We went with Diamond cabinets- Semi-custom from the Kitchen Store in Culver City, CA. The cabinets are beautifully made and I love the finish. The doors do feel a bit cheap to me but that is due to them being veneer rather than solid wood- a choice that made sense since we live about a mile to the beach and have lots of humidity. Solid wood would probably have huge issues with warping down the road. Kitchen Store has a great KD, and solid support with broken cabinets(one came broken and needed to be replaced) but they are slow. Still waiting for our broken one 4 weeks later. They have a lifetime warranty which is nice. Plus if you don't like the look of the wood on a drawer or cabinet door they replace it no questions asked. Already changed out two doors and one drawer based on looks only. I heard not so good things about Diamond going in but think it more relates to the lower line cabs that they sell at Home Depot and Lowes rather than the semi-custom line. Custom cabs were not even looked at since in California very few chemicals are used in making them. All my friends with custom cabs have the wood starting to rot off the front of their sink cabs due to the lack of chemicals in the finish. Did NOT want that a year into my new kitchen so I admit to wanting a product made out of California. Verdict- love my new cabinets and the experience working with the Kitchen Store. Price was very reasonable too.

Ok, this is a long post with lots of pictures. I am going to try to give you as much background (and details of what I went for) as I can to help you compare KM with a cabinetmaker. I have an older house (1932) and not a single wall is plumb nor is a single floor or ceiling level. My ceilings are less than standard (most of the kitchen is about 92", the slanted roof section that caused the most headache is less). There are 2 kinds of custom cabinets (both shaker style inset) that were in the house when we moved in. We hired a cabinetmaker on the recommendation of our flooring guy who made some built-in bookcases and a tall bathroom cabinet. This same cabinetmaker made cabinets to match the KM cabinets in my kitchen (and I absolutely wish I had hired him to do the whole kitchen, but I found out about him much too late). The instructions I gave the KD was that I did not want anything fancy--no moldings at the top, and no scribe (which I really dislike) because I wanted to keep a clean look. We decided to go with KM cabinets because it seemed most were pleased with the product, and the style seemed like it would work with our home. In my case, the two different KDs I went to would not release the kitchen plans until I had signed a contract, so I did not have a list of cabinets nor did I have any idea of what each individual cabinet cost--I only had a total cost for all the cabinets. The quality of the KM cabinets I would describe as OK (at best). Cabinets are about paying attention to the details and so many custom cabinetmakers meticulous. To me, a lot of the details of the KM cabinets seemed like they had shoddy workmanship (I will give you some examples below). With KM cabinets, anything that was not a basic cabinet (like an end piece that needed a filler, or a side that needed to be finished) was an extra and the costs added up like crazy if the standard cabinet design was altered in any way. Another disadvantage for KM (and any cabinet "line" versus an individual cabinetmaker) is that if and when something goes wrong, it takes roughly 4-6 weeks to have a cabinet replaced. With a local cabinetmaker, it is pretty much instant. The only disadvantage to a local cabinetmaker that I can point to, is that the finishing of the cabinets is one more process. You most likely will not find the baked on finish (and I admit, that is a nice feature IMO). Here are some examples to the points above: KM Huntington doors and drawers are made with solid stock frames, but the inset is "skin" (which is thin and not a solid piece of wood). This is what the KM doors look like (the interior): And this is what the skin looks like on it's own: This is the same door style that my cabinetmaker made with a flat back (inside) with a more substantial panel: This one little detail may not look like a big deal on it's own, but that little lip on the inside of the KM doors (especially on the trash drawer) catches more dirt than I would like and it is just one more thing to clean. DH doesn't like the fact that the cabinets clatter whenever you shut them, again this is because of the fact that the center panel is so thin compared to the rest of the door. We don't have that problem with the custom set. The KM drawer fronts are simply screwed to the drawer. The inside lip tends to catch a lot of gunk (what you see here is wood dust from the install): KM talks about the dovetail joins in the drawers. These are meant to add strength to the drawers and they are a mark of fine cabinetry. I was appalled when I saw the joins on the drawers in my KM order. My kitchen only has 5 drawers and two are ok, but here is what 3 of the 5 look like: The non-KM drawers in my house were of a lesser quality (they are not dovetailed, and they are plywood, not solid wood) so they are not a direct comparison, but they have held together quite well for over 10 years without anything pulled apart. I do not have the same confidence with the KM drawers. The KM full-overlay will drop to the frame if you have any fillers (I know there is something they can put on an overlay, buy that is an additional cost). Two standard upper cabinets placed side by side look like this: Lower cabinets with top drawers look like this: And those fillers (extended styles I think they might be called...I will have to look it up) look like this when placed between cabinets: When you get to the end of a wall, your choices are: extended style (end) scribed to the wall, a gap, or a moulding. Here is what each looks like: I think the scribe looks the best. For the KM option, you need the extended ends which is an added cost. I asked the cabinetmaker to match the rest of my kitchen (and I didn't want it to stand out with all the funky odd overlays that ended up in the rest of the kitchen), so this is how the cabinets line up in the alcove (the stain is not on yet): To give you an idea of the difference in quality, this is one of the tall cabinets the same cabinetmaker did for my bathroom (the panels I asked to keep open because I plan to insert fabric, and it is painted instead of stained). The floor, wall and ceiling in this room is uneven (but you would not know it from the cabinet): For me, I could do a direct cost comparison in the alcove (because this wall had to be re-built same for one upper cabinet). The cost for the KM pieces (end panels, doors, one cabinet and filler pieces) for the alcove was about $1600. labor to install was $1000 (total roughly $2600). The same alcove using a single cabinet from KM (about $300-350) was $800 for the cabinetmaker (materials and install), $160 for a specialty pocket door hinge, and the staining (estimates were about $250-300): total on the high end--about $1610. Important to note that the cabinetmakers price includes install. Also note that if you are going with a granite top that is 2cm with KM cabinets, it will need a plywood under layer (that was an extra $300 that no one mentioned in any estimate but came in as an "extra"). Again, it would have been part of the package with the cabinetmaker. I know that every case is different and a lot depends on the individual cabinetmaker as well as the particulars of your space and preferences, but if you can get drawings to an individual, take a look at their work and talk to a few clients, I highly recommend it. Oh, one more thing. When you asked about the "full overlay" cabinet at the shop you mentioned and got a blank stare, I bet you if I said that to the one we hired it would have met with a similar look. To him, it was either inset or overlay (and if it was overlay, it was just a matter of how much...and in the KM cabinets vary from cabinet to cabinet (as you can see from the photos) even though it is all still called "full overlay").

