There are as many definitions of custom as their are "custom" cabinet constructors. It's a virtually meaningless term.

However, if you are "detail people" why didn't you discuss the details before the project was begun. If you don't have the details spec'd out in writing, then you really don't have any legs to stand on in a dispute. Everything not written into your contract will be an upgrade. The written word rules, and you didn't get what you wanted in writing.

Just my personal opinion - I think of "custom" as having them made by a cabinet maker completely. That said I have read here some people have cabs made and the cab maker buys the doors.

I talked to one cabinet maker who was going to "custom" make my cabinets and then was shocked when he was having me pick the door style out of a catalog.

We did not end up going with him for various reasons.

custom doesn't always mean "quality"

because a cabinet maker buys his doors from someone else doesn't make them "not custom" or inferior. Your custom guy that made the cabinets and the doors surely didn't make the paint or stain he used or grow the trees or glue or press out the screws or make the drawer slides - so what?

dar5 - did the client you visited have screwed drawers with crappy slides? If so you need to ask the contractor why he sent you there generating one expectation while delivering something completely different WITHOUT giving you the option of select or super spiffy or whatever level of BS custom he's dreaming up to save face. I think holly brings up a good point, seems too much was left to chance and a handshake - not detailed at all. If the specifications just called for "custom cabinetry" you were sunk before setting sail.

Thanks everyone for your input. My husband and I have no issues with paying for our chosen upgrades...we already have agreed to several.

But, as we disucess with our GC upfront, we like to be presented with options. That's why we hired a GC (Project Manager)and his Kitchen Designer to provide us with expert advise on all the details. I did not have any dealings with the company that actually made the cabinets.

Next contract we enter into will read..."GC agrees to give client options, which may or may not add to the cost of project."

Antss -- I'm going to revisit the GC's other client next week (she said I could come back anytime) and will double-check our original assessment that the drawers and slides were a better quality than ours. We spent more than an hour in her kitchen opening and closing doors/drawers, touching and feeling surfaces and taking pictures of the overall look, but none specifically with the drawers open.

Funny thing is my husband is a construction defect attorney, so he was obsessed with opening and closing the drawers and all the details in her kitchen.

I think of custom as meaning any size, shape, or color you want. With our cabinetmaker, we spec'ed out exactly which drawer slides, hinges, and type of drawer box we wanted, and it was an upgrade to get things like the full-extension soft close slides versus the 3/4 extension ones---but when he gave us the initial quote, all of that was written into it very clearly, and when we went to see cabinets installed, he was very specific about which hinges, which slides, etc. (and actually chose which kitchen we should go look at based on what we wanted so that we could see them in action).

All but one of the "custom" cabinetmakers we talked to in our area (including the one we ended up using) order doors and drawer boxes. I have no issue with this, as long as I end up with the style and size of door or drawer that I want. Our guy uses a couple of different shops for doors (both local, which I liked) so we had a lot of options and got exactly what we asked for. I never felt that it was limiting. One cabinetmaker we talked to said, pretty simply, that the door and drawer shops did a superior job at making those products, and he didn't see the need for his shop to compete with them. That's fine by me, though I've certainly seen posts here in the pat where people really don't feel that cabinets are custom if everything isn't made by the same person.

Let me start by saying I totally understand where you are coming from. I spoke at length with my GC about a million and one details on our project (encompassing kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom, 2 extensions, roof, windows, etc...).
When it came time to sign the contract, I had him arrive 15 minutes before the architect to go over things (the architect needed to modify the plans with the gc's input). My dh was supposed to be there too to meet him for the first time.
Well, the GC arrived, my husband was nowhere to be found and the architect arrived less than 10 minutes later. We started talking and I looked over the contract, but did not go over it with a fine toothed comb. I should have asked for the contract to be left so that I could read it overnight and return it the next day. Since it was for well over $100k, I do not know what the heck I was thinking. I am so careful about everything, all the time, and I screwed this up.
I am very lucky in that when I talk to the contractor and he points out that something was not in the contract, and I remind him that we discussed something more than once, he trusts me and has not charged extra. I am sure it will come back to bite me at some point, but so far it hasn't. It was very careless of me not to treat the written contract with the care I put into shopping out a paper towel holder at the minimum. It did not help that my architect was a real bozo and put some stupid things in the plan and left some out. I looked over the drawings a lot and yet little things still slipped by.
That being said, you don't have a tremendous leg to stand on with your contractor because you did not have specifics in writing. You do have some argument because "custom" to me does not spell out "low end" basics either. I would expect a middle ground choice on options if something were a default, but there is no excuse for the gc to not consult you with choices before ordering. Yes, it does take more time for him, but it is reasonable for you to expect some input unless he is putting in the upgrade choice by default. You did not sign off on "economy" cabinets and therefore it is reasonable to expect them to be decent, inside and out.
If it were me, I'd explain to him that while you share half the blame in not being more specific, he does have an obligation to share the other half. He would be smarter to spell things out better himself to cover his own rear end and to keep your relationship and further referrals intact. Hopefully, you both learned from this.

