This can be tricky! As many of us have seen here, lighting can greatly affect how the color will appear in your home. Also, seeing a color on a small strip will not give you a good idea of how the color will appear on large spreads of cabinets. Hopefully someone with experience here can guide you through this process. Lots to think about.

Ive only done custom cabinets where they can do any color you want.

But I dont see why you cant do it separately. Whoever installs them may need to do touch up then.

Whatever color you pick you should do it on a cabinet door and check it in the kitchen light

Sounds like you are early in the process. Have you considered custom cabinets by a local cabinetmaker? I am going this direction, partly at the advice of a friend whose gorgeous white cabinets cost less than HALF what some of the kitchen places wanted to charge and partly because a lot of people have done it on GW. Anyway, I can pick any BM colors I want. Now I just have to pick the colors (yikes!)

Jen

Bertch Legacy makes unfinished cabinets; I'm guessing there are a few other manufacturers. They charge less for these, so you might end up getting something a lot cheaper than going custom.
I'm in the middle of interviewing a woman who makes a living painting cabinets (you're painting, not staining, right?) and will post a link when she's answered all of my questions

Most semi-custom lines will offer unfinished cabinets, but they only credit you a 5% discount. Not much.

Check out Showplace Wood Products, they just introduced two new shades of grey that are in their standard paint line. But they also just announced they can now do ANY shade of SHERWIN WILLIAMS paint! As a dealer, I'm very excited about this. My clients can use the same paint color on extra pieces or trimwork in their homes!!!

Click on the link below to read about this new option!!!

Kompy

Here is a link that might be useful: Showplace and Sherwin Williams Color Select!

If you order the cabs from one place and have them painted in another you really need to consider the possibility of damage due to the extra handling. It will happen and is almost inevitable.

I wanted hand-painted cabinets, and ended up buying them from a woodworker -- that definition of "custom".

But when I was looking at having brand-name semi-custom or custom cabinets painted, I discovered that if you press hard, you will find that there are several lines that can be ordered unfinished. Off the top of my head, I recall Crystal had one? This is a few years back though.

Some give a 5 or 10 percent discount, some don't. I also recall one -- Woodmode/Brookhaven? telling me that I could do this, but it voided the warranty.

The individual shop I talked to shop said they had not had any problems with people doing it in the past, and they would cover/replace obvious manufacturing defects, cabinets that were dinged in delivery, things like that -- they would be reasonable, and certainly wanted to protect their reputation. But what the company was really protecting itself against with this policy was what somebody might do to/paint on the cabinets after that -- somebody's crazy faux/texturizing/acid experiment (using solvents the company could never have foreseen and would have advised against) that dissolves the glue holding the doors together, then claims it's the company's fault they fall to pieces a year later and demands a whole new kitchen. I think that's reasonable.

So just ask questions about that your getting, what this means, etc. Understanding exactly what you are getting is a large step toward avoiding being disappointed in what you do get.

There are so many lines and there are slight variations between them. But by asking, you might find you can get the same door with a custom paint or matched paint by switching lines. Or get close enough on either so you're happy.

Or try another shop, or try a carpenter/woodworker. People have waaaaaay more choices than they think they do!