We got a quote from Scherr's recently---it came in about the same as our local custom shops for similar specs, which were 2-3 times Ikea and less than the lowest of the "big name" quotes we got. (We didn't try Home Depot or Lowe's, though, and except for Ikea, only looked at U.S.-made cabinets, which makes a big difference cost-wise.)

Generally, I found that Scherr's and local shops used hardware that is comparable to Ikea's (and good quality--mostly Blum), but the box and door quality is higher since Ikea uses MDF for much of that. You can also get custom doors and drawer fronts made for Ikea cabinet boxes from Scherr's and some local shops, which is another option if you were happy with the inner workings of the Ikea cabinets but want a higher quality (or just a different look) for the fronts. Haven't priced that yet but I'd expect it to land somewhere in between the two.

Hope that helps!

Chrisk327 Â Your last kitchen was IKEA and painted white? Did you paint the IKEA doors yourself?

IÂm asking because we just had IKEA Adel Medium Brown in our last home and when we redo the new place, I want white :-)

My custom cabinets were about $5K less than Kraftmaid's quote.

My current ikea cabinets are LIDINGÃ which is white painted MDF.

Look is nice. my main issue with them was quality control, the ones I recieved had the finish thin in certian places, or a speck on it. Not all, but more than I thought was normal, they did take care of them fine, but it was a special order, so it took time.

I might do Ikea with Scherrs doors, but considering the biggest cost is the door, I don't know how much money you save by doing that.

As one data point to consider. I ended up using Scherr's for my cabinets, but I also did a as-close-as-possible layout using the Ikea drawing tools, and then checked the final price for creating that layout. The Ikea price was in the $8000 to $9000 range (in the Adel medium brown), whereas the final price for the Scherr's cabinets was $17000. That also compared to an estimate from a contractor of about $25000 for pretty much the exact same configuration.

so almost double.... That I could live with.
Where did you finally end up with your cabinets?

What kind of doors did you do Bob?
If you did Scherrs, were you happy with the process and the results?

I can assemble and with some assistance, install as long as I'm actually saving something by doing so and will be happy with the results.

I wonder how the cost would compare if using the IKEA boxes and ScheerÂs doors and drawer fronts. I know there are some on this forum who have done this so hopefully one of them will chime in.

Chris  You said you were not sure if using the IKEA boxes would save you enough  wouldnÂt you still be able to get all the IKEA Blum hardware if you did? That might be a huge cost savings. Drawers are not just the front  that would probably save too I would think

Anecdotally - I've heard that the doors are the most expensive part of one's IKEA purchase, so forgoing their doors in favor of Scherr's might not be that much of a jump in cost from straight IKEA.

Another budget-friendly option is to get the bulk of your cab boxes from IKEA and have Scherr's make a few custom cabs to best utilize your space.

joann23456 did IKEA boxes and Scherr's doors. Here is a link to one thread that I found. I think the link to the pics is gone unfortunately. You might find some photos on IKEAFans. She did a painted door and the painting actually cost more than the doors themselves. I think she said that her cost ended up to be a little more than using the Tidaholm door in the IKEA planner.

There are other door companies that you could look into but I think the one advantage to Scherr's is that the know how to bore the holes for hinges. I don't think the bore the holes for the drawer fronts but I could be wrong. People have suggested buying some doors from the "as is" bin to measure the hinge location before ordering.

I am still debating IKEA vs. custom. I think if you are reasonably handy IKEA would be hard to beat on price. I don't think the basic install is that hard (crossing fingers). My custom cabinetmaker orders his doors from someone else so I figured that I could just as well do it for myself.

Here is a link that might be useful: joann23456's IKEA update

We did our last IKEA kitchen and didnÂt have any problems. The new kitchen is more of a funky layout  so probably a few mods will be needed. ItÂs just that I sigh over white painted kitchens with marble counters, so this is what I am campaigning for. :-)

Ikea is hard to beat, the install is not hard, but to do it is more invloved than say assembling their furnature.

as I noted above, and I'm sure a lot of people with "traditonal" houses, the doorstyle choices are limited and then you need to find one you like of the limited choices.

I'm assuming you mean $2k top and bottom cabinets. If that is the case, then that isn't bad at all.

yes mine will be more with full depth on the bottom, and more drawers, and cherry and...

but ultimately the cost sounds reasonable.

