You should read mamadadapaige's post about her finished kitchen (which is totally gorgeous, by the way): in it, she writes about her experience with Crown Point (inc. price). You'll get more from it than I can tell you here, but it was a positive review.

Good luck!

thank you rmkitchen!

Danielle,
I am VERY pleased with the quality of my cabinets. The process went very smoothly. I did a lot of shopping around for cabinets and looked at lots of other options including Woodmode, Brookhaven, Quality Custom Cabinets, Plain and Fancy, local cabinet maker, and a couple of others. I was only looking for Inset cabinetry.

we ended up going with Crown Point because two different friends had used them and spoke highly of them. The designer I worked with at Crown Point, Mark Wirta, has been there for a long time and is very competent. He came down to measure my kitchen and was able to have the cabinets built to accomodate the fact that one our walls wasn't plumb. There were other little quirky things he handled with ease as well.

It was an excellent experience from start to finish and I highly recommend them.

The one downside is that they don't offer a ton of standard options on paint colors, however, for an upcharge you can specify a custom color. We were on a tight budget so I just went with a standard color. Their natural wood cabinets save significantly on the budget (25% less than painted), with the exception of a couple of the fancier woods such as Tiger Maple and Quartersawn White Oak.

Here is a link to a slideshow with pictures of my kitchen. Feel free to ask me any questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: slideshow of kitchen

that's great info. thanks so much. my walls are not plumb either, but I'm too far for them to come measure-- do you think that is a problem? what type of modification did they do to accommodate you?

Hi Danielle,
I think a lot of people are too far... it will be your contractor that will measure for you. When Mark came to measure the contractors were here and so essentially they measured together so that they were on the same page.

The contractors asked for extra depth on the back of the cabinet so that they could scribe them to fit the out of plumb wall. It all seemed to work out fine. The cabinets came in perfectly with one small exception. When they were delivered I inspected everything before the delivery person left. I noticed that on the spice door cabinet there were three hinges (to support the weight of the spices). On the door on the opposite side of the range there were two hinges. I felt the doors should match. I called Mark, he agreed and had the delivery person return the door. They added the hinge and fed ex'd it back to me and I had it a few days later.

We installed our CP cabinets a little over 3 years ago.

We love them. Working with our designer was great. Everything went as it should have. I remember thinking during the process that this was what companies used to be like when I was a kid---they listened to the customer and provided the best service possible.

Our house is pretty old (and underbuilt). We redid the walls so they were pretty straight but our floors are very uneven. Enough scribe space was built into the cabinets so that our contractor was able to make everything fit perfectly. I did all the measuring myself (before the contractor was on site.) I put each wall + an overhead view on graph paper along with as measurement much detail as I could think of.

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And we STILL have those lovely bare bulbs!

Hi Danielle! Our Crown Point cabinets were installed in January and I absolutely love them. The quality is beautiful and they were able to do a lot of customization to make them work just right for our space (i.e. really tall and extra deep uppers; customization of door rails/stiles to make my chosen door style work on narrow cabinets). My cabinets are one of my favorite things in my new kitchen.

I worked with a different designer than mamapaige. Mine was Carole Stevens and she was wonderful -- extremely competent, responsive, patient, really listened and offered helpful and appropriate insights.

We were long distance, so our contractor did the measuring. They have you measure lots of different places, so they can account for spaces being out of square.

I ordered my cabinets primed but not painted by Crown Point. I love the look of hand painted cabinets, but decided against milk paint which is their hand painted option (beautiful, but really expensive). In the photos, the uppers are painted, but not the lowers and the uppers don't yet have their glass.

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We have done 2 kitchens in 5 yrs so we looked at a lot of cabinets. Mid range to high end and talked to a lot of sales people as well as designers. None IMH opinion can compare to Crown Point. We ended up going custom both times because of cost but I can not imagine anyone being anything but thrilled with Crown Point.

Oh, I am drooling over these cabinets! I, too, have talked with a wonderful designer, Karen Laskoske, who in five minutes, understood what I was trying to accomplish in our "historic" home. I had been to a number of "cabinet companies" and never felt like they could give me the historic feel I was looking for. We went through the design process and I have some beautiful plans........the down side of this story is that we will not have Crown Point -- even with a significant discount, they are just out of reach for us right now. Due to unforeseen circomstnaces, we have to do some significant re-designing/scaling down and this portion of our budget was certainly impacted.

We are moving forward, but I have to take a deep breath every time I see a Crown Point kitchen -- I can truly "feel" the beauty of their cabinets. Best of luck and from my brief expereince, they were great!

Hi arlosmom!

I'm working with Carol Stevens too! I'm so happy to hear you've had a positive experience with her and that you love your cabinets. I'm waiting to see what Carol comes up with for a design, and I must admit I'm pretty nervous. We've only talked on the phone twice after I emailed her a drawing showing the measurements, which I'm sure are not as precise as they should be. I'm really hoping that I was able to communicate to her my priorities and vision for my new kitchen. It would have been sooo much easier if I could have come up with a general layout myself, but so far I've been stumped.