Our gc spoke to me on Fri a.m. and said he needed my door choices asap as they are about to frame and will need them in hand in approx 2 weeks for installation. I had not realized we were that close to needing them. I asked for the company he usually orders from and did not like their choices. I then spent hours searching online and found a company that we liked and could get us our door in approx 2.5 weeks (and our gc said that would still be ok). I then made it clear to him (nicely) that if he needs us to pick something, tell me early and do not assume I will be happy with stock choices (quite the opposite, lol). Since we hired him years after starting our plan, we own most materials already, so this should not come up too often, but I know there will be more little details needed in the coming weeks. I need time to find the right choice and to shop out price and options. If he thinks I am an over-involved PIA, then so be it. He now knows that I do sweat the details (don't know how he missed that about me prior!). Hopefully, this miscommunication will serve to prevent any future ones.

I sell two custom lines in New York; one is US and the other comes from Canada. They both make any size cabinets and match any color. The Canadian company makes frameless.Their boxes are 3/4" sides,back,bottom and top. The US Company makes both framed and frameless. Both companies drawers are dovetail. Comes with10 year limited warranty.
My installer also makes frameless cabinets in his garage and sells them GCs. He calls it custom made and the contractors sell it to their clients us custom made cabinetry. The drawers are stapled, but the boxes are ¾”. This is much cheaper than the lines I sell. I do not consider it as a custom line. The quality is inferior. If something goes wrong after one year there is no way the customer going to get a good service.

Agree with pillog that custom cabinets are made to the customer's specifications. But that means that the GC is obligated to ask and the customer is obligated to specify everything, preferably in writing. It seems that communication went awry somewhere in your planning stage. Hopefully you can work this out amicably now.

So many helpful responses.

Thankfully, I'm not in a monetary dispute with my GC, so I'm still standing on two legs. The slides will be upgraded to Blum soft-close (we've agreed to pay material cost) and the screws will be covered at the GC's expense. Not a perfect solution, but a solution nonetheless.

We had a local cabinetmaker give us a second opinion and he was initially surprised at our dissatisfaction. He said the 3/4" frames, shelving and solid wood doors with BLUM soft-close hinges were quality in his opinion, as was the design and installation. Then he opened a drawer, pulled it out, turned it over and said, "these are junk."

A few lessons learned...

1. Ask GC for options on everything and direct communication with the cabinetmaker, or hire the cabinet company directly for a separate detailed contract.

2. Get a second opinion when in doubt. The second cabinetmaker reassured us that the issue was "fixable."

3. Spread the word about GW to friends and family.

Thank you.

basically custom means nothing in the industry. Looking at houses I've seen a few "custom" cabinets that were both not really custom, and really inferior to stock cabs.

my cabinetmaker says he can buy the cheaper ones or the more expensive ones. he never buys the cheap ones, he dosen't want call backs. even if they operate the same when installed, he's afraid to get a cheaper line for fear he's going to have to get an angry call from a client, and have to make another trip after install. he uses this philosophy on all his options. of course, somewhere along the line, you're paying for the higher quality stuff.

I think what you describe seems sub-par for my expectations, but then again, it should have been asked if it was important, or stated by the cabinet maker

I agree with a few others above. Custom means specific to your space configurations where normal sizes would not fit like items that are not offered in standard or upgrade choices and are built just for your space. Or, custom could mean paint, stain or artistic finishes not within normal standard or upgrade picks, like if you want a deer head mural painted on cabinet doors.

