RooAndCheese:

I can only speak from the other side of the equation. I got a call from a GC in big trouble with a sub and subsequently with the new mall where the store was located.

I bailed everyone out of trouble, but they paid top dollar and nobody whined. Expect to do the same.

You can give them a try. Not sure if they are busy but I can recommend the quality of their work.

http://www.knottyholewoodworks.com/

If available to you Luxor can do what you need and should be in what sounds like your price range they do Walnut but that could affect lead time (minimum for walnut is 6 weeks). An order this week coming would ship Feb 2nd.
Not sure if they have a presence near you. Look into some of the mid to upper range semi brands in the Northwest and Canada.

With any brand the trick is getting the order written, checked, then edited and signed off quickly. If you have a good floor plan it is possible if you catch the right person. Best of luck.
Just saw you are in Sf,

This post was edited by jakuvall on Fri, Dec 12, 14 at 19:56

Here is an affordable option. Get the IKEA cabinet boxes where they fit. They are available immediately.

You can afford to wait for the doors and hopefully for the extra deep boxes. Order fabulous custom doors and drawer fronts from Barker Cabinets or Scherr's Custom Cabinetry. They are custom cabinet makers that produce really nice custom RTA (Ready to Assemble) cabinets. Any size you need. They have all of the dimensions of the IKEA lines and will prepare your doors and drawers and provide hardware to accept them.

They have nice websites. You can get any wood and style you want from them. If you can wait for the extra deep cabinets, you can order them from Barker's or Scherr's. Do some searches here for IKEA cabinets and you will see lots of people do this.

I've been dealing with Leon Scherr all week. I'm ordering an entire kitchen from him. He's a nice guy. Call him on Monday and see where he can help.

If you don't want to follow this route, be prepared to pay big bucks, or accept quality that is substandard. You may have to resign yourself to waiting for your KD to return and sort out the mess.

Take a deep breath, have a large glass of wine and a bubble bath. You will figure this out. Nothing worth having is ever easy.

Barker cab do white. They can do walnut. They can do custom. And they can do budget. But I know I waited 8 weeks (order to delivery). Is there any way you can push your schedule? Is it really worth getting something of lower quality that you'll have to live with?

You might check out one of the larger kitchen showrooms in the area, like Floorcraft in South SF and Burlingame. They carry Crystal, Columbia and a number of other lines with frameless slab designs with a walnut veneer. Does it all have to be done at the same time? As you know, you can likely get custom depths in 8 to 12 weeks from any number of manufacturers.

Low price, fast, custom, and quality do not go together. As you've discovered from Mr. Flakey.

Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick two. That's all you can have.

I second the idea above to get Scherr's doors and go with Ikea boxes. You will not get your door/drawer fronts fast from Scherr's, but you could get the boxes in place and wait for the doors/drawer fronts. We are getting cabinetry for our whole house (boxes and doors) from Scherr's. Great place, but you will wait for their product.

Carol

HomeChef59 makes a good suggestion, and perhaps the only one that will work with your time frame. Ikea boxes and drawers and hardware are quite good. Buy the boxes, install them, without any door or drawer fronts, order the doors of your dreams from Scherrs and install them when they arrive.

You may even be able to install the wall cabinets in the above manner, and order deeper custom cabinets from Scherrs, for the island at a later time to be installed later.

My only hesitation with this plan is that when I ordered from Scherrs a few years ago, I don't think they offered painted cabinets. That may have changed.

We are getting painted cabinets/doors etc from Scherr's. They use SW colours.

Carol

I would argue that Ikea is good, fast, and cheap. Size and config options limited tho.

Thanks for all of the great responses!

Trebuchet: fair point. We are willing to spend a bit extra at this point, but some of the people we have talked to are 2-3x where we started.

Gigi: thanks for the reco! I sent them a message and will follow-up Monday.

Jakuvall: Haven't been able to find Luxor in SF yet, but will keep looking.

Homechef, Joy, Ontariomom, Bon and Gacho: I love the IKEA/Scherr's idea. I'm trying to convince my husband that the IKEA quality is solid. We have a bunch of their furniture from earlier in life and most of it is scratched, chipped, etc. so he is very doubtful. If we hadn't already started construction I would have been looking at Scherr's for the whole thing.

