Kitchen Cabinet Install

[BaileyNo5]

Got some help from a buddy and installed some kitchen cabinets this past weekend.  Ended up ordering these assembled cabinets from Costco, after considering Ikea and a local cabinet person.  Ikea was the cheapest, but I found them difficult to communicate with and there is not an Ikea near us.  Costco (All Wood Cabinets) was easy to work with, communicated well, and the cabinets are pretty decent.  They were about half the cost of what the local guy would have charged.  Cabinets arrived Friday afternoon and we had them up by Sunday evening, working at a relaxed pace.

[Snipe Hunter]

Bailey, could you tell me about them? How are the drawers built and what are the cascaras made from? Are they real wood faces or MDF or plastic "composite"? And... how long did they take to get? We're remodeling our entire house and paying as we go so I'm looking for some budget friendly solutions.

[BaileyNo5]

Bailey, could you tell me about them? How are the drawers built and what are the cascaras made from? Are they real wood faces or MDF or plastic "composite"? And... how long did they take to get? We're remodeling our entire house and paying as we go so I'm looking for some budget friendly solutions.

Happy to oblige.  I was pretty well satisfied with how these turned out, I would buy from them again - the answer in a nutshell.  But expectations/tolerance levels are different for everyone, so I'll go into detail for you.

The drawers look to be a dovetailed hardwood (alder?), and the bottoms are likely quarter inch plywood that are seated in grooves.  Pretty much how I would build them.  The painted MDF fronts are screwed on from inside the drawer front. Have to give them an A for drawer construction.

Carcass is half inch plywood.  Overall they were quite sturdy.  Everything was square.  Good compromise between weight and strength.  B+ or A- in this area.

Hinges are soft-close and easy to adjust.  All the hinges worked good.  Drawer mounts were not necessarily up to the standard I would like, but I can make them work.  Several drawers were a little catty-wampus, and the adjustments didn't have enough play in them to fix it.  I'll have to do some more fiddling with those, but I'll get them straight.  I'll give them a C+ to B- in this area.

The refrigerator panel, filler strips, light rail and crown molding were well made with solid wood (except the fridge panel, it was plywood) and well painted.  I think the crown molding is hard maple.  The first set of plans they sent was fairly generic, and I asked for more detail, which they immediately sent.  It had all the measurements, including all the sizes of filler strips.  They send 3" filler strips that you need to cut down to fit as needed.  I used a track saw and it worked great. A grade.

Shelves were three quarter inch plywood (baltic birch? not sure, but it was good quality) and sturdy.  Lots of supports (plastic unfortunately) were supplied.

The cabinets I selected had painted MDF fronts.  They were NOT the plastic shrink wrapped stuff, I won't accept that.
Since we wanted painted cabinets, we were fine with MDF.  In our laundry room we have painted MDF fronts that are 12 years old.  Dimensionally very stable and the paint has held up well.  My understanding is you can choose real wood if you like.

The designer I worked with communicated well and did a good job replicating my drawings.  You take basic measurements, tell them what cabinets you want where, and they do the plan.  I sent them a very detailed plan, which I'm sure helped.  Sometimes they were a little slow, but they were always polite, friendly, and got me what I asked for.  A grade in communication and design.  SO much better than dealing with IKEA.  The only thing IKEA did well was tee me off.

The marketing emails/website will tell you the cabinets take 7-10 days to ship to you.  Those wily marketers conveniently  omit the 2 week construction time.  So count on about a month from order to delivery.

Costco has 3 different levels of cabinetry they offer.  1) the off-the-shelf MDF flat packs (I got a free workstation in this because my order was over $3000) that you put together yourself.  2) The mid range semi-custom by All Wood Cabinets - this is the one I bought.  3) The more upscale Tuscany line.  Don't know much about this one as I didn't look into it.

Also, they offer continuous discounts - never pay full price.  While we were looking the discounts were in the range of 25-30%.  They will tell you the offers are only for a limited time, but then a new offer comes along.  We got the 25% off plus the MDF flat pack workstation, which I'll probably put in the laundry room and garage.  If you read the forums with feedback on the cabinets, you will see people mentioning up to 40% off.  The feedback is overwhelmingly positive, which is why we looked at them in the first place.

Good luck with your project!

[Snipe Hunter]

Thank you very much. Like I said, we're on a tight budget and doing the entire house. Every room from floor to ceiling, lighting, three bathrooms (they're done), moving walls etc so keeping inline with a pay-we-go budget, these might just be the answer. We'd love high end but it's not in the cards. My wife likes the style you posted... that's 90% of it.

[BaileyNo5]

Thank you very much.....My wife likes the style you posted... that's 90% of it.

You are welcome.  And there you go, if your wife likes them it's Winner Winner Chicken Dinner, as they say.  If you have another set of helping hands, a pair of cabinet jacks, and patience, they aren't difficult to install.  Of course a flat floor and square walls helps as well!

[Snipe Hunter]

I built our last kitchen from scratch. That's out of my system now. Not too worried about installing as long as there's a good anchoring cleat in the uppers.

[rwe2156]

If you don't mind, what was your total cost?

[BaileyNo5]

If you don't mind, what was your total cost?

About $5k. That included 3 base cabinets in the bathroom (not shown), and crown molding, light rail, fridge panel, toe kick in the kitchen. Ikea would have been about $4k. Oh, and the uppers are 42".