question for afr66 re: Showplace Cabinets

15 years ago

hi afr,

came across a posting of yours and am curious if your cabinets arrived and if you are happy.

i am helping my friend with some choices for her kitchen. She lives in a condo in Charlestown, MA - and has a TINY kitchen. Currently an L-shape with 15 linear feet of base cabinets and about 10 of uppers. I think she should try to make it into a G-shape to optimize her storage and countertop space (currently she is prepping all of her food on a 20" section of countertop... clearly she needs more than that!!).

Anyway, would love to hear how things went with Norfolk out of Nashua. I mapquested it... they are 44 miles from her and say they do free measuring within 35 miles... do they charge for measuring if you are beyond that and how much do they charge for installation? their website mentions that they install as well which would be a plus for her.

any advice you can pass my way would be appreciated. for her I am looking for as high quality cabinet but on a modest budget... the price you quoted in your other post seemed really reasonable for all you are getting.

thanks!!!

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Comments (4)

afr66
15 years ago
Good morning! Happy to help out with your friend. First off, if it is closer, Norfolk now has a showroom in Salem, NH - I actually switched to that one as it is only about 20 minutes from my house (Andover, MA). My salesperson also moved so that made everything easier.
Anyway, I have not yet seen my cabinets. They are in the warehouse in Nashua but we aren't ready yet. Kitchen is gutted, but we are doing substantial reworking of the space (moving windows, door, taking out stairs etc) so it will be another 2 weeks or more before my guy can start putting in the cabs. I will say, it only took about 4 weeks for the cabinets to come in, so they are quick.
From my experience so far, I'd recommend at least checking out Norfolk (they also sell a couple of less expensive lines). I thought the service was reasonable, given the price. The Showplace cabinets seem very well made for the $$ - plywood boxes, nice glides, good hinges, solid wood doors etc. They have a good selection of door styles and wood species and the upcharge for cherry or painted is a lot less than other mfrs. (5% compared to 15-20% at other places I considered).
On the downside, you will need to handhold with them more than with a real KD - they had some good layout ideas, but nothing I'd consider breakthrough. The folks there are more cabinet salespeople, I'd say (which isn't all that uncommon). Of course, they did do multiple renderings for free.
Let me know if you have any other questions! BTW, I love your kitchen and am green with envy at your lovely Crown Point cabs - I lusted after those, but the amount of construction and other basic work we needed precluded the custom route (which is how I ended up with Showplace).
afr66
15 years ago
Bump. Just in case you didn't see my reply.
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mamadadapaige
Original Author
15 years ago
thanks for the bump... this is such a fast moving forum.

thanks for all the info. salem nh is 32 miles from charlestown which is great.

she may want to look at some of the lesser priced lines they carry so thanks for mentioning that. she is looking to sell her condo when she can but the market in charlestown is pretty bleak right now. she will fix up the kitchen to make it more functional for herself for the meantime and to help with resale down the road.

i will be able to help her with the layout. i took an autocad class recently and have a creative background (and love to cook), plus she is my college roommate and we have been friends since we were 18 years old (a very long time since we are now 42) so I know her pretty well and feel like i am in a good position to help her with this... and I am very excited about it all as I loved planning in my own kitchen and fretted over every last little detail (with delight), which is something she will definitely NOT want to do, but which I think will make a big difference in the final result.

thank you for the compliment on my kitchen. i am thrilled with how it came out, but i would have been very happy with those showplace cabinets too - they have a ton of options and i love their website, plus free glazing. i think it presents an excellent value.

thanks again for all the info!
Karen
afr66
15 years ago
No problem. Always glad to help a fellow 42 year old!
I feel for your friend. The market around here is horrible, I know. My hubby is always fretting about spending so much on the kitchen when our house is worth less than when we bought 3 years ago. I try to keep his eye on the end result (which, I hope, will be great).

question for afr66 re: Showplace Cabinets

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question for afr66 re: Showplace Cabinets

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