Gooster: We went to floorcraft! Lead times there are a bit longer, but we still have them in consideration. Would be the Columbia line.

Hollysprings: I'm with you. That's why I'm so frustrated!

We decided to go with bridgewood as we wanted frameless and they do that with no up charge. We were planning on doing conestoga until we decided frameless was really what we wanted.

We worked with a dealer who is willing to do everything via email and phone, as we're a bit off the beaten path. It was easy, painless, and the lead time was not long at all. We ordered November 3 and expect our cabinets this coming week. It was also by far the most affordable cabinetry we could find that was all wood, US made, etc. The dealer charges only a design/consult fee and does not mark up the at which made them affordable. I am happy to provide you with his info if you'd like to look into it to see how quickly they could get them to you.

RooAndCheese, I just sent you an email.
Lisa

We have InnerMost in our kitchen, master bedroom, and 2 bathrooms. This is a bamboo veneer in their "St. Lucia" style:

A nice thing about InnerMost vs. Ikea is that they will make your cabinets the extra depth you want and will make pretty much any width you require. That should make it possible to carry out your original plan without a lot of re-configuring.

Here is a link that might be useful: InnerMost door styles

Barker does custom sizes including custom depths--I checked yesterday and their lead time was 27-32 business days, excluding painted.

Personally, I would opt to wait---and not compromise getting extra depth cabinets. Especially if you're planning to stay in your house for anything more than a couple/ three years. You're going to end up really regretting it later on.

You are going to have these cabinets for years and years. I would wait however many weeks it takes to get the exact cabinets you want. I would abandon the deadline you have (which IMHO may have been unrealistic even if your custom cabinetmaker worked out). Is the deadline due to the holidays? There have been many posts here about people with no kitchen over the holidays. It's just one holiday vs. the years ahead of holiday meals, and all the other meals and events in your kitchen in the years to come. Don't get so pressured by your deadline of 3 weeks that you put that 3-week goal ahead of the ultimate goal of having the kitchen of your dreams that you planned for.

Yup, spend the money, get the quality you really want, and forget the time. You'll be living with this kitchen for a long time.

Hopefully, you'll be living in your kitchen longer than your downtime. At least that's what I keep telling myself!

I love my Innermost cabinets (Elkay's frameless line via Home Depot) as I know suzzanesl does. However when I ordered in May I was quoted 6-8 weeks and told it usually doesn't take even 6. But it took 8 almost to the day. Might be different at a different time of year.

They don't advertise it, but it's all Blum hardware. I got drawers where I could and did some custom depth stuff. All very nice.

It's sold as Design Craft through designers/other showrooms.

They have a couple slab styles/finishes, but I don't believe they have Walnut.

MIL is embarking on a Kitchen Reno and I'm going to encourage her to try Barker and Scherr as she has someone who could put them together.

To clarify on the timing: We have already started construction. Everything is framed, electrical is all updated, most of the plumbing is being finished up today.... The timeline we had set with the contractor had us completing everything mid- to late January. I know things happen, but so far aside from the cabinet issue everything is on schedule. So if we go with one of the cabinet options that is going to have 8+ weeks lead time not only will we be living without a kitchen for that much longer but we will also be putting our contractors in a tough position waiting around. I haven't asked them yet, but I'm assuming there is also a cost for a delay like that. We aren't trying to hit a particular date, and if we hadn't started construction already I'd have no problem delaying. We had made arrangements with the cabinetmaker who flaked months ago, and would have liked the chance to do the same with whoever we ultimately use. But the situation is what it is, so...

I agree with all of your advice that it's better to wait a few more weeks for something that would make us happy than settle for something mediocre and fast or overpay for something quality and fast. Though I am also hoping to find an option that makes us happy and minimizes the wait a little bit. I love the options you guys have come up with so far - I will keep you updated on how they play out!

For anyone else interested in the InnerMost option... They have slab doors and they have painted white doors, but they can't do painted slab doors (even though they do that exact door for Lowe's). So scratched off the list.