Why cabinets are so expensive

I’ve always been blown away by how expensive cabinets are and now I truly understand why. Nick and his dad, Phil, have spent two full weeks on our cabinets so far and Nick has spent extra time in between working on them. I absolutely love them so far, although we still have a ways to go. We started off with Nick making a mock up of our first idea so we could visualize them.

The first week they spent getting the kitchen ready and then building and installing the lower cabinet bases. We used cabinet grade pre-finished maple plywood for the carcasses. This way we don’t need to finish the insides of the cabinets. (Idea inspired by Norm Abram’s wood-working show, New Yankee Workshop.) Recently, they spent their week double checking the design,

building the carcasses for the upper cabinets and installing them. We are continuing our theme with fir and the face frames are on all the cabinets except the fridge wall and the island. The Sawstop has been broken-in and both Nick and his dad were quite pleased with how nice of a saw it is. Here’s a picture of two of the upper cabinets:

The detail work, especially where the cabinets join is beautiful:

The cabinets are already being put to good use and the kitchen is very functional in this “in-between” stage.

We’ve still got a ways to go, but if we had to pay someone else to design, build and install these cabinets, we would never be able to afford them. The panels for the doors are made and the door frames are cut, now Nick just needs to find some time to assemble them. It takes a bit of patience, but boy is it worth it.If we had nice cabinets before we would have used them, but instead they are getting a new life in other ways. Some are currently being used for temporary countertops, while another has become a shelf in our new coat closet.