"Lynn" wrote in message
om...
Hi All,

I am new here and have just bought my first house. I wanted to see if
I could get some advice. I am doing some kitchen remodeling and I am

snip
I looked at home depot, and KraftMaid is around 5 grand. I was told
the KraftMaid line at home depot is of lower quality and is made just
for home depot. It will cost 1600 for my guys to install the
KraftMaid cabinets (or whatever else I buy).
Thus we are talking about 6600 vs 12,000. Does anyone have thought or
advice on this?????

I would really appreciate it!

Lynn

Custom cabinets are fine when made by a good cabinet maker, but they are
really necessary only if you have special sizing requirements. For example,
cabinets made my Kraftmaid and other standard suppliers come only in 3"
width increments. If you need, say, a 22" wide cabinet, then custom
cabinets are your only choice. Otherwise, you'll probably find "assembly
line" cabinets to be a better use of your money.

I have Kraftmaid cabinets purchased from Home Depot. There are approxmately
30 feet each of base and wall cabinets. The were delivered exactly exactly
as ordered, on time. The only problem that I encountered was that one
cabinet door had a small crack in it. I called Kraftmaid and they promptly
manufactured and shipped a new door. The cabinets are now 5 years old and
they look and work like new.

As far as I can tell, the Kraftmaid cabinets that Home Depot sells are
exactly the same as the Kraftmaid cabinets from anywhere else. You just
have to specify exactly the same features to be able to compare the prices.
For example, the Kraftmaid cabinets are available with either particle board
or plywood sides and back. The plywood costs extra (20% extra, if I
remember right), and many of the Home Depot people don't mention this
upgrade. In my case, my carpenter recommended the upgrade, and I decided to
go with his recommendation.

If you have a real contractor doing the installation, though, he should be
able to get a better price from his supplier. A contractor that I used
recently to do some home improvements (not the same one who did my kitchen)
told me that he gets 40% to 60% off of list price for Kraftmaid and other
major brands from his supplier, then marks them up from the supplier price
by 20% to 40%, and the customer still comes out better than if the customer
purchased the cabinets from Home Depot. If you are using a very small
contractor, he might not be able to get these types of "wholesale" prices,
though.