Be sure to ask if he has worked in the species of wood you will be using and has done the finish you want. This was a BIG mistake for me...

nkkp -- I don't know what color stain yet... still trying to figure out colors, but I'll keep that in mind.

needsometips08 -- Lots of great questions here. The guy comes with great references from my husband's co-workers. But, all the construction questions are excellent. Unfortunately, if I ask "What is your process for staining maple?", I'd have no real way of evaluating the quality of his answer, as I'm not a woodworker!

Well, first it would only be applicable if you are planning on using maple and want a stain on it. Otherwise, don't worry about asking.

But if that is your plan, you would be looking for something like, "maple is tricky. You gotta..." or "maple doesn't take a stain easily because....."

I mentioned that question because of something that happened to a friend that revealed (after the fact) that her cabinet guy really didn't know what he was doing and she could have avoided this had she had the right knowledge and then asked the right questions. She hired a very small-scale custom cabinet guy and ordered up maple with a dark stain, and cabinet guy let her. You would not believe the blotchiness in her end product. She has two-tone (or 3 or 4 tone) cabinets without intending to. In her case, it turned out good because the blotchiness is so uniformly blotchy that it looks like a deliberate and novel treatment. If you could take your most worn, acid-washed blue jeans and make it brown and put it on your cabinets, that's what hers looks like. She only spent 3K so she just accepted it, but if she had spent $20K and didn't envision new and novel (to put a positive spin on it), she could have been devastated.

Really, when it comes right down to it, her cabinet guy should have known enough to steer her away from a dark stain on maple. Or at least known enough to know that it's a 3-5 step process to make it look ok.

In addition to the great list of questions you have from other posters, I would add:

Ask about the drawer glides (most want full extension soft close, and Blum is the preferred brand - Blummotion is the name of the full extension soft close version I think).

Ask about cabinet accessories - do they use a certain brand (rev-a-shelf is popular and has lots to choose from). I like to know this so that I can look up online the trash pull that he is using. Also think ahead of time about what accessories you might want (e.g. a cutlery organizer: there are plenty of after-market ones to use, but sometimes the custom ones are best). I requested a super susan for my corner base cabinet (the kind that sits on a shelf as opposed to a pole in the center), but it sounds like my cabinet maker has rarely if ever used this kind - I hope it turns out ok!

I would ask about using deeper upper cabinets (14" instead of the usual 12", for example). This should be an easy modification for him, so if he doesn't like the idea, that would be a red flag for me.

I met my custom cab maker after going to probably 5 different kitchen stores for cabinet layouts. We 'clicked' immediately because he already knew about and agreed with many of the things I had read beforehand on this website (the deeper upper cabinets is a good example). The KDs at the stores weren't nearly as accommodating. He seems to appreciate my attention to detail and endless questions rather than getting annoyed with me.

Good luck! I hope it works out for you. Custom is the way to go.

And red flags:

Just like pugybaby mentioned - disagreeing with you with basic ideas and desires you want

Arrogence. A penchant for repeating how many years he's been doing this and knowing so much, 100 times more than other people in the industry

Saying, "just trust me" and expecting that to be a good enough answer to your questions

We lost $1500 on the wrong cabinet maker. My friend saw all the above red flags, but I just took it as pride in work. NOPE! I fired him at about World War 6. It was my kitchen, not his. He would have settled for nothing less than a kitchen HE loved (and I likely hated since we had polar opposite tastes).

Well, the guy is clearly into woodworking, not sales. I asked him if he brought pictures or samples of his work, and he said that he just gets busy and forgets to keep a portfolio. He'd rather be in a shop. Instead of picking out things I like from his portfolio, I'm supposed to find magazine pictures and such show him what I like so he can build it. If I didn't have acquaintances who rave about his work, I'd be really nervous about that, but for now it's OK, though I may check an extra reference or two and see if I can get into their kitchens as well before I sign.

He works with another contractor who manages, basically, everything but the cabinets so that he can do what he loves. So, his other contractor needs to talk to me about how much the rest of my kitchen is going to cost to see if I can afford custom cabinets.

That being said, he was very easy to talk to. He asked a few questions about some unusual aspects of my drawings (For example, I have a couple of cabinets specified as open shelves, no doors.) But, once he was sure I had thought through things, he didn't try to talk me out of my ideas. And, where he did have prejudices, at least they seemed to mesh well with mine so far.

His boxes are made of birch plywood. He suggested alder for the doors as looking nice with my existing oak floors, and he's going to run some numbers and get back to me. I'll have to wait and see if this is something I can afford!

Thanks for all the advice. We didn't go into details on hardware and such, except when I showed him where all my dish drawers were and said I needed the heavy-duty stuff there, he said all his drawers have full-extension and high-weight-rating glides, so those wouldn't be any problem. But, I will be sure to look over all the spec's carefully before I sign up. I think at this point, I need to see where his numbers are going to be and so I know if this is worth pursuing further.

I have heard everything from "custom costs three times as much" to "custom doesn't cost as much as you might think" -- and he didn't quote me any numbers yet, so it will be interesting to see!

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