Another kitchen cabinet post?

Question

Well, I had been doing research.  It seems  I should truly do the research and elbow grease for a 20x10 kitchen and island in Chicago.

It seems buying the cabinets myself and having my good carpenter do the work can save me a bunch of cha ching vs having the GC handle this.

I found a few RTA stores out there. I wonder if anyone was successful at this.  Any horror stories?

John Warren · Answer

@Ted Smith installing kitchen cabinets is not rocket science. Getting decent white shaker (or whatever you are doing) is simple, and there are a ton of shops in Chicago where you can get good pricing. I have used quite a few shops. Maybe look at Pentwater or similar cabinet shops. The main job is measuring correctly and ordering correctly. Once that is done, it is all pretty easy.

Nate Grabner · Answer

Late to this, but I've now DIYed 3 kitchens with Ikea cabinets and would highly recommend them over the low level HD ones. If you can follow their silly drawings you can probably manage to install these. I find them to be decent quality, easy to customize, and look way nicer than the similarly priced HD ones. They also have a free in-house design department that I found really helpful - i haven't worked with the Chicago one in a few years but the design for the green kitchen was straight out of the Indy design department.

Peter Mckernan · Answer

If you can find the right cabinets and get it done that is great. When you start to grow and start doing more deals it'll be harder to get things rolling and handled like this FYI. The early stages of flipping etc. you can handled small items like this, but moving on big projects while managing 2-3 at the same time it's good to have the GC do it.

Ted Smith · Answer

What are preferred cabinets for middle of the pack A level rentals?  Ferguson? Home Despo?  or online?

Bruce Woodruff · Answer

Of course, you will save a good chunk of money by doing as you say. But it should depend on the quality level of the project. If this is an apartment or cheaper rental, then RTA is ok, but anything nicer, you should plan on using (at least) solid off-the-shelf cabinets from one of the Big-Box stores.

RTAs are cheap and for a bit more $$ it is worth getting real cabinets. The install price should be less because the carpenter does not have to assemble the cabinets, just install them.

And as @Peter Mckernan said, on larger projects, let your GC take care of everything...lots less stress and you'll probably save money in the long run. You'll certainly save time which is even better.....

Another kitchen cabinet post?

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