A comical version of “custom” can often be found on craigslist where someone is advertising a used kitchen or other items as custom and asking three times what product is worth. I always feel like emailing them and telling them it was “custom” for them but it’s now just used junk. Funny how people think others are stupid and will automatically pay more just because they use the word “custom”.

In the past 2 years, I've remodeled both my kitchen and bathroom, which added about 50% to the value of my home. I called my insurance company to upgrade my homeowner's coverage. I discovered that they (Allstate) use a formula involving the house square footage, kitchen and bath square footage, and whether the renovation was standard, semi-custom, or custom to determine the amount of additional coverage they will offer. No site visit or appraisal was required. After they punched ''custom'' into their formula, their calculation was nearly identical to what I'd actually invested in the renovation.

Locally made and locally custom do not mean the same thing. To many people on Garden Web give advice to go the locally made route calling it custom because you did not hire a company that has a national distribution network.

Custom should mean mass production sources do not provide what is need and therefore you need something made for special and specific use.

Dove tail drawers soft close glides soft close doors painted finishes and many other things like that are not custom features. They are available options that are all mass produced and readily available to the public. A lincoln is supposed to be better quality then a ford but neither are custom vehicles. A rolls royce is hand made and expensive but it is not a custom car if you just buy 1 at a dealer parking lot. It is a high quality hand made car but not a custom model if you did not personalize it to your liking in some way by ordering a unit that no one else has because it has different features then the mass produced versions.

Truly custom cabinets are not designed in 3" or 1.5" increments. Nor are the compartmentalized in multiples of those numbers. I work with Geppetto which is a great custom company. To make things simple all the base cabinets I can modify are based on multiples of 3 I can combine them in any configuration I want and have the cabinets built up to 8' long. The space is divided up in increments of 3 most of the time. This is still not truly custom. It is custom modifications to modular sizes. This makes design easy to think thru for a small brained person like myself!

Be careful to understand the difference between true custom and modular cabinets that are modifiable.

I truly hope this great info helps others in the process and me on my next project.

Dave, I think you explained it perfectly...hardware is not the "custom" part, it's an option available to everyone.

Today, my GC wrote us an email which stated, "if a customer has a specific request as far as certain nails, screws, plywood, thinset, drawer glides, drywall, p-traps, door hinges, cabinets door style, shelves thickness, etc etc... they usually ask for it before, and than its calculated into the contract price."

A bit extreme IMO...even for my future contracts.

Considering our existing contract was negotiated prior to the planning stage and included the expertise of a kitchen designer, the details had yet to be worked out.

Next project: hire each subcontractor myself and ask GWers for design input.

Dar,

As always, I'm a little late to the game. But this is my three cents worth of experience so far…..

My cabinets are being made by a local craftsman. I'm picking the wood, stain, and finish. Boxes and drawers are being made to my depth and height specs based on tons of measurements I've made of pots/pans/bowls/small appliances/cookbooks/etc. Where I have shelves - they are adjustable by one-inch increments.

Both the craftsman and the GC (which is also a wood craftsman) walked me through a 'list' of things to consider for my cabs.

In no particular order and just a part of a long list:
1. My GC took me to look at various species of wood to consider.
2. He took me to a supply store to check out my actual hardware....slides, hinges, etc.
3. Today, they brought me a sample of my cabinet with another door option just in case I might want to consider it.
4. With this sample, they demonstrated wood grain (which is a design consideration for me), solid wood versus wood-species specific plywood and pros/cons of each.
5. Asked if I wanted solid wood facings in a particular area to cover the plywood box edges or use veneer tape.
6. If I wanted the plywood drawer box top-edge left as is (sanded and sealed of course) or covered with veneer tape.
7. Talked about plywood shelves versus solid wood and the sag factor for my 40” long bookshelves with workaround options.
8. Re-measured each cabinet run in a minimum of three places in each direction to determine how square my existing walls and ceiling were. And because I don’t live in a perfect world or a perfect house, gave me an option on how to remediate the 'gap-age' with pros and cons of each method.
9. There is very little filler and has only been used to facilitate door swings.

My goal was to squeeze every bit of storage space I could out of my upper and lower cabinets as I am eliminating a couple of the upper wall cabs.

