10-20% is a "standard" range. It depends on many many factors, such as the number of boxes, the pieces of molding, the number of field applied panels and field installed accessories. $4500 would be for a large kitchen with stacked cabinets and stacked molding and lots of applied onlays and panels.

I used Amish cabinet makers. They had to hire a driver and travel 2 hours each way. It took 4 Amish carpenters eleven hours to install 16 base cabinets, 10 upper cabinets, a tall pantry, a tall oven cabinet, small shelf unit, island panels, 2 piece crown molding and all the hardware. They did all of that for $1,400.

GreenDesigns: No stacked cabinets, no stacked molding, a couple of 'fake' door panels for end cabinets, no hardware included. Cabinets are all going exactly where the present ones are - same footprint. Base cabinets will all be drawers except for two narrow base pullouts and one for trash. It's good to know, though, that 10-20 percent is the range..thank you!

Badgergal: You are so lucky ( knock on wood). No Amish here unfortunately.What a deal!!!

Our Amish cabinet maker installed ours for $600. He lives about 20 miles away and hired a driver on two occassions. It was 8 hours of labor for three people. The other two custom cabinet makers quoted us 1,200 and $1,700 each. The $1700 would have been 10% of our total cost. At $600 I guess it was around 3.5% of our total cost.

Thanks for your reply, Senator13. I do wish we could get hold of Amish cabinet makers where we live, sigh.
The installation cost quoted to me comes to 25 percent of total cost of cabinets.

My installation cost was about 15% of the cabinet price.

25% sounds high. Where do you live?

My custom cab maker's install was cheap. I can't remember the exact cost, but it was probably less than 5%. As far as demo goes, is this something you could tackle yourself? That's usually one of the first items people suggest as a DIY when budget gets tight as it doesn't take a lot of skill.

Thanks, April_love, senator13 and breezygirl.
I live in Southern California.
We'll have to take off the tile countertops as well as the existing cabinets, sink, built-in appliances. I'm just too scared to attempt the demo ourselves :-(

I live in Southern California too. My installation is going to be $125 per cabinet and I have 15 cabinets. They also charge $375 for molding installation, so around 25% of the cabinet cost sounds about right. Its the downside of living in CA. The average house is about 650k and contractors here unlike other parts of the country still get plenty of business.

Lilymila: Thank you very much for your feedback. Sorry for the delayed response - I've been sick and off the computer.

Did you go with a private company or with a big-box store?

( I'm in the San Fernando Valley)

I am using a local small company that specialize in kitchen remodels. Installation is very important though. Your wall is not going to be perfectly straight, so they do have to compensate and make sure everything lines up and is pleasing to the eyes. I am in Santa Barbara area.

I think that's expensive. My cabinet install was $900. I had 23 cabinets and crown molding. We had a referral from the guy who did our dry wall.

Thank you, Lilymila.
Toepytoe:Do you live in California? 23 cabinets *and* crown molding..I wish I could get someone like your installer!!

If you want to do a comparison, check with Valentin Olteanu, Owner at Advanced Cabinetry & Millwork, North Hollywood. We live too far to use him but he was recommended to me when I was looking for a cabinetmaker.

Thanks, Plumberry.

I live in MA. I guess I got lucky. My installer was actually a cabinet maker as well. My husband was amazed at the speed and accuracy he made the cuts for the crown moulding.

I live in SoCal, WLA to be more precise. The installation charge was very variable between people I got quotes from. One included installation in the price of the cabinets. I didn't go with him because I preferred frameless. But the guy I chose to do the frameless agreed to the other one's price. So in some sense perhaps I got installation thrown in? But when they priced it out it came to approx 20-25% too.

Wow . . . we received prices of, $1,975, $2,400 and $4,350 to install 10 cabs that cost about $5,000 in a small 110x101 kitchen (got cabs on sale with bonuses, before discounts, was almost $8,000). The $1,975 came through a friend's recommendation and I was set to call him but he also wanted to sell me a quartz countertop which I wasn't interested in. DH thought it was highway robbery. We did have crown molding in addition to the cabs and plaster walls that were perfected prior to installation but we never hung cabs before, especially in plaster walls, and we knew in our old house, that the walls were not square and the studs were hard to find. We ended up finding someone for $750 who did a great job and was pet friendly.

We are in NJ and I just about died when we got our first quote for cabinets. We got a quote through HD for $6500 and I thought that was insane. Our cabinets were coming in at just under $10,000 so I couldn't fathom spending 65% of the cost of our cabinets on install.

I asked my uncle who does kitchens for a living to come and take a look and tell me what he thought was a fair going rate and he agreed that was pretty much what anyone was going to charge us in this area. That was for 20 total cabinets and 3piece crown moulding.

Thankfully my uncle offered to do the install for us or we would have had to go down to cheaper cabinets to fit our budget.

Toepytoe, Aliris19,Catlover5 and Twinmommy77: Thank you all for your replies and apologies to the first three named for my late response. I didn't even know you had posted something on the 19th...until today, when I was looking at the forum and noticed my thread up there, after Twinmommy77 replied. I'll have to check and see how I can get notified as soon as a response is posted to any questions I ask here.

Wow, Twinmommy77, that quote *is* insane! Glad your uncle came through..I could use a relative like him :-).

Catlover5: I'm so happy you got such a great price on your installation after all those wildly differing estimates!

Toepytoe: Oh, you must be so relieved! I dread this part of any project - can get so frustrating at times.I'm glad it worked out well for you :-).

Aliris19: Thanks..the price seems to be in the ballpark for SoCal installation costs. I still think it's expensive, though :-).

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