I'm a big fan of Scherrs and we used them in our kitchen and one bathroom. We chose Scherrs because I think they make a very high quality product at a reasonable price. Our KD showed us a couple kitchens that she designed. Both kitchens used local custom cabinet makers. The cabinets were nice, but I don't think they were the same quality as Scherrs. More specifically, we wanted red birch kitchen cabinets. Both local custom cabinet makers were planning to contract out the cabinet doors because red birch is not as frequently used as other woods. They said the rail and stiles would be solid birch and the panels would be ply. With Scherrs, the panels are also solid wood. So when we got the quote from the local custom shops and they were much higher than Scherrs, our decision was easy.

Our bathroom and kitchen cabinets are under cement counters and they are rock solid. I think Scherrs did an admirable job matching the wood. My preference would have been booked matched drawer fronts, but it is hard to find people who do that and they usually charge quite a premium.

Now, while I'm happy to tout Scherr cabinets, I will note that I used white Ikea cabinets in our laundryroom and garage. I think the Ikea cabinets are nice looking and very functional at a fraction of the cost. We didn't consider Ikea for the kitchen because we wanted red birch and because our kitchen design had some unique spacing issues that really needed custom.

chrisk327,

The Scherr's cabinets I got were a simple shaker style doors and drawers, in quartersawn red oak. I also paid for the upgrade to plywood cabinet sides. The quality of the cabinets is great, assembling them was a little difficult at first, but by the end it would take 15 minutes to assemble an upper cabinet.

Furthermore, since they are fully custom, I decided it would work better to make the cabinets along one wall 28" deep on the bottoms, and 15" deep on the top. In another location where I have three uppers alone on a 51" stretch of wall, I was trying to decide whether to have the double door cabinets each be 18" and the third cabinet be 15" or the double door cabinets each be 15" and the third cabinet be 21", but then I realized, they're custom! I'll have them make the double door cabinet be 34" and the single door one be 17", perfect.

Scherr's was great to work with through the entire process, I couldn't be happier with the results.

Here are a few pictures:
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We just ordered kraftmaid Cabinets within the past week, Maple, Chestnut color, in the door style Hanley for $4500. This cabinet is a 1/2 inch overlay the the double doors butting up to each other. We saw this style in another home and they were very nice and rich looking and I will say excellent quality. For the above price we are getting 16 boxes, all soft close door and drawers (except on lazy susan, and garbage can base, pots and pan base, blind corner wood lazy susan, regular corner wood lazy susan, double garbage can base cabinet (not the cheap slide out), double tier wood silverware drawer, a divider in one of the bases for cookie sheets and a matching wood valance. We went through an independent dealer and he has been great. A contractor friend of mine will install these at next to nothing which helps in the overall cost.
We also got a price from lowes for a simular set of cabinets minus some of the above extras in the Shenandoah Line. They were about the same price. The designer at Lowes felt the Shenandoah cabinets were close in quality to the kraftmaid but the Kraftmade had better drawer slides. I wouldn't have had any problem going with Shenandoah, they seemed to be built well. Both cabinet names have a lifetime limited warranty which can be important.
When I researched both brands I saw good and bad comments with both brands. I felt that with the little bad I read compared to the thousands of cabinets these companies send out I think you will get quality cabinets out of both these brands.
We went with Kraftmade because it is a well known brand for quality and will be a plus when we sell our home.
Hope this helps.

thanks everyone for the info.

We're finnally coming to a close on the layout of the house and think we have a kitchen layout set. Now I think we need to start shopping it.

I don't know if it is totally surprising, but apparently you can pay anything you want for cabinets even within the same brands

I am just finishing up a kitchen with Ikea boxes and doors from Scherrs. I bought recessed-panel maple doors and had Scherrs finish them with white paint. As one of the other posters mentioned, I priced the kitchen in Tidaholm, and it was about $6,000.

As it was, I ended up paying about $3,000 to Ikea for the carcasses and all the inner stuff (drawers, hinges, etc.). I then spent just under $2,000 for the doors and just over $2,000 to have the doors finished. (Shipping was included somewhere in there, too.) So, I spent about $1,000 more than Ikea would have been, which was an increase of about 17% in my case.

I love the Scherrs doors, and they were terrific to work with. I am quite sure I would have been pleased had I ordered all the cabinets from them, but I'm very pleased with what I have.

