Build vs. Buy

[Cellar Dweller]

I am new to this site as well as fairly new to cabinetmaking. I have built my own log home from a kit and did most of the carpentry myself so I am very use to working with wood. For Christmas my wife gave me a table saw to go along with the jointer and 40 year old Sears radial arm saw I had been using for years. She is looking for some return on the investment and since we am recently retired and have more time to do things we are planning on redoing our kitchen.

We went up to a cabinet store today planning to steal ideas for cabinet design as well as look at countertops. The salesman did a good job of getting us interested in a nice set of cabinets and island for about $5,000. It is tempting to purchase the cabinets for instant gratification allthough it would put us over our budget.

My question is is there any rule of thumb for relative cost of doing it yourself vs. buying and just installing yourself (ignoring the cost of the workshop)? I realize that there are all sort of variables and conciderations that might make a meaningful answer difficult.

Don't get the impression that buying the cabinets would mean turning off the lights in the cellar. There is always the pantry and closet to build. I am sure you married guys know how it goes.

[HomeDepotGuy]

Cabinets have a huge mark up. Making them yourself would be significantly cheaper then buying them.

The problem is cabinets take alot of time. If you are still working or have other comitments and/or have little experience in cabnitry it's doubtfull you could do it in a time frame the other half would be happy with.

An option I would suggest is building the carcauses yourself and buying the doors and drawer fronts. That would end up costing about half as much and gives you a project you could complete in a more reasonable amount of time.

[PK]

The Home Depot Guy has made an excellent point about buying doors, it's a pretty common way to go.

I was in the cabinetmaking business before and am shortly to return. I'll tell you that my prices are based upon tripling the materials cost and about $30 an hour labor. I can't speak for what you can buy at the box stores or the specialty stores, but in the little bit of looking I've done, it seems that you could build a better cabinet for about 1/4 of what they're getting. I've noticed that on most of the ones you buy, they use a birch plywood and then stain it in an attempt to match whatever wood they're going for. Also the same with the doors. I was in a Menard's the other day and noticed that the solid wood doors were probably birch, despite the insistence of the salesman that they were solid cherry.

Not that I'm putting down these types of cabinets, the ones I looked at that were of higher quality seemed to be well built and had plenty of nice features.

[woodchuck1954]

The largest advantage of building them yourself, is the custom factor. You don't have to worry about size of ready-made components fitting in your space. Custom cabinets are far easier to install, because they were designed to fit in your space.

My father was a working contractor, up until about 25 years ago. When ordering custom-built cabinetry was still affordable to the average family. One of the biggest improvements he came up with was using all drawers on lower cabs. Larger drawers with heavier slides, for pots and pans and all serving dishes. Far better than having doors and unmoveable shelves. You no longer had to get down on your hands and knees, digging for the big pasta pot.

[TDHofstetter]

Rich, I don't know any really good rules of thumb... but I'll reassure you soundly that you can make MUCH BETTER cabinets and a MUCH LOWER cost than the ones you can buy.

After I did the kitchen in this house, I sat back & worked up a rough estimate of the "street" value of what I'd done. Including a rather vast number of cabinets and counters, the giant island in the middle, and all... I figured it'd have taken about $18,000 to have bought it all new. Yeah, it's a LOT of cabinets. Then there was the fact that it was all exactly right for the place, no fillers, no gaps... because it was all fitted right to the existing space. The hardware - exactly to order. The edge treatments - exactly to order. Even some really unusual sections to handle special things.

And it's all better built than anything available in any cabinet shop for a great many miles around.

AND... I had a bunch of fun doing it.

Oh, wha'd I lay OUT for that eighteen grand's worth of cabinets? Probably something in the vicinity of $3,000 all told in hardwood ply and roughsawn solids.

-- Tim --

It's a bird!
It's a plane!
It's Supe...
...
No, it's a bird.
:)

[JBark]

One of the things sold in the furniture store I manage is kitchen cabinets. Our standard mark up, which I must assume applies to these as well, is x 2+. The cabinet I sell for $200 cost my company les than $100, and the company that made it is factoring in profit on top of materials and labor. You should be able to easily make your own and save.

Keep in mind that you can make them better and out of "good" wood instead of the few choices you will find on the market. You will also be able to say you made them...bragging is worth so much.

If you plan ahead you should be able to work like any cabinet shop, cutting sides all at once, mass cuttings of face frames, set up to make doors all at once. Lay it out, design it, take a day or so to make your cutting list and you will be able to bring the same "mass production" which saves any shop money, yet you can still make them "custom."

