HD touts lowest price. This doesn't mean best quality for lowest
price. They seem to go for lowest quality to obtain their lowest
price - generally speaking.

That said, I recently had the experience of dealing with a kitchen
design place (not totally custom) and they sold fairly expensive
cabinetry that was crap. Real nice, solid wood doors; particle board,
stapled together carcasses. This was high mid level cabinetry in the
lines they carried.

The designers are charging for the design and (presumably) the
cabinets. Their time (to do the design) ain't free. Custom anything
always costs more. They probably have a little more experience and
know-how on kitchen layouts and requrements than the saleman in HD.
OTOH, it may be overkill for your situation.

Don't know how big your kitchen is, but $5000 isn't really that much
for cabinets and the plywood upgrade could add significantly. It
might be that your budget isn't quite enough for what you want.

Renata



On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 23:38:44 -0500, Clifford Keele
wrote:

One of the biggest remodel jobs that many of us face is the kitchen
remodel. I am paying more for new kitchen cabinets than my two cars
COMBINED!!!

I chose to go the Home Depot / Lowes route for the cabinets. In part
because I went to a few kitchen design places and their rates were
extraordinarily high. Perhaps I could have shopped around more.
--snip--
----- CK -----