Luckily, since I live in New Hampshire, she'll be able to come to my home if I decide to purchase from them. Nevertheless, I'm apprehensive about not having someone nearby to consult regarding any problems or issues, unlike if I decide to hire someone local.

Erika

thanks so much of all this advice.. my kitchen is tiny & since it is unfitted we definitely will ned custom cabinets. don't want to waste space on fillers.. also since our home is a 100+-year-old farmhouse, we really want something that looks authentic and not out of place.

erikanh, email me and I'll give you a name in NH of custom cabinet makers that came in for us way less than Crown Point if they are over your budget. I went on a home kitchen tour back in the spring on the seacoast and saw a beautiful kitchen done by Crown Point. Very high quality and nice design. I have never heard anything negative about them.

erikanh, good luck with your planning! I thoroughly enjoyed mine. Carole and I went through lots of versions before finalizing the plans. She was great. She worked with their production team to figure out how to make our sink cabinets work for our mammouth antique sink. I came up with an idea for a pullout broom closet and she figured out how to make it work. She never tried to upsell me into expensive options (for example, we skipped the detailed end panels on the end of cabinet runs because they were fancier than we wanted for our kitchen...she understood immediately). The end product is exactly what I wanted, not something I was sold. I hope you end up as happy with yours.

Ohhh...some great looking kitchens posted here!

I'm another happy Crown Point customer. I ordered cabinets for my small kitchen a few years back...they look great, and they were able to do some custom things to really take advantage of every inch. I was so happy, I ended up ordering some cabinets for my bathroom this year, too. I actually found that my Crown Point designer (Lois Horan) understood what I wanted via our mostly email communication and my sample layouts (in Visio) better than the local cabinet maker I almost hired to build by bathroom cabinets. And my walls definitely aren't plumb, but they left enough overhang so the cabinets could be scribed into place....

Here are a couple pictures of kitchen and bathroom (sorry, I haven't gotten around to take new pictures of my kitchen with backsplash completely installed....)
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Bathroom....
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In this picture, you may not be able to see this too clearly, but Crown Point was able to build this cabinet as a single unit, with the cabinet space on the right 4" deeper than on the left, to take advantage of recessed space between studs in the wall over the sink. This was a nice space-enhancing customization that the local cabinet guy just couldn't understand (even after three separate on site visits) but my Crown Point designer understood immediately. (and yes, I do have a little TV in my bathroom)
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Hope these help!

klb 2000,
great to see a small Crown Point kitchen.. ours will be unfitted and small. on the Crown Point site it said that the average cost is 30-40K for the cabinets-- since your kitchen was smaller, was it a lot less (I'm obviously hoping your answer is 'yes').

I really like both your kitchen and your bathroom.

Yes! :)

Its been a few years now so I can't remember the exact final bill for cabinetry, but it was definitely under $15K. I'm sure my kitchen was on the cheap end for them, thanks to the fact that I hardly needed to buy any cabinets--and about half of the base 'cabinets' are just overlay panels for the dishwasher and my undercounter refrigerators. I also opted for non-Crown Point wall shelves instead of upper cabinets on one wall; I like the look and functionality, and it saved me a bit! My cabinets would have been cheaper if I had opted for one of the standard shades of white, but I ended up having them color match instead--I think that bumped the price up 5% or something like that. Also, I'm on the west coast, so I'm sure they rolled in higher shipping prices for me.

So--there certainly are cheaper options available, but not so so bad as long as you don't need too many cabinets! (one of the benefits of the small kitchen.... :) )

Kelly

kelly,
thanks for the information! that really made my day (possibly my week!) as soon as we unpack our measuring tape, I'm going to get the ball rolling on this (we still need to move & settle as well).

I definitely don't need many cabinets-- once we are in the house, i'll post some pictures.

what kind of hood do you have? it is really lovely.

With all the good press (here) and spectacular pictures of CP kitchens, I guess I was expecting something better than the cabinets I recently installed for clients. They are very well made and the finish is flawless (for factory finishing), but they seemed not able to listen and deliver on some special requests of the homeowners, who worked with them on the ordering.
Two points- They requested (and submitted drawings) for their bottomless floor cabinets (like broom closets, etc) where the doors went all the way to the floor, IOW, that these doors have larger bottom rails. This was not delivered, and they look wrong to begin with, and all the worse when the doors and cabinet get scribed to the out-of-level 110 year old floors.
Next- they need to come up with some creative way to expedite the scribing of legged base cabinets to the aforementioned out-of level floors. There is no scribing margin on the front legs, so all scribing/leveling must be achieved by removing material from the carcase. One cabinet with brass-bound front legs was out of level the other way, and required machining down the brass leg caps to get it level. IMO, they should ship the legs loose, to be field installed, and give at least 1/4" extra on front legs for scribing.
Where requested, they did provide huge scribing stiles, etc. And the workmanship of the doors and boxes was first class.
I have a strong dislike of their adjustable inset hinges, however.
Casey

Casey,

Can you be more specific about what you don't like about the hinges? Thanks.