I envy you that log home.

John

[Glen]

Richard,

Thinking about building some big boxes? Nice, go for it.

As for outsourcing your doors and drawer fronts, well - crap comes to mind. Couple reasons why I wouldn't. First, is that with the money you'll be saving you can get set up to build your own doors and drawers, for a small fraction of your overall savings. Think about it, why are you starting this endeavor? You going to turn around and still pay someone else's material mark-up, labor, shipping, etc. Just think of the possibilities this opens up for you with future projects. The return on your investment is lifelong. So drop a few bucks on a good router, table, and a few quality bits. besides the doors and drawers are a major part of the project.
The second reason is your going to get a much better consistancy in stock.Perhaps not as important because doors and drawer faces cover the majority of the project. But if you can buy a Flitch(?) it's early, basicaly a lumber lot all milled from the same tree(s)\logs.
So let's do this, help is amassed here on the forum. First is some research, which you've started. Decide on a design, euro, traditional, etc. Consider species - maple, hickory, oak, birch, etc. Start locating a good lumber source, H.D. is not a viable option for this scale of a project. I would suggest anytime spent with a few books would be time well spent. Tool up (that router, bits, etc.)don't forget a couple types of quality saw blades. Tune up them tools, get everything running square (hint - including your "squares"). Get some poplar and make a few small practice doors, this will amaze you and you'll be very pleased. I believe CMT's web site has a nice tutorial on making doors. Now that you can make doors you can now consider raised panels for any exposed ends on your cabinets.
Somewhere along the way you'll need to consider counter tops. Depending on your choice, you could conceivable need to beef up your floor, granite and marble and such are very heavy. A lot can be done with laminates, especialy with edge treatments. Most of thiese options will be covered in various "how to" books with pretty pictures and such.
One last thing I'd like to offer my advice on. And that's hardware. Especialy drawer slides. Don't skimp here get high quailty slides, hindges and any hardware problematic to replace down the road. Cheap slides fail in many ways as do hindges. Lets face it, a sagging drawer slide or one with a gimpy roller is going to keep the drawer from seating correctly and look like crap.

Glen

[Bada Bing]

As a novice, I can't offer words of wisdom, but I do have a materials question.

Several replies suggest that DIY lets you use better lumber than pre-fab. But is Birch plywood, for instance, not just fine when it's "cabinet-grade"? Is the idea that oak plywood would be better? Or that cabinets should be made of solid lumber throughout?

The cabinets that came with my (1994) house are el cheapo, and I'm eager to junk them. The undersides of the upper cabinets are so thin that I can't install under-cabinet lighting without sending a screw up into the cocktail glasses! Pass the Jim Beam!

David

[Glen]

David,

You've answered yoour own question to some degree. FIrst off, there are some quality prefab cabinets available. And you will pay for them dearly. They will be dubbed as premium or custom or some other marketing schema to promote $$$.
Now as for materials. Not all plywood marked as cabinet grade is equal. There's a minimum standard to be met. But as with all things some are better than others. Visit www.atlanticplywood.com for a wealth of info regarding core materials, the veneers themselves and best applications. PLywood has it's advantages in that it is stable, holds screws well, and of course it's uniformity. 1/4" ply is often the better choice for flat panels and 3/4" for the carcasses for this reason.
Cabinet grade plywood comes in a multitude of veneers. From the exotics to maple, oak, birch, walnut and on and on. You won't find quality cabinet grade plywood products at the big box stores.
As for your present cabintes they're simply a case in point.

Hope this helped.

Glen

[PK]

There's a difference amongst the cabinet grade plywoods. Take the standard 3/4" ply you buy at the hardware store. It's usually going to be 7 layers of SPF, and the pretty veneer will usually have patches, obvious seams, cathedral grains, etc. Nothing wrong with using it, but it isn't as good as you can get.

Now step up to true Baltic birch or Danish plywoods. This will generally have 11 layers in a 3/4" piece and there will be some combination of soft and hardwoods in the core. What you get is a much more rigid ply and one that holds screws much, much better. To give you an idea about that, when I use regular cabinet ply, I will inset a hardwood strip for mounting the hinges if I'm not using a face frame.

Also we have Appleply and the others like this. This is what I consider the best for building high end carcases. It is of very high quality, very few if any voids, the veneers tend to be very clear and it wods screws as good as solid wood.