If I were you, one option I would consider is to buy the boxes, drawers and hinges from Ikea, then have Scherr's make and finish the doors, then replace the edge-banding on the Ikea boxes to match the Scherr's doors. (Scherr's was happy to tell me the exact make and number of the finish they used on my doors.)

If you do go the Scherr's route (or another custom place), you have to remember stuff like end panels, filler pieces (I had them finish a couple of 1x8s to cut for filler.), toe kick (I used Ikea's white toekick, but you might not find something at Ikea that works), and moldings (again, I used Ikea's decor strip as a light rail and used stock moldings painted white elsewhere).

I like Ikea cabinet so much that it would be really hard for me to much more for the boxes and drawers. Good luck figuring this all out!

Okay, I am so excited to see this---earlier this week I was wondering if Scherr's would do the edge pieces! Did you order through them, or just paint yours to match? And which white did you go with? (Saw the photos in the other thread of your cabs, which look terrific!) We are leaning towards doing half of our kitchen this way and having Scherr's paint the doors, plus ordering two custom cabinets from them in a couple of sizes IKEA doesn't do and to get a plywood box for the sink. We did get a quote from them to have them do that side of the kitchen in its entirety, but it was a lot higher than IKEA (and IKEA's an easy option for us since it's very nearby---I actually pass it on the way to work!---so we're game for trekking back and forth for parts.) Since we're trying to offset the cost of higher-end inset framed cabinets for the other half of the kitchen, seems like this is the way to go.

Would love to see/hear more about your project as it wraps up!

Artemis78 - Yes, Scherrs will do whatever you need. You do have to be careful on the sizes. For example, I ordered a huge cover panel (9' tall) for the side of my wall oven cabinet. I remembered to add 3/4" to the depth of the panel to account for the depth of the doors, so the panel is 24-3/4" wide, just like the Ikea cover panels. Unfortunately, I didn't allow anything extra for scribing to the wall. It turned out that the wall was off by more than 1/4" in some places. It's too much for caulk, and I'm not sure that covering it with quarter round wouldn't draw more attention to the area. I always hope that no one but me notices the gaps.:)

As I said, I also ordered a couple piece of 1x8 stock, finished the same as my cabinets, to use as filler. (Oddly, the boards were actually 1" thick, rather than 3/4", like usual 1x.) They'll also do the cover panel for your wall oven cabinet and whatever else you need.

You do need to drill for the drawer hardware yourself, the same as you'd need to do with Ikea cabinets. Just use the paper template that comes with the Ikea drawer box, and buy a depth collar for your drill so you can drill to the correct depth. (Much easier and better than tape. My tape wore away while I was drilling the drawer fronts, and I ended up drilling right through one of them.)

Joann  Thank you very much for posting this! I think IKEA boxes and Scherrs doors are the way for us to go as well.

Can you please comment on the color of white Scherrs uses? Any idea how it compares to BM White Dove? Did you have a choice of whites to choose from?

You said they told you the exact make and number of the finish? Can you share that information? You also say you used IKEAÂs white toe kick  so it matched your doors well?

I really appreciate your time in this!

Oh! Artemis mentioned another thread that showed pictures? Can you point me to that thread? :-)

Jeri

I think I read on IKEAFans that Scherr's now drills for the drawers. I am talking about attaching the drawer front to the drawer itself. That is good news to me.

I think Scherr's will do any SW or BM color.

joann23456 - could you post a couple of pics again? Your old post is now MIA.

My paint color was 7006, extra white. I went with their standard color, because I knew I wanted a clear white and I didn't want to be bothered going through a zillion paint samples. They will do any SW color you like. (Maybe they'll do BM, too, but I don't know.)

Yes, the Ikea toekick worked just fine. It's not exactly the same color, but it's also not adjacent to the doors, so you don't notice. I liked using it because it's set up to work with the Ikea system. (It has a groove in the back where you insert the clips that snap onto the plastic legs.) I also used the Lidingo white decor strip as a light rail, and that worked fine, too.

Here's a picture I put up yesterday. I'll post more pictures sometime, but there's still some work to be done. (Just in case you didn't read the other thread, the second level of cabinets is a soffit dressed to look like cabinets. And there's another trip piece to go over the fridge, but I haven't installed it yet.)

Lovely! How did you do your crown? It looks like what I want. Beautiful job.

