We are building a very modest home, husband is builder and GC, all our cabinets cost $8500 + will have countertop costs.

My thoughts on the above: For the mudroom lockers you could use pre-made - something like hall tree cabinets - you could get several units depending on space and fasten together, the cabinet maker could create a bench to match if needed.

http://www.halltrees.com/hall-trees/13669+13685.cfm?source=googleaw&kwid=hall%20tree&tid=exact

I am partial to antiques, not all built-ins, so I would look for a piece to use as a desk/hutch, but that's just my opinion.

Are you using a designer exclusively? The home stores have designers at no charge - you probably could find something in hardwood you liked for the same price as the thermofoil.

Kate,

go to cabinetrydirect.com and price the cabinets yourself for comparison.

for your pantry cabinets in maple, raised panel door style...

30" base cabinet, 2 doors 2 drawers $476
30" wall double door 36" tall $380
24" Pantry w/ 4 roll outs $1113
24" Pantry w/ 4 roll outs $1113
Total $3082

Now this is classic pricing (1/2 plywood) basic door style, stained, not glazed.

There's a breakdown of what percent to add for whatever features you are looking for.

You should easily be able to calculate everything but the lockers, which is too custom.

We built our own lockers out of 3/4" birch plywood for about $500.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pricing

I JUST went through this agony and have my drawings and pricing right in front of me. We are using a custom cab maker in greater Chicago area so obviously pricing may vary, but I agree yours seems a bit high, given the thermofoil. I also have 81" of stained lockers with drawers on bottom above shoe area, and closed doors on the top. The main part of the lockers is open, with a beadboard back - so differs from yours there. Next to it is 55" of sink base and cabinetry as well as upper cabinets. We are doing stained maple, and the price is $4875. The price for this grouping of cabinets actually seemed disproportionately high to our other cabinetry and I was told it was b/c the lockers needed to be completely finished on the sides of the dividing areas, backs, etc: i.e., there's a lot of finished surface area. In contrast, we have a kitchen office area that has 100" of painted uppers and desk on one side, and solid painted floor-ceiling cabinetry on the opposite wall - for $5040. I struggled to get our cabinetry pricing on budget - places I cut back were in the level of the door style and making more cabinets stained than painted. I didn't want to give up the painted laundry room cabinets, so I went from full to 3/4 overlay there. Our laundry is 9 x 8, with cabinets filling the 2 opposite walls (painted maple) - $4450. Hope that helps and hope you can find a better deal - that house of yours deserves solid wood!

"- that house of yours deserves solid wood!"

this is exactly my thinking ...and concern! not that we'll be selling anytime soon (not for at least another 15-50 years!) but i don't want to skimp on materials. i'm thinking we'll order the kitchen but i will price out the other items elsewhere.

I visited every cabinet manufacturer showroom in my area and visited numerous custom cabinetmakers. For our bathrooms and laundry room, I went with Jim Bishop Cabinets. Do you have a dealer/rep in your area? Ours was a rep/installer who worked out of his home, so no showroom. He was great.

They are very well made. I bought the upper price version. If you want, I can look up my prices - they are 3 years old but it would give you a start if you have a rep in your area.

My rep/installer ordered sample doors so I could see a full door. They have inset cabinets now - love that....and a bit disappointed they didn't have them 3 years ago!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Jim Bishop Cabinetry

thanks allison, there are three dealers in our area. guess what i'll be doing today?

and thank you, homegrown. i'll also check out cabinetrydirect.com

jberg: we are using a designer exclusively. her name would be kate skouros!
makes it easy to price things out since i already made drawings. you're very lucky to have your dh making everything. mine is very handy and i have no doubts he could at least build the mud room lockers but he has a day job!

We have a lot of custom built-ins for our new homes, including a full custom kitchen. Mud room and fireplace are cherry and our master vanity is beech or fir- can't remember since it was painted.

Mudroom is right on the money- price wise. we did solid cherry 5ft x 9 ft and they ran $3.5k. your mudroom has more detail than mine....we have lots of cubbies without any drawers.

pantry seems like a bit of a deal considering the level of detail w/ trim, cabinets, drawers, etc.

laundry room looks downright cheap (pricing wise) in comparison. I would have expected that to be higher.

hutch seems about right...

mdev: the price quotes are for thermo foil, not wood. you're pricing sounds very good to me!

homeagain: i think cabinetry.com is out of business. while the website is up, the phone lines are no longer in service. i think i recall reading something about that, maybe on the kitchen forum?

