Very frusterating like yours. We went to several kitchen stores and most blew us off as we had a smaller kitchen. One did a ok design but didn't put that much thought in it, came out to measure, I went in to talk to him and he pomised more and never followed up which was strange as that point, I wanted to look at the more expensive lines and spend more, not less. Then I tried HD/Lowes and they were a big pain. So, then I sat with the Kraftmaid book, took the designs, husbands measurements which we were using all along, tweeked the design, went to Just Cabinets who sells Kraftmaid and doesn't install - did the design/bought in one day and was done.

wintertime,

Where in Canada are you? I live in the Lower Mainland of BC, and the custom cabinet place that is doing our basement vanity also does the high gloss modern cabinets like you're describing. They are very well-priced (for what we're doing). I didn't price out the high gloss ones as that is not what we were looking for- but just thought I'd let you know that there are alternatives out there!

I'm in the early stages on a low budget reno where the main "L" (part 1) will be one product and the cabinets around the fridge (part 2 to be done at a later date) will be Ikea boxes with DIY painted custom doors. Mixed cabinetry is a great look.

Have you looked at Kraftmaid Venicia they have a steel gloss? Also Home Hardware Building centres carry Georgetown and they have a door called Impulse Compliments which comes in graphite (not sure how shiny it is). Georgetown is a stock line that is sold under a few different names but can usually be bought RTA or assembled. It's a Canadian company owned by MasterBrand so you get MB's limited lifetime warranty. They still have a limited spec book but there a lot more choices than with Ikea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Impulse Graphite

Wintertime - have you posted your dilemma re. getting the blue glass Ikea doors to work with your measurements over at Ikeafans? They are wizards in coming up with ideas. It sounds like you HAVE put a lot of thought into it, but I just wanted to mention it in case you haven't been there!

I'm not sure your budget, but if you can make Ikea work, then you can splurge on all the other stuff!

My lower cabinets are Kraftmaid with a maple slab door in a dark grey color they discontinued before I was done installing :/

My upper cabinets are full custom from a local place because there was literally NO doorstyle out there that was what I wanted. (Long story)

So yes I mixed full custom with semi custom midrange, I am not sure anyone has ever noticed the lowers are not the quality of the uppers.

Venezia did not exist when I did my kitchen but I looked at them with a client. They appear to be limited in some regards and prone to scratching, even in the showroom. Perhaps someone can give you a better IRL opinion.

I totally feel your pain. I have a basic layout and just wanted a price for the kitchen cabinets. It seems it takes at least three hours to get a quote and even then you don't even get the dimensions of the cabinets, so you are left with a fuzzy design experience. Home Depot wanted to charge $100 right off the bat to get a price.

Is there someone else in town you can work with? I think that $800 up front is just wrong, especially in this economy.

i ordered my high gloss cabinets from kraftmaid's venicia line......i don't know if you've already taken a look at them......i've included a link to their site =0)

Here is a link that might be useful: venicia by kraftmaid

I don't understand why they could not give you a ballpark of what their cabinetry orders generally run. Since all their work is custom, I am sure there are people that spend $80K just on cabinets, but they are few and far between. However, if that is their market, they should be able to at least tell you that.

Perhaps they charge for their design consult because they get a lot of people who disappear after they find out how expensive it is.

I had clients who were interested in a very specific look and had a pretty good budget for just cabinets (20K for a small kitchen)--probably 40-50 for the whole kitchen. When I wanted to get some general pricing on whether their budget was reasonable for what they wanted, I had a H377 of a time getting the dealer to work some numbers for me. And he said that it was because people come in thinking they want custom, he does some design, and the run out the door when they find out how much it cost. I had already DESIGNED the kitchen, he just had to plug in some pricing for me and he was still really hesitant about doing it. he was Convinced they were going to bail.

Thank you so much, it's good to know that it's not just intuitive for everyone.

Thank you Raechelen for giving me hope, I am in Alberta.

The fancy kitchen shop was just weird. The guy was so cryptic, he said he couldn't show me the room with all of the doors until I had 'signed on' with them. I now see they use Downsview to make their cabinets then do any custom work when the cabinets get here.

I called another custom place in town. He said that high gloss cabs were a premium because he has to spray them and it takes a lot of shop time. Then he kind of implied that I was stuck in the 80's because "the last time I did those was in the early 90's".
Anyhow, he thought custom painted (any colour) %95 gloss cabs would be around 30-40k. Yikes. He did say he would meet me to get a more concrete quote (this was just over the phone). At least he was willing to discuss it with me unlike the other place.

I did look on Ikeafans but the problem is that the glass doors aren't as versatile as some of the others. I am still working with it though.

I did look at the Venetia and I think I like the look of Ikea better. The Venetia would be about twice what Ikea is I think.

This is terrible, I don't know what to do.

