Gat out of the box store and to a real cabinet store. You'll get better design advice, and cheaper.

They are 42 inch height cabinets.

As for the custom cabinets, a similar kitchen size to mine priced out at 18,000 just for the cabinets.

The prices include pullouts and crown molding all around. No knobs.

New York City if it matters.

lynn2006, feeling a little pushed towards American Woodmark too but like the Thomasville look better. Kraftmaid seems to have a better reputation all around. The prices don't include the 8.875% tax.

Truffula, I also liked the Thomasville look better. My cabinets were going to be 36" with a lot of crown molding. I have 8 feet ceiings and I am in Northern NJ so everything is so costly where I live also but not as costly as NYC. I was not given a price for Thomasville despite wanting a price as I was being pushed towards Woodmark as they were having a lot of specials at the time. I like the cotton color and the finish on the Thamsville. But the Woodmark was nice and the Linen White is a nice white. I was told Kraftmade was the better quality of the three.

I hope others reply.

Thanks. NJ and NY prices are pretty similar I bet. I had to sort of insist on getting the thomasville quote, not sure why. They kept saying kraftmaid is best quality and american woodmark is better quality and cheaper than thomasville. The american woodmark is definitely cheaper - I just haven't heard of it as much so I'm a little wary.

American Woodmark is a twin of Shenandoah at Lowes. I have Shenandoah and love it. I picked Shenandoah instead of American Woodmark because the door styles are slightly different and I liked the Shenandoah better.

You won't have to pay the tax if you have the cabinets installed. We paid the NY tax as we stalled ourselves.

The order of quality bottom up is Am Wood, KM, Thomasville. But, Thomasville is also Diamond at Lowes and Kemper at dealers. And, the last kitchen that I did a direct quote for a builder's own kitchen, when compared to HD's quote, I saved him 9K in Kemper. Almost any dealer with a good semi custom line can beat a box store quote. Box stores actually have higher margins because they have more issues requiring that they eat more mistakes.

- Diamond @ KD's & Lowes, is Schrock @ Menards, and Thomasville @ Home Depot.
- Waypoint @ KD's, is American Woodmark @ Home Depot, and Shenandoah @ Lowes.
- Medallion @ KD's & Menards, is Schuler @ Lowes.

Thanks all. I know I should get quotes from more custom dealers. In my head, I guess I just think it will be WAY more expensive. A lot of the contractors I interview say that they build kitchen cabinets - I can only imagine what that would cost.

I had a local cabinet maker build mine. My kitchen isn't huge, but I did a wall of pantry cabinets, drawers wherever possible, enclosed fridge, 42" uppers with extra shelves, exactly the sizes I wanted to maximize efficiency (down to the 1/16"), and the quote included soft-close hinges, Blum soft-close drawer glides, crown molding, and installation. The installers were incredible. There were a couple of mistakes along the way, and they were fixed quickly and cheerfully. For example, the installer didn't like the way one of the drawer fronts looked (I didn't see it, so I don't know what the problem was), so he called the shop and had them build a new one. It was installed the next day.

I'm in the Midwest, and I paid less than $20K. My u-shaped kitchen is 10' x 11', plus a 5' wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets.

I designed my own kitchen, so I don't know how it would have worked out if I had wanted design help. But you can get plenty of design help here!

Thank you

I just wanted to say that big box stores are not always more expensive. Sometimes they offer great deals that cannot be found elsewhere.

I got at least 10 quotes from different cabinet dealers/designers until I finally went into HD and got a quote for American Woodmark. We got all plywood and it was still several thousand dollars less than the others that were not even all plywood. The reason we got such a great price is because American Woodmark was offering a free upgrade to all plywood, free premium finish, a free trash pullout cabinet and a free drawer insert. In addition, HD was offering a 10% discount and another dollar amount discount. Also, the HD KD was one of the nicest people to work with and she made sure we got every discount we could.

So it's just something to think about.

My experience was the same as novamom; I found the big box stores to always be less expensive.

Suggest get quotes from the big box stores, then take them to a KD and see if the KD can beat it. KD's carry Diamond (AKA Thomasville), Waypoint (AKA American Woodmark), and Kraftmaid - so you can compare apples to apples.

GW is filled with incredibly knowledgeable and very helpful KD's who basically volunteer their time to help us. One in particular is so great, I did some detective work to figure out who she really was and just how far away she was - I was ready to travel to use her to get Shiloh cabinets.

I have learned buying kitchen cabinets makes car buying seem so very easy.

Keep us updated. Good luck!

I just put in Waypoint (dealer version of Am Woodmark) they have slightly different door front options than Am W. I did not price shop. I like the cabinets, but honestly I did not really look at many cabinetoptions. I needed to make a deision and get them ordered quickly, so I just went with what my GC used and got a layout done ASAP. Anything would have been an improvement over what I had before. I know this doesnt sound like a ringing endorsement, but I wouldnt be afraid of Waypoint...Am W should be the same I would think.