So I guess in my case, I think I will have a combination of truly custom and what may be considered modular cabinets (ala DaveinOrlando) which have customized.

Pepper
~ Paperwork is now complete! Yippeeeee

Pepper -- I think that's the customer service one expects when hiring a GC...a tiny bit of hand holding. You've found yourself a gem. Happy remodeling!

I, too, had my choice of wood, cabinet design and sizing, glass, and shelving material, but the GC had NO SAMPLES. He linked me to websites from which to make choices. I went out on my own to research.

Once I narrowed down my door/drawer choices to two, I demanded he have samples made by the company. In hindsight, I only saw samples of the shelving, framing material, doors and drawer fronts, not the drawer box, hinges or slides.

I will point out that he met me at two granite yards to help me choose my granite. Then, I guess, he got too busy.

This may not work for everyone, but I would probably not do it any differently....
We told out gc that we'd be supplying the kitchen cabs and counters. It was not factored into his bill. We are even having it installed by someone else, but only because they are IKEA and there are people who do the IKEA system every day. I also felt it would go faster if his crew were free to work on our bedroom or other parts of the house while the cabs were going in. If I had ordered reg cabs, I'd have hired the gc for the install.
It gave me control over the kitchen.

I have custom cabinets made on site with wood. I discussed in detail what I wanted in construction then the cabinet maker gave an estimate. Every step in construction was a decision. Every moment I was not in the room was a mistake. No contract no written plan of design. BIG mistake. I do have closed backs on the boxes,dove tailed solid wood drawers, maple plywood NOT solid wood 8-p, soft closing Blum drawer glides, 42' top cabinets, center island, corbels and columns,3 1/2"crown molding, J trim under top cabinets, beaded molding, baseboard molding, furniture legs, custom (done by me) frosted and chocolate glazed finish.

Cost ?
Less than $20,000
Including Artic Blue granite

"Custom" cabinets, I'm afraid, has about as much legally defensible meaning as "gourmet kitchen".

The place that made my cabinets made orders to the 1/16th inch -- then they scribed it to fit in 3 dimensions in my house without fillers. (Most custom manufactured lines, it is my understanding, take orders to 1", then use fillers.)

I could have chosen any wood, and they would have made anything I could have described.

They match historic woodwork.

The range of definitions is huge and none is "correct".

The take-away is you just have to be clear on what you are getting, and that it reflects what you want.

I hope you do end up with what you want!

I agree with everyone else who says that 'custom' can mean anything - or nothing.

My definition is that I drew the plans & the cabinet maker bought lumber & built them from scratch to fit my oddball room. After that, I coated them with milk paint that I mixed to get the exact color that I wanted.

"There are no fillers. "

pllog - this is a very common misconception of "custom cabinets". Fillers DO NOT denote quality or lack of either. The ARE A FACT OF LIFE in kitchens. How is your drawer bank going to clear that 3" thick Georgian door casing? Feel like having you custom blacksmithed knob punching a hole into your wall when you open the door on your wall cabinet? Maybe you don't want to open the crisper drawers on that $9,ooo fridge you just bought either? Fillers are necessary. You can call them fillers or you can call them "extended stiles" on framed cabinets. One is not more custom than the other. I think this filler nonsense started from sales weasels bad mouthing frameless cabinetry when the Europeans started importing their lines here.

I do agree with you about "made to spec", and think txpepper has close as most people come to "custom"

dar5 - I think your dilemma stems from not having a detailed set of specifications. When it's not written - everyone has a different version of what was said / expected.

Agreed on the fillers---we also have some for design purposes; we wanted to center the sink under the window, which left 26.5" between the sink cabinet and the wall if we wanted to have a corner unit on the other side, since we were already at the minimum door size for the pullout unit we wanted to use. The dishwasher had to fit in there, too. Technically we could have had some sort of 2.5" pullout or cubby, but I couldn't imagine much use for that, so instead, the dishwasher has a "leg" on each side to fill the space. Fillers aren't all bad, if they serve a purpose---I'd still rather have the legs than an off-center sink or no corner cabinet!

However, custom does give you the opportunity to minimize fillers by having odd-sized cabinets, which is probably what was meant. That's the main reason we went with custom in the end.

Received some good news yesterday.

While waiting for the owner of the cabinet company to come inspect the cabinets regarding my complaints, my GC asked me which drawers I had issues with.