I am wanting pale grey gloss cabs but for 1/4 the money could get white gloss Ikea. Either the thermafoil or glass.

I really feel for all of you who've done this already!

Just had another thought, I wonder if the guy I talked to would make me grey doors for Ikea cabinets. I can imagine the response now: I only do high end work.

I've had at least 3 people say that to me when I suggest a modern look. I tried to get a contractor to put a small, minimal bathroom in my place and he told me he wouldn't do the job because he wouldn't want his name on something that low quality. He wanted me to put in one of those pre-formed plastic showers from Home Depot an I wanted a custom glass enclosure. He said if it wasn't from Home Depot it was too low-end for his work!

This is really frustrating, I find in the construction/reno industry in this town there is a lot of snoberry and what they consider 'high end' is NOT what I consider high end. Unless it's heavy wood or beige granite it's a budget look to them. Considering something other than french provincial or dark wood cabinets is unheard of. Not that those aren't nice looks, but it is imposible for people to consider that other European looks can also be high quality.

The mere mention of Ikea cabinets makes people look at you like you've gone crazy.

I have gotten so many off the wall quotes for kitchen cabinets. It is a joke. This includes custom to stock. Prices make no sense. Some prices were so high and others way to low for similar cabinets.

Meanwhile I didn't start the kitchen reno because of all the discrepencies in pricing.

It looks like Ikea will get my money because all there cabinets have price tags. In other words the prices are the same for everyone. No politics involved with ikea as far as the pricing goes. For me it is the way to go.

We have checked in with two mid to high end shops . For a 10 x 10 kitchen with old 70s cabinets ( we have the new appliances already ) .

Just cabinets & counter tops ,with all the gee whiz tracks / soft close drawers . 40 -45 K .Caesar stone counters tops. We can swing it without issue .

Its all custom made in town, $1500 more for plywood internal backing instead of partical board melamine . Seems like that could be standard on high end "schtuff ".

I like the local business / less waiting , with the slow down in sales, they seem to not be throwing out any incentives . The salesman threw out the quote after 2 minutes in the show room , never seeing the house . It was the same after he measured it.

Two more next week , see how those numbers look .

Hi Wintertime:

Unless you are in a big rush for some reason, I really don't think you need to be stuck with the choices you have.

And you definitely don't need to do businesess with snooty people who backhand your design choices while taking HUGE amounts of your money!

Slow down, beat the bushes.
I really think if you look around, you'll discover there are more options than you think there are, even if you have to invent them.

I think you might be on to something with the doors for Ikea cabinets: Maybe not even doors, but panels for the doors? (I'm not familiar with the style you mean, so I'm punting here. The flat shiny ones with the little rim of metal?)

I'd think any good glass fabrication shop could take a door, pop out the glass and replace it with any other style you wanted, at a lot lower cost than that cabinet shop. Take in a photo and specs of what you want and see what they say.

But, to answer another question, yes, you could mix two. Maybe.Though it works better if they are so dissimilar that you would not subconciously compare them. If, as you say, the bottoms are different, stock sizes in one color and different attributes (thickness of metal, handles, interiors, weight of doors etc) from the top, then it might be odd. You might be able to compensate, or it might just look bad. Work it out, then have an honesty check to see if it's money well saved or you'll be planning your next reno the minute it's in.

I had some parts of my kitchen custom built, but had my carpenter put up some shelves in another part, and used antique cupboards for other parts. It's possible, but I have that kind of house!

Good luck!

I have been through this experience on both sides of the fence as both a customer and a designer.

It is very difficult to give a customer an idea of how much something costs when the request is not specific. "How much does a car cost?" and we all know the answer is anywhere from a couple thousand dollars for that car in India to $300,000+ for a typical Rolls Royce and up from there.

I know you have been pretty specific about the look you want Wintertime, but on the other hand, you can get that look in a generic sense at IKEA or spend $100,000 for hand rubbed lacquer.

What the Seller needs to know, and so far you have been a bit vague about, is how much you are actually Willing to spend...it sounds as if you could spend 8x as much as it cost at IKEA if neccesary, but I cant really tell.

Maybe you need to call the custom shop and say "Listen, I can spend $4000 (or 10K or 80K) on kitchen cabinets. Is that a budget YOU can work with or do I need to look elsewhere?"

I have even seen the advice given on here "Don't Tell them a Budget...they will spend it all and more!" How is anyone supposed to get anything done that way?

I met with a condo board once to discuss renovating their lobby, and the conversation literally went like this: "how much is your budget?" "well, how much is it going to cost" "how much are you willing to spend?" "We don't really know yet, how much does it cost?"

It took hours and days and meetings and plans to determine that they had about 20% of the funds needed to do what they wanted, and they could have told me that in the first hour.

