Custom cabinets or DIY?

March 15, 2005 7:43 PM

Can it be cost-effective to build your own kitchen cabinets from scratch vs. buying and installing them yourself?

My brother and his house-mates are looking into remodelling their kitchen including all new cabinets. They're throwing around the idea of building the cabinets themselves (including tool purchases and learning how to actually do it I assume) versus just ordering them from some kind of custom cabinet shop and then installing them.

Ignoring the massive investment of time that will be required for the do-it-yourself option, how do you think the costs stack up?

This is an average size kitchen in a three-bedroom house in Portland, Oregon.

posted by jacobsee to home & garden (19 answers total)

It can be cost-effective if they already have the tools and the experience, but since they don't...

Have they priced tablesaws lately? Also, what woods are they planning to use? If they plan to use expensive woods, those inevitable mistakes will be costly.
posted by mischief at 7:49 PM on March 15, 2005

I plan to build my own cabinets! Partly it's because I enjoy the challenge, partly as an excuse to buy tools, partly because I figure I can do a better job with better materials for the same money as purchasing pre-made. The cost, however, is the least influential; I'm very eager to DIY.

I would love this thread to include some advice from those who have done this work before. F'rinstance, I'm wondering whether I want to use the Kreg pocket-hole system, versus biscuits, versus dowel.

Lee Valley has some great jigs, Jacobsee. Pass that info on!
posted by five fresh fish at 8:07 PM on March 15, 2005

My mom used to run her own business selling custom kitchen cabinets. I can tell you right now that unless they have years of woodworking experience they self built cabinets will look like crap. Also, if they buy cabinets they should pay the extra to have a professional install them. If they don't they will regret it. It takes a lot of experience to install them right and you can always tell when somebody did it themselves.
posted by berek at 9:02 PM on March 15, 2005

It is said that Ikea kitchen cabinets are a contractor's secret.
posted by AlexReynolds at 9:46 PM on March 15, 2005

My husband and I are building our own cabinets. They are exactly what we wanted, but the process is very slow. It's been more than a year and we still don't have doors or drawers or all the shelves. So take the time factor into consideration, especially if you work a full-time job and do house stuff on the side.

fff - we used biscuits. They're easy and pretty straightforward. My husband has more than 12 years' carpentry experience, and that's the only process he considered.
posted by acridrabbit at 9:47 PM on March 15, 2005

If you can get help from someone with cabinet making experience it should be quite doable. If not, I would guess that you can learn it by doing, but that buying finished cabinets and hiring a professional to hang them will be cheaper in the end. If you take the plunge you will end up with a great set of power tools and the satisfaction of learning cabinetry. Mistakes will be made, and they will be expensive, especially if you want the finished job to look professional. You will want good tools (don't scrimp here), including a table saw, a radial arm or mitre saw, a joiner, a router (with table preferred) and a biscuit jointer, plus assorted jigs, sanders, hand tools and the like. You can buy books which will explain the process better than a few paragraphs on AskMe. However, the books never quite give you all the little tips that a live tutor can, hence my opening comment. Oh, and this all assumes that you have a lot, a whole lot, of free time on your hands.
posted by caddis at 9:47 PM on March 15, 2005

I dated a guy for awhile whose family business was building high-end custom cabinets. I watched (and helped) when he built custom cherry cabinets for my house and it was a long process.

First, measure the space and figure out the dimensions of your cabinets. Then cut the wood, sanding and staining it all. Wait for it to dry, then stain it again. Wait for it to dry. Build the boxes. Fasten them together with the facing. Build the doors and drawers - the fancy doors are made of 8 or 10 parts, beveled together. Build drawers, including hardware. Sand and stain everything. Let it dry, stain again, dry. At this point you have big units, say all the upper cabinets, then all the lower cabinets to the left of the stove, etc. Measure and cut your countertop. Move the big units into the kitchen. Make sure they still fit. Fasten them to the wall securely - getting things straight is crucial. Attach the cabinet doors and drawer faces. Attach the countertops. Add the door knobs and drawer pulls. Call out for pizza.

I'm sure there are other ways to do it, but this is generally what you get if you hire the folks who charge thousands of dollars to build cabinets made for your kitchen. I think the hardest part is knowing how to measure and how to make sure that all the pieces will still fit in your kitchen once you've put them together. If you're very thoughtful and check your numbers and sizes constantly, it could be a nice challenge. Good luck.
posted by bendy at 11:15 PM on March 15, 2005

Building your own will probably only be cheaper in the respect that you can get EXACTLY what you want, and getting someone else you build EXACTLY what you want is expensive. The good middle ground is semi-custom, where you can choose from a large variety of units that can be sized to some extent, and installing them yourself. Even installing them yourself is not something I'd recommend unless you're patient and fairly handy.

There is nothing magical about building cabinets. They're boxes with doors and drawers. The problem people typically run into deals with tolerances. Tolerances for good cabinet making are on the order of 1/32". Get out your ruler and take a look, it's small. You need to be able to measure that accurately, cut that accurately, and assemble that accurately. It's hard.

