't like about the big companies, aside from the absurd pricing on custom work, is that you don't really see what you're getting until it's there and there's no clarity on pricing. Yeah oh it's $xx per lineal foot. Riiight.

I liked Ikea, cash and carry. WYSIWYG. NO hidden pricing. No gimmicks.

Custom was in between.

But there's sure a huge difference between custom cabinet makers so you have to do your homework and even then cross your toes!

Sometimes we see that local cabinet makers can be very traditional, but not in a good way. They may look upon the latest trends as newfangled, and resist them. Or they may simply not be knowledgeable about the latest in kitchen design. For example, we've seen threads where people complain their cabinet maker is unfamiliar with Silgranit sinks, or the idea of putting mostly or all drawers in the base (instead of pull-outs), or the idea of going deeper than 24" standard for counters, or deeper than 12" standard for uppers, or the cabinet requirements for large apron front sinks, or the benefits of frameless cabinetry, etc. So when interviewing local cabinet makers, see how they feel about the latest things you may have seen here on the Kitchens Forum that you want in your kitchen.

Some really good advice on this thread about researching your custom cabinet makers.

In my (non-kitchen) reno, we used two different cabinet makers, both local. One was a small family-run shop that did good basic woodwork but seemed overwhelmed when we started talking about fancier stuff - the answer was always a nervous look with "uh, yeah, bring in a picture and I'm sure we could do it". The piece they did for us is a copy of a Duravit bathroom vanity, very boxy and angular and straight-forward, and they did a good job at a reasonable price, delivered on time, installed properly, etc. One piece of advice I'd give from that experience is to look carefully at what the shop has done before to get an idea of their overall capability. Some shops employ true craftsmen and can do fancy corbels and detail work; others are more basic. Match your job with their abilities.

The other custom woodworker we used was for a very large built-in bookcase in our library, maybe 12' long and 10' high, stained and detailed to match the existing wood trim in the house. He did such a wonderful job that no one believes the piece wasn't part of the house's original 1890 construction. However, he is a one-man show, and it meant we were subject to the limits of one person. If he was sick, no work. If he had another job that was a rush, we were put to the side. If he had personal problems, and there was an ongoing family problem, the work waited until the problem was resolved. The piece ended up being installed WEEKS after he estimated it would be done. It was worth it in the end, and I've recommended him highly, but that's another disadvantage of dealing with a small shop - less flexibility if the main guy is out for any reason. It could lead to a cascade of issues if your cabinet guy gets delayed and holds up the countertops, plumber, tiler, etc. This was not an issue at all with our library wall, but I'd be a little less inclined to have another one-man shop take on a kitchen without some backup plan as to who fills in if the main guy goes down.

Warmfridge, thanks for the direct evaluation.

Buehl, it was precisely that previous post of yours that spurred this question -- well, it was the final straw at least. I'd read some of what had motivated your comments I think, and wanted to re-pose the question downstream and more starkly.

I think the risk is greater in choosing your own craftsman; big manufacturers have many layers for recourse, as noted, and so I think risk is minimized. When selecting appliances and thinking about insurance policies for them and who you choose to buy them from, etc, those are all arenas in which I'm used to thinking about the decisions in terms of risk. But selecting cabinets as a risky-proposition is a new one on me. Being cautious, I like to try to map out the pitfalls, just so that I know when I'm going down that it was predicatable! haha.

Thanks, fori, for speaking to this issue of risk too.

Shannonplus -- someone, somewhere on this forum observed that in their opinion the subs who whined most about other subs' jobs were the cabinetmakers! I suspect they suffer the most from un-true lines, so perhaps it's justifiable. But amusing. I'm finding more resistance among the stock cabinet salesmen to those "new" ideas you listed than the cabinetmakers. On top of all the other variables, there is individuality to contend with in choosing as well.

Yes, zeebee -- good advice indeed! I have slowly come to realize some of what you say about reading between the lines regarding capability from really nice guys. That is, we have around here a whole host of people who won't say "no way, I have no idea how to do that and you ought to find someone who can" -- instead, eyes start to shift sideways and feet drag and things get delayed and basically, all the non-verbal language is saying 'I can't do this!' only I was listening to the words instead, which said "sure, bring me a picture and I can do anything". Only it's not true, they can't. I can't, so I don't know why it should be surprising when they can't. I happen to be a little more open about my limitations, but it's not in their interest to be so, and thus -- duh. I'm learning that if the job isn't eagerly snapped up with a light heart, it's time to find someone else for the job.

We have done 2 kit with local, different cab makers. In both cases I wanted inset cabs, first one was wood with tinted marine varnish and this last one is painted. It worked out very well for me in both cases. I had seen built cabs from both locals and asked a ton of questions.