I am looking to redo my kitchen, put cabinets in a small laundry room and some in an alcove in my living room. My kitchen is 8 feet by 11 feet, no island, one wall is the doorway and a closet pantry that won't be touched. I am looking at shaker style, natural maple, no glaze and one painted (non-distressed) bumped out cabinet for the sink (which I know is pricey).

My laundry room is only 5 feet wide and I was going to put in a broom closet and a base cupboard on one wall and 2 cupboards (one over washer and one over dryer)on the other wall. There has to be a space in the middle between the washer and dryer as I have a crawl space there. There is no room for a cupboard.

My alcove in the living room is 103 inches by 21 inches. I wanted overhead cabinets and bottom cabinets (24 inches wide). The overhead cabinets would be small to accommodate a flat screen TV. The two ends of the alcove would have book case cabinets from the top of the alcove to the bottom base cabinet.

Overall cost of the cabinets from the KD? $60,000. Ah, no. I don't have that kind of $ to spend. Very nice guy recommended by my contractor. I am thinking of terminating both of them and going with Lowe's. I hate coordinating all of this myself (plumbing, electrical, etc.) as I work many, many hours and it is an hour commute from home. Every time I have tried this in the past, with other projects around the house, it has been disastrous!

I liked the look of the Schuller cabinets (more high end cabinets with Lowe's.) KD is showing me Columbia cabinets--nice but pricey. They (Lowe's) stated my kitchen cabinets would probably run me about $5,000--6,000 not installed.

I am scared to not have a contractor, KD, etc., but I only can spend up to $20 grand for the kitchen, laundry room and living room cabinets. I still need to redo some plumbing (bringing in gas for my range), some electrical work (get rid of my florescent fixture and have the plugs run on a strip underneath my cabinets so there is no granite acne and I want under cabinet lighting), have my granite installed, new flooring and purchase new appliances. So my overall budget has to include those things, therefore the "tight" cabinet budget.

As it is, I am thinking of refinishing my kitchen cabinets myself and using some of them in the laundry room and possibly put the rest in the garage. That should save me some $ on the overall price of the cabinets. I also checked with Ethan Allen on-line and I can get furniture that matches my existing living/dining room furniture that would fit my alcove in the living and have my flat screen on it, etc. The cost for the Ethan Allen furniture? $5000. That is a lot less then the $12--14,000 the KD quoted me.

The kitchen cabinets the KD was recommending were the ones that are frameless but also give you more space and not just the look (is that inset? I can never remember the word). I spoke with him this week and told him to check on lower priced cabinets for me. I couldn't afford what he proposed.

So, do you think I should go with doing things on my own? If so, do I pay for the KD for his time (sorry to be such a newby at this). I am not sure what the protocol is. I meet with the KD again this morning to try to get the price down on things.