Toolwise I would consider nothing less than a top-of-the-line cabinet saw. cabinet saw here does not mean "it's for cabinets" but rather that the base is itself enclosed in a cabinet. Examples are the powermatic 66 (which I own and love), Delta Unisaw, Jet makes one, etc. New ones are about $1500-1800. You're going to want to build an extended surface to the right and back of the saw to support those big ol' sheets of plywood you'll be cutting. You'll need a router or shaper, and perhaps a half dozen incidental tools.

As an aside, I pretty much only own old tools. My newest tool is about 30 years old. I buy these at bottom dollar, rehab them into shape, and use them. That $1800 table saw? I bought it for $250. My bandsaw originally retailed for $15,000 in 1981, I paid $600. If you are patient and good with tools, you can save a boatload of money -- but it will take you a lot of time. I looked for that bandsaw for months, and it took me months to rehab it. If you're looking for old stuff, your best bets in the last few decades are Delta, Rockwell, Powermatic. Older stuff that's good are things like Boice-Crane, Walker-Turner, Greelee. The absolute best table saw for cabinet making is a big old dual arbor 12" or 14" table saw.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:42 AM on March 16, 2005

Oh and at least in my market, New Yankee Workshop has been doing lots of shows about making cabinets lately. Say what you like about Norm, he's got simple cabinet construction down.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:45 AM on March 16, 2005

I second IKEA. Their cabinets are relatively inexpensive and they look good. Plus, they get to put them together and install them, which may satisfy their newbish carpentry urges.
posted by ulotrichous at 6:39 AM on March 16, 2005

Note in the previous answers that no one addresses wall corners that are not square, floors that are not level, and walls that have warps. I grew up helping my father remodel kitchens and bathrooms, and every installation (including those in new homes) required shimming and other work-around accomodations.

Building a box is easy (with all the right tools), making that box look good once hung is an art.
posted by mischief at 7:00 AM on March 16, 2005

IMO, Ikea cabinets look like shit. But that's just IMO.

I'm not going to build doors, unless I come up with a dead-simple design. On a time-is-money basis, it's far cheaper to purchase good doors than to build them oneself.

But the cabinet bases themselves? Nothing but a buncha boxes. Boxes are easy to build, and only a bit more difficult to build very well.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:09 AM on March 16, 2005

it's far cheaper to purchase good doors than to build them oneself

so will you shop for doors first and then design your boxes around the doors you are able to acquire for a good price? I know certain places only have widths in multiples of 3 inches for example.
posted by jacobsee at 8:15 AM on March 16, 2005

If you're going to build them yourself, then there's no need to stick to the bunch-of-boxes concept.

The reason that the bunch-of-boxes method is used is that it is easy to (a) streamline the manufacturing, and (b) design and prepare a cabinetry order. Measure your space, find boxes that will fill that space when stuck together, slap a countertop on it, viola!

But that's not the only way to do it. Especially if there's non-square corners, non-straight walls, non-level floors, etc., it might be better to build-in-place, but without the boxes.

Just a couple of things to show what I mean: All typical cabinets have a backboard. This is because the box itself must be sturdy as a stand-alone. Similarly if you have two cabinets side-by-side, each has its own side panel. If you build-in-place, you an eliminate the backboard completely, and have one side panel that serves as structural support to the "boxes" on either side of it. This way you save a crapload of wood.

So you level a line on a wall, at the height you want the counter. Make a 2x4 flat frame assembly (long boards with cross-members) the size of what would be the top of your base cabinets all put together, if you did typical cabinets. Nail or screw that to the wall, just under the line you drew, and put in temporary supports at the front of this frame, between it and the floor. There's your start.

Anyway, I'm sure there's lots of books on this. And I don't have the patience to write it all out anyway.

The point is, the bunch of boxes idea of cabinetry is an artifact of convenience and tradition, and shouldn't be taken as a given truth. There's more design freedom without it.
posted by yesster at 8:25 AM on March 16, 2005

Taunton has a great book on cabinetry and furniture design, might be something to look at. Covers pretty much all aspects of design and building such stuff.

The Complete Illustrated Guide to Furniture and Cabinet Construction
posted by RustyBrooks at 9:34 AM on March 16, 2005

Consider the differences in finishes as well. Factory cabinets have finishes that are harder and more durable than anything you can do by yourself.

My wife and I bought kit cabinets, Mills Pride which is the Home Depot store brand. Easy to assemble, cheap, and they look pretty good.
posted by LarryC at 9:40 AM on March 16, 2005

Mills Pride which is the Home Depot store brand

Does any one else have recommendations for the order and install type of cabinets? Obviously looking for lower cost and good quality with reasonable flexibility in layout.
posted by jacobsee at 12:48 PM on March 16, 2005

anyone? hello hello?
posted by jacobsee at 10:33 PM on March 18, 2005

Also see my followup question about pre-built cabinets.
posted by jacobsee at 7:17 AM on March 24, 2005