Why couldnt you use one of the IKEA slab doors and have them Custom Painted?

you went to a place that doesn't give quotes without an $800 design fee?!
so basically they're just turning people away at the door? wow, it must be nice. how do they make money?

i'd keep looking around for different custom shops. don't give up so easily. i got six different quotes; three custom and three semi custom. good luck to you and not to scare you but ...this is the easy part!

Thank you again for all of the responses. I am glad this has generated some honest discussion and that people have been willing to share their experiences.

Palimpset, thank you for your input. I know I haven't decided how much I want to spend and that's a problem. It would not be totally unreasonable to spend a lot on this kitchen, especially if I went with the 10-20% of home value 'guideline'. I can swing spending that much if I chose. The kitchen is old and ready to be torn out, and I have very specific tastes so I am ready to do it and not unwilling to spend the money. I do not want to 'waste' money on something either, so I struggle with spending the money on cabs, mostly because the countertops and range are the things that I really care about. :) I already chose a yellow berta. How sharp would that be against a lovely misty grey?

I have to decide if I think it's worth another __k to get the pale grey that I :really: want or would I be just as happy to have gloss white and roll that money into the divine glass tiles in the bathroom.

I am also going to look into getting custom doors for Ikea cabs, although from the sounds of it, a lot of the cost was in the hand painted laquer. I fully appreciate the work involved, and have no problem paying for work where it's deserved.....I guess I just have to decide if I think it's worth it for this project. .

Oh, and as an aside, I have been very specific when I have gone to the shops. Exactly how many ft of cabinets, lowers only, all drawers, gloss finish, flat front doors, metal drawer boxes.... I haven't just said I have a kitchen that might be 10ft of cabinets and I'm not sure what type of finish I want.

I am going to keep looking for local shops, unfortunately I live in a place that has had a VERY good economy until very recently, so most kitchens around here were 100k plus jobs that no one batted an eye at. I think everyone's a little slow to catch up that things aren't quite what they were.

I am encouraged to beat the bushes. Thank you!!
It seems like there are plenty of places that will do wood cabs, I wish I wanted those and not gloss!!!

What about the Premoule custom door program? Most Rona's use Premoule for their re-facing program (I'm not sure what you can access through the re-facing program but they'll have a sales rep they can put you in touch with in terms of the rest). I didn't suggest it because I thought the limitations of the Ikea boxes was part of the problem. If you can get the boxes then this might be a good way to get the doors. The company is Canadian out of Quebec so it should be easy to get the product. They have quite a few greys available in high gloss (they use BM colours for paint lacquer and Wilsonart and Formica on the thermo).

Here is a link that might be useful: premoule pro teint finishing brochure

One more option to consider is custom painting by an auto-body shop. They have nearly endless choices of custom colors, and modern paint booths that could give you a flawless high gloss finish (think of a Lexus quality paint job on your incredibly beautiful grey doors!) The gentlemen (usually males, anyway :) who specialize in painting are "artists" with pride in their work. It may be worth your time to order one of the IKEA doors you like, stylewise, and take it in to a paint shop for consultation as to appropriate primers, colors, and such. Don't give up your vision of the grey with yellow berta, and best of luck to you for success.

Do not be discouraged by a cabinetmaker disparaging your taste. A completely flush Bulthaup or Siematic kitchen has never been out of style. Scavolini, an Italian company had been featuring a purple lacquer kitchen in its ads this past year.

If you are going to live in your place long enough that the next owner would consider your kitchen "old" and redo it anyway, you should get exactly what you want regardless of what is popular in your area. I personally think what is popular in my immediate vicinity is gawdawful.

I don't want to disparage all contracting types but the difference between what they are capable of doing, and their own personal taste is often immense. A talented person can DO it, if they GET what you want. They don't have to Like it, but they do have to Understand it.

Wow. Thank you so much. What a learning process this is!

This has been so encouraging!! The auto body shop is a great idea, and I am going to look into the premoule place. YAY.

I may just go with the custom guy IF he can get the finish that I want but I really find it hard to justify the cost of custom boxes when I can mostly make it work with Ikea boxes. I will keep you updated after I have a more formal meeting with him next week and evaluate the real cost difference.

Thank you so much for smiling for encouraging me to stick with the aesthetic that I want! I was ready to compromise on so many things because I felt guilty that my narrow view might be too expensive and also so frowned upon by the tradespeople that I've talked to so far.

Palimpset, I love the purple Scavolini kitchen. I was seriously considering it until I fell in love with the yellow berta and decided grey and yellow is both contemporary and timeless. Agreed about the Bulthaup. I know someone who has a high gloss kitchen installed in 1990 that still looks fabulous and relevant today.

Thanks again, I feel a LOT better. I am happy also, NOT to give my business to the rude high-end shop!

wintertime...

just for have fun I will like to help you.. if you send me all your info I will give you a quote for free so you can compare.. :-)
and maybe I will have an excuse to visit your city ;-)