$25,000 for cabinets..? Really?

[BigBill]

On my first house I sanded the cabinets and refinished them. On the second go round like ten years later I took 4" pine paneling and glued and clamped it to each door on an angle then boxed the edges corner moulding. Then I did all the cabinet faces with the 4"
Pine applied vertically. I stained it all and applied a marine spar varnish. The whole job was cheap and saved lots of money. I adder a dishwasher, all new plumbing and even remodeled the bathroom at the sametime. It all cost me maybe under $1,000.
Moms happy and I got a new hunting rifle.

Now at the new place I'm thinking about marble counter tops I'll do the rest myself.

 

[finesse_r]

This kind of **** just pisses me off. I guess that's why we still rent. I mean, come on, how much is what amounts to a pile of wood and some hardware REALLY worth? This kind of money is just stupid to me.

I'm a carpenter. About 18 years ago I did a kitchen remodel using cabinets from Lowes, Kraft Made to be specific. The kitchen was about 12/14ish by 10 ish. As I recall I believe the cost of the cabinets was about 15K, before labor. (no tops faucets, etc)

Fast forward to today (about 6 months ago).

The homeowner pointed out cabinet doors that were delaminating in areas. (They are white vinyl covered cabinet doors) I told her it would probably be best to see what type of replacement doors were available, as opposed to replacing the cabinets. So we did. We waltzed into Lowes with a door to show the style we were after (with the original receipt in hand) and sat down with one of their kitchen people.

The result? Kraft Made replaced every door/drawer front that was delaminating FREE OF CHARGE. In fact, they replaced doors and drawer fronts that WEREN'T delaminating too because the color had yellowed a bit over the years and the new doors no longer matched!

In all I think there were about 18 doors and drawer fronts that needed replacing. It took me an afternoon by the time I changed out all the pulls and adjusted hinges etc. I did that for free.

So there's more to think about than just what you shell out up front. Everybody wants a good deal and everybody's uncle Leo can do it for less. Sometimes however the good deal isn't such a good deal down the road. Maybe in 5, 10, 15 years you have a problem, the company who you paid 10's of K's of dollars to no longer exists and uncle Leo is in the slammer for kiting checks.

Something to think about.

It sounds like you paid 15 grand for some cheap cabinets 18 years ago.

 

[arjay]

Cabinets come in three main grades
Production- cheap
Semi-custom-not cheap
Custom-whatever you want-expensive

 

[Coldshooter]

It is not very hard to reface the fronts with cabinets such as DeWils the end peices are just high grade plywood anyway. I notice many cabinets have gone from 7 to 5 to 3 ply plywood the basic cabinet may be better than what you can buy new. I see you are doing a bathroom also those are the two most costly rooms in the average house good luck.