I told him as GC perhaps he should inspect the work of his subcontractors and let me know his opinion. Then, upon opening the first drawer he chose, the plastic slide piece fell to the floor! His expression was priceless. He threw the piece in the drawer and said, "I see your point."

Then, upon examination of the drawers, the owner of the cabinet company realized his guy did not follow proper procedure when screwing in my pulls and all the inside panels had splintered. He apologized and said all drawers need to be rebuilt.

So, now I get what I want...and I'm quite happy to pay for an upgraded Blum slide.

Thanks for listening everyone.

Antss, If you read the next sentence you would see that I said, "Against a wall there might be an offset to the door, but the box goes all the way to the wall." Filler is NOT custom. For custom, if the trim is too narrow, they put a piece of door material where filler would be and hang the door from that. In the case where a fridge would go against a wall, where someone might put filler, a custom cabinetmaker would put some kind of interesting pullout or a slot for a stepladder or something.

Dar....

Sorry to read that your drawers are already falling apart.
Estatic to read that it happened in front of the GC.

: )
Pepper
~ Demo starts tomorrow!

Ummm plllog, you are still wrong there. My cabinets are all custom (the legal definition is "built to individual specs"). There are pieces of solid wood cabinet face (which is what I think you are calling a filler) which were cut on site to exactly fit the space (because no kitchen is level. Plumb and square if it is in a house sitting on piling). Putting some cute gadget against the wall six feet up would have been stupid, but a half inch"filler" which is actually half inch on one end and 5/8 on the other allows the elaborate door style to open or clear trim. They are basically invisible, but still there and my kitchen and baths are definitely custom.

As to the op....isn't your husband involved in this question? Cuz if you took this to court he'd look like an idiot. Contractor law does have definitions for these things and given the wording, your contractor actually did meet the specs provided. Custom dies not mean dove tails
It could mean applied with silly putty if you don't specify and the more informed the protestor is supposed to npbe the less wiggle room you have to complain.

You signed a contract with assumptions...you know the sarcastic definition of that word right? If you want dove tails you include them in your contract, just like special glides etc. That's custom...built to defined specs. You didn't define enough, you got someone elses idea of what the undefined areas are normally with your defined specs added. Such is life when y ou don't read or define a contract.

Okay, Igloo, I do agree that fillers can be used to square the walls. I do also have trim. The main difference is trim is on both sides of a cabinet run (inc. the window side), and provides visual context to the cabinetry. In my kitchen, they mudded out the walls/ceiling that were out of true to meet the level cabinets, but either way works.

What I was calling "filler" is 2-3" or more of empty space with a board in front of it. With custom cabinets there is a way to capture the space behind it.

Please Igloochic, I never once mentioned a lawsuit, as you falsely ASSUME. I was upset with my drawers...there are many more important issues to take thru the court system.

I asked the question only to gain perspective on people's expectations. I wasn't looking to acquire ammunition for a legal battle, there are far better solutions.

"given the wording, your contractor actually did meet the specs provided"?? You didn't read my contract, so you cannot ASSUME the specs provided or lack of details except for the fact, and I admit, it didn't state "a working slide" or "no screws showing on drawer sides."

Thankfully, I can get a good night's sleep because I tried to resolve the issue POLITELY and AMICABLY and, therefore, my new drawers and slides will be delivered next week. Yay!

Dar, I'd like to add my congratulations regarding your very fine outcome. Your good karma has served you well, and how great to now be getting what you wanted!

I didn't necessarily think you were going to court tomorrow :) I was just saying it's tough to complain when you don't give yourself a leg to stand on. All contracts signed should be done so with the eye that the contract could be under legal review at a later date in a disagreement (Your spouse has to agree with this I hope). And you actually have an added negative if that was ever the case, because your husband is an "informed" buyer so they would hold a contract in dispute to a higher standard for you. I actually did not assume specs, you provided them for us in your question (discussing slides and dove tails etc).

A good contract for a cabinet will include all of these features. I discussed box construction, wood products allowed, dobe tails, glides/slides, drawer front, drawer debth, box debth blah blah blah...everything. You can't expect the contractor to meet those needs if you don't specify them. And that can be done politely and amicably while developing a good contract verses complaining when those needs aren't met.