I think Scherr's just does SW colors (or at least that's all they did when we asked about it a couple months back). They have two standard whites, and then I think it's an added cost to do other colors. (We knew we were doing a non-white color so I never asked about the price for plain white, but I think somewhere he said they had two standard white options and then the custom colors.)

If they drill for the drawers, that is AWESOME---even IKEA doesn't do that! :)

Ikea uses metal boxes. My guess is that it is the lower grade of Tandembox from Blum since Ikea uses Blumotion for drawer runners. Tandemboxes come in lacqured metal or stainless steel. Tandemboxes can be used with their Orgaline of drawer inserts that look very much like Ikea drawer inserts. I am not sure if Blum makes the ones that Ikea uses or not.

But... If you wanted to change the standard dovetail hardwood drawers with Tandembox from Blum, a typical custom cabinet maker considers that an upgrade and charges quite a bit for the Tandemboxes.

So what you are getting with the Ikea is an upgrade from the standard drawers. HOWEVER, you do get the MDF boxes which is considered "less" durable than plywood. (I am just quoting the industry saying.)

So Ikea boxes/drawers are a mixed bag in terms of "perceived" quality...

Having said that, I really like the Tandembox drawers and I only looked at custom cabinet makers that offered that option. I think it is a HUGE functional improvement from the standard dovetail boxes because the accessories are so well designed and easy to use.

I would say to go for it with the Ikea boxes with custom fronts. Let us know how it turns out. (I considered that option seriously for us. I actually picked the custom route for myself.)

http://www.blum.com/pdf/BUS/3063_tbx_fb/3063_tbx_fb.pdf

so if you get doors from scherrs they'll also make the trim for around the Ikea boxes so they match? is that just in paint or in stain also? do they just glue on?

"So what you are getting with the Ikea is an upgrade from the standard drawers. HOWEVER, you do get the MDF boxes which is considered "less" durable than plywood. (I am just quoting the industry saying."

I've compared the ikea boxes and the standard boxes from the semi-custom makes (kraftmaid,diamond, etc.). That's enough motive for me to do ikea boxes and probably custom doors from Scherrs. Last weekend I figured I'd look at some slightly pricier cabinets at the Great Indoors, still the boxes are all made of the same material with a melamine surface. You can get plywood, but you will pay a lot more for it, and frankly I don't think its worht it.

Also, remember that if you're getting custom doors anyway, you can always mix and match and have Scherr's make a few cabinets, too---for instance we wanted a plywood box for our sink cabinet, so we're going to have them make that one (and it's going to be a non-IKEA size anyway, so that just makes everything easier) and another small shelf that needs to be a custom size. I still haven't decided if we should also have Scherr's make the blind corner (another funky size) or just modify the IKEA version....we'll see!

Desertsteph, I think you're talking about the edgebanding on the front edge of the Ikea boxes, correct? If so, I don't know whether Scherr's will sell you edgebanding finished to match your doors.

The edgebanding is just glued onto the boxes. (Actually, it's ironed on.) If you want to change it out, you iron the edgebanding on the boxes to get the glue sticky, then pull it off. Then you can stick on new edgebanding. Lots of people on Ikeafans have done this, and they are great at figuring out what stains to use to match the Ikea doors.

Other people have done a less thorough job, painting the edgebanding or (I think this is brilliant!) covering it with colored electrical tape. Were I to get stained cabinets, I'd probably go this route.

Odiegirl13, the crown molding you see is just the crown molding that goes around the room. (Actually, it's not really crown - it's just a stock band molding.) We put a fascia board above the faux cabinets and put the band molding over that.

thx joann - I guess artemis was talking about something else ("then replace the edge-banding on the Ikea boxes to match the Scherr's doors. (Scherr's was happy to tell me the exact make and number of the finish they used on my doors.") or it was a paint color. I want med brown oak wood cabs. I probably should just have them done locally - I'll check around here when it gets closer for me (like next yr!).

but i really like those Ikea drawers and dividers!

If you use a an adhesive PVC edgebanding like Fastedge from Fastcap you don't need to take the original edgbanding off of the Ikea cabs - you can go right over it. Check but this is the most recommended product I found on Ikeafans and it comes in a range of finishes - Fastcap will send you a sample chain for free.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fastcap

I ordered Seville cabinets, cost 13-14,000. All pullouts, all wood, nice quality, comes in any size. I have posted pictures on this site of the cabinets with shelves pulled open. I am very happy with the quality of cabinet.