I think Jacob is actually in Oxford, PA. But I think it is still just a couple hours from her, so it really isn't htat big of a deal. I know lots of people who would drive a couple hours to get what they wanted for their kitchen cabinets. It is not like it is something you would do everyday, afterall. Jumpilotmdm, I believe the OP said she was comparing American Woodmark to Jacob, not Woodmode. American Woodmark is a HD line that I would expect would be cheaper than Jacob's cabs. Although, I am not sure if these were really comparable as it appears that Jacob might have been including things that were not in the American Woodmark quote. In all fairness, quality can come from many sources, as does junk. I am sure their are people (Amish or English) who produce both. In my experience, I love dealing with the craftsman himself thoughout my process. That was something that a manufactured cab company couldn't give me.

Thanks for all of the responses! I do want to clear a few things up, and hopefully address all of your comments. Yes, we originally wanted mostly walnut cabinetry, but switched to almost all white to save money and because we like the look. This was the cabinetmaker's suggestion and we are very happy with it. We made a few other changes to scope as well to meet our budget. Most contractors in LA are notably less expensive than those in SF. For example, LA-based countertop fabricators are so much cheaper (same exact specs) than up here even with travel fees, etc. it's about $1K savings on average (we did choose a local fabricator, however). The pricing ended up being pretty close to some of our top local options, but we chose this one because he could do our cabinets in fenix (http://www.fenixntm.com/). I also don't think the LA-SF thing is that unusual. We found quite a few people who do it for a variety of reasons, though this is our cabinetmaker's first time and he's told us that it's harder than he expected. This definitely did not start out as a scam. It may seem like one now, but I did enough research upfront to confirm he is a legit cabinetmaker (I was very suspicious about him contacting me as well). He put a ton of time and energy into this project over the first few months that was completely unnecessary if he wanted to scam us. He even left some sample blum hardware and other goodies up here. But even if this started with the best of intentions, there is something wrong now. The last thing I heard from him is that he was almost done with our cabinets, but he didn't know when he would be able to come up yet because he was slammed trying to finish another project and dealing with another non-work related situation. It may be naive, but I don't think he was lying. The question I have is what happened? I guess I need to go knock on his door and see if I can find out...