Erika

Casey, when we toured the CP factory they had a large selection of hinges. I will admit they did not offer the one we wanted but no cab company did. Going custom we were able to get and forged iron butterfly hinges.

Re: hinges: even with four of them (!) per door, they are not up to the task of handling the 5' tall, 17" wide 1" thick maple doors on one of the large floor cabinets, a pantry. Really, only a cast/extruded hinge would be strong enough.
The adjustments of the hinge rely on them being installed right to begin with (in a precise manner). The very tall and heavy doors had hinge issues. They need a heavier grade of stamped metal, or to be cast/forged. To be clear, I was not the client, just the installer.
Casey

Casey,
that is good information... fortunately I don't have any doors that big and thus I am not having issues. Perhaps you should relay this on to the people at Crown Point - to me, they have been very responsive about issues and may come up with a fix for your client -- I think they are all about customer service and quick responses... it would be good to put them to the test.

I have to say that I really like the hinges and thought it was nice that they include a very easy to use adjustment device (not sure what you'd call it - knowing the names of tools is not my strong point). I did adjust one of my doors and found it quite easy. The hinges adjust up and down and back and forth so you can easily adjust them so that there is equal spacing around all four sides of the door (important to someone like me who is very visual and tends to notice when things are off - even when only slightly !!).

If you followup with Crown Point, could you let us know the outcome. I'd be interested to see how they handle it. At this point, if we ever moved (which I don't think we will... but) or had to opportunity to purchase a second home, they are the cabinet company I'd want to work with again. I was very happy from start to finish (and am sorry that it wasn't the case for you and your client).

Casey, would you please elaborate on something you said in your post?
You wrote "the finish is flawless (for factory finishing). Is there a type of finishing that is preferable? I would sincerely like to understand as we are planning our cabinets -- they will be installed in a 1927 house and I am anxious about the new cabinets looking too new against the in-place 80 year old woodwork. Would appreciate your guidance. Do you have the same feeling about factory stained versus factory painted?

Sayde,
This project was 90% painted cabinets. It was a combination of beadboard and raised panel doors. The trim throughout the kitchen and bathroom was painted to match the cabinets; like someone said above their paint choices are limited unless you will pay for a steep upgrade to custom paint matching. When beadboard is sprayed, the bottoms of the indents look a little dry. The paint couldn't be done better. I'm sure. The difficulty arose in the matching paint. The formula they provided to match, well, it didn't. So, where the cabinets are built-in with site-made trim, there was a disparity or mismatch in the color. Oh, well. Not their fault. If it were my choice, I would have had everything sprayed on-site, including the trim, so the colors would match. This was a unique job, with a semi-unfitted look and the level of care in matching the house's original trim showed a lot of dedication from the homeowners. We had seven moldings duplicated that were original to the house. I was disappointed in the color match more than the owners were.

The one stack of cabinets that was stained, I really did not care for the color or the thinness of the varnish/clearcoat. The color is my hangup, but the varnish being so very thin-looking makes me wonder if they missed a step or something.

The hinges that were used have their limitations. I ended up having to trim the doors to get them not to rub.

Casey

I also have to say that CP was responsive to all our needs. I designed a hutch that has a pass through integrated into it. It turned out exactly as I had envisioned. The CP structural person was involved since we needed to make sure the upper portion was supported well enough on both sides. My designer, like the ones mentioned above, was extremely quick to respond to each of my emails and the emails were exchanged until all parties were satisfied.

Our contractor had worked in a custom cabinet shop for many years and he was impressed with the quality of the CP cabinets. We live in a 100-year-old New England farmhouse that was a dairy farm until just a few years before we moved in. When I measured the 13'x16' kitchen the floor to ceiling height differed by as much as 4". We straightened the floor before installing the cabinets as best as we could but were limited since we were leaving the original floor in place. The cabinets scribed beautifully.

The stained finish is holding up very well. Even though they were delivered in October 2004 (installed March 2005), they still look brand new.

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danielle--my hood is from Modern Aire....here's a link

Here is a link that might be useful: Modern Aire hoods

Sayde:

We just finished our Crowne Point order and are expecting delivery in September. Our house is from 1928 and also wanted the cabinets to blend in. CP was one of the few places that would allow us just to order the cabinets primed. We are going to have them painted on site brushed not sprayed.
So far our experience has been excellent. We are using Karen Laskoske and she has been wonderful to work with.
I will post pictures when the cabs arrive.

Reviving this thread as I am wondering how the CP cabinets are holding up now that most of the posters have had their cabinets installed for over 10 yrs or if others can post their experiences with their CP cabinets. I'm actually planning to go to their facility to take a closer look and learn more about them as I'm doing an all house renovation and want to make sure that whatever I install will be worth the money in the long run.