I don't recall the source (Scherr's?) that people on kitchen forum have used for DIY installed cabinetry - maybe you should post over there?

Work on library and closets as you go, just get the kitchen done. Laundry can use stock cabinets if you can't afford custom right now.

I know we looked at having my cousin build us 2 bookcases, 24"w x app. 12" d x 96" high, open shelves. It would have been about 2 days' work he said, plus installation (he would build them freestanding then install, not build in place). I didn't even price out materials since it seemed we could get better price buying unfinished pine bookcases and having him install them and add crown molding. But figure your lockers are the same - so 4-5 days work minimum (unfinished), plus installation. Doors and drawers get pricey too. My cousin gives us a good hourly rate, but you have to figure a finish carpenter at $50/hr, cabinetmaker may be more like $100/hr. So 40 hrs of work at $100/hr is $4000, then you have finishing and installation. I paid $150 for two 17x18x4 drawers, plus $40 for 2 sets of Blum Tandem Plus FE glides, plus installation, that didn't include drawer fronts. Call it an even $100 per drawer, you've got 4, so it's up to $4400 plus doors plus materials for the sides/backs/seats.

I think a finish carpenter could build you the lockers out of a plywood (more stable than 1x material) with veneered sides where they show. Give up on drawers and doors, have them open with hooks and use baskets, or order drawer boxes and glides online and have the carpenter install them. Not sure what you'd do for drawer fronts. If you really want doors and drawers, maybe you could buy unfinished wood ones custom sized from a replacement door company. That's what we did 12 years ago (got replacement door company info from Home Depot) when we built a tub surround for a whirpool, I wanted doors to match our vanity so we had access to plumbing.

The closet perhaps could be done the same way. The hutch/desk with seeded glass is going to be pricey - I can only see using a cabinetmaker for that, or looking for an antique piece. Good luck.

I used Scherr's custom cabinets for my kitchen, and the cabinets are easy to assemble and very well built. Additionally they truly are custom, you can specify exactly what you want, and they make it.

For the end of the kitchen I wanted a single upper cabinet with two doors, with a wine rack space between the two. I made a measured drawing showing what I wanted, and Scherr's came through:

{{gwi:1492315}}

I'd think that Scherr's could beat that price for the lockers (and probably for the laundry room as well) by quite a bit, even if you have them upgrade to wood doors.

thanks for the info on scherr's, ajsmama & bob cville. i remember seeing them in a showroom and the quality looked very good. i will definitely check them out.

in the meantime i have just returned from a showroom that carries jim bishop cabinetry. they hadn't received samples yet so nothing to look at, but they did say they carried a line from marsh furniture in a painted finish (maple door). they took my drawing and priced it out inside 20 minutes at a cost of $3032.
delivery is $200 carried upstairs to the laundry room.

i'll spend the next few days getting estimates but if that's the worst i can do, i'll take it. that beats thermo foil any day. while there was limited selection on door style and paint, they come in what i thought was a lovely antique white on a recessed panel with some applied moulding.

before i left i spoke with my GC and he told me the guys could always do the mud room lockers and pantry. he said he won't let me put thermo foil in the house and i knew he'd feel that way. ;*)

i also received call backs from an amish gentleman as well as another local carpenter and gave them all the info, so i'm waiting on estimates from them on the mud room and pantry. depending on how the numbers look i will price out the two master closets along with my daughter's.

will this house ever be finished?? all i know is, it's a good thing this is my job for now as there is no way i could work for anyone with all this going on!

I used a custom cabinet maker (northern suburb of Chicago). The prices seem way too high for thermafoil cabs. He did our whole house for about $40K with stained walnut(very pricey wood!) for kitchen ($24K) and masterbath($3?), painted maple for 1 large JJbath ($3700) 1 small bath($600), large laundry room($3200), and mudroom ($5). HTH!

We got Jim bishop in our office and it smells. We have executive everywhere else and no smell. I also second the cubbies in the mudroom - ours is bigger than yours and we spent about $500 for custom built cubbies. Also we have thermofoil in our j&j bathroom and it looks great - it was part of a $30k cabinet package.

We used Conestoga (conestogawood.com) in our kitchen, butler's pantry, bookcases and our wet bar in the basement. You can customize almost everything you need, but it's an RTA or Knockdown product, meaning it comes unassembled in flat cartons. Wood glue, rubber mallet and a finish nailer assembles them. We used Cabinetmakerschoice.com out of CT to buy the wet bar, shipped directly to us where we'll put them together and install. We had a local dealer in Charlotte do everything but the basement wetbar when we built the house.

For the prices you talked about, you'd get wood face frames and doors, with the particleboard veneer cabinet boxes. Plywood sides are an upgrade. Our 13 ft of wetbar and a vanity was $3,400, including undermount full extension blum slides.

Other RTA cabinets are good too, you just have to work around the 3" dimensional increments of the cabinet suppliers.

I should have clarified my cabinet costs - maple semi-custom, stained Medallion - also goes by Schuler - dh is very busy running around state training - wish he did have more time to spend on the house!

Good luck with your build, I am sure you will find what is right for your house.

I have very similar mudroom pictures. I have them in wood and my price is the same as yours+/-. I think that is WAY TOO high for the materials you are getting.

By chance, did they see your home first?? That is a big nono in my 3 years of building my home. I always try to get an estimate prior to them coming to see. They always jack up the price for me, perhaps for you. I would think they REALLY want your business and will negotiate with you, rather than lose you. As a (semi-Greek) woman to another, you must use wood!! Yes your house screams for it.
I would seriously reconsider waiting on the closets. That can easily be done after you move in. I think MDF is better in your closet as it can be wood colored. My husband is "friends" with a Greek millworker and we get a better rate but we also give him ALOT of business.

The laundry seems a very fair price but I also got mine in wood for that price, same size. I would not stress though if funds arent there, you will love it none the less!!

Check out Sept issue of TOH for building a storage bench - you could probably modify plans to get your lockers. I may actually try this, once I decide if I want to do it in stained wood by the front stairs/formal DR, or replace my little rush bench and Michael's pine shelf/pegs in the mudroom (since it really would help to have beadboard there, everyone keeps scraping the wall paint behind the bench, and DD has 5 pairs of shoes under the bench so there's no room for anyone else's).

peytonroad: it's very funny you should mention contractors seeing the house before they bid as we don't let them! as a matter of fact, we don't even tell them what town we're in. we've had the same discussion with neighbors for years about how never to disclose too much info. the price goes up before they even know what the job is. as it turns out, our GC is a good friend who lives around the corner so we've had it easy up until this point.

i sent out several emails to carpenters the other night and got one response telling me he wanted to come and measure "to get a better idea of the space".
i let him know my measurements were accurate and the only person needing a feel for the space is me.
it's not only that i don't want people jacking their prices up based on where we live, but i also don't want too many people coming and going ...school hasn't started yet so my children are home. call me overly cautious but i just don't feel comfortable with it.

meanwhile, i rec'd a very encouraging quote from an online vendor with wood doors which come in a painted finish, which i like. they are sending me a few different door samples and they worked up the cost based on my drawings. the total cost of the laundry room will come in at around $1950, including shipping.
my GC will install. while speaking with him about the situation he said he could work out the mudroom and pantry and anything else we needed. he just doesn't want to have to make too many drawers ...which i understand. i can easily use baskets in place of the drawers i have spec'd for the mudroom lockers, so that's probably what we'll end up doing.

if anyone is interested, this is where i got the very reasonable proposal on the laundry:
http://newarkcabinets.org/default.asp?page=antiquewhite

while this business of building a house can be stressful, i am challenged daily and i rather enjoy it! whatever it is, bring it on ...just not too much!

I thought $100 per drawer (maple lacquer finished, dovetailed) for 17x18x4 drawer boxes and Blum undermount FE glides wasn't bad. I bought them from Tapeease.com. After the cabinets are built, measure the openings precisely and Tapeease can make the drawer boxes, notched and drilled for the glides, to your measurements. They sell the glides too, I had already ordered them somewhere else before I ordered the drawer boxes. You can probably get drawer fronts from the door place.

thank you again ajsmama. that's not bad at all for drawers, especially with the glides. looks like my GC will be doing a lot more carpentry!

We are also building a very modest home and we are also the GC and builder for most things on the job. We have about 33+ cabinets going in and our bill is about $9K and this includes the entire house except the mudroom lockers as my husband will hand make them next summer once we move in.