If you do a search on homeadvisor dot com, you will find ratings for cabinet makers in your area. I was greatly disappointed by our contractor who made us go to some warehouse in Anaheim, and got bulldozed into picking the best of bad stock cabinets with granite countertops. I stopped the process this morning. After sleepless nights, knowing I got bulldozed, I crashed! Freaked is a better word! My husband wants to save money, so I say "I'm willing to live with the horrible cabinets that are there rather than sell my soul for cheap stock cabinets!" So he says "fine!" Get bids!! HomeAdvisor dot com had a lot of options and I read the reviews. Like you, I am in Southern California. We purchased a short sale home, and it's a hot mess! $$$ everywhere!! I found a cabinet maker that actually spoke to me for a long time, and he is coming to give us a bid on resurfacing what is there and rebuilding to fit the new appliances. He had six reviews. All 5 star! I'm not a salesperson, and will not post his site, but you can find him or someone else like him if you search. Color me happy! Suzi

Jerzeegirl (if you are from NJ ... I just moved down here from NJ 3 years ago - lived in Hoboken and then in Glen Ridge). I spoke to both Millers Dutch Haus and Taters. Taters was recommended by my General Contractor -- but he has a habit of only recommending places where I think he receives a little something on the backend. Anyways, I liked the gentleman from Taters BUT he really is just a salesman without much insight on configuration or design. Additionally, he went silent on me for 2 weeks during the planning/pricing stage and then told me his delivery time for the cabinets would be 3 times longer than he first estimated because I "didn't order the cabinets last week". This turned me off and I started researching alternatives. On Gardenweb I had learned about Millers. I hadn't thought to contact them because they look like a furniture store ..not cabinet maker (and the furniture in their showroom is a bit on the old-fashioned side). I've been EXTREMELY PLEASED with Lee at Miller's Dutch Haus. He is a pleasure to work with and brought very good ideas to the table. The best part ...his pricing was actually less than Taters. I ordered all my pantry cabinetry (its a 12 foot by 7 foot pantry), mudroom (14 linear feet) and 15 foot window seat from him. Its scheduled to be installed 2 weeks from now ...so I can't comment on the quality of the cabinets yet but I can say it has been a pleasure to work with him. I also ended up ordering Conestoga cabinets for our 6 bathrooms from Brian at the CabinetJoint. Most of all because I was concerned about Florida humidity in a bathroom and wanted to ensure I was getting 'baked on' stains - so I never really planned to go w/ a custom cabinet maker for these. I had also spoken Rick at the CabinetAuthority BUT he really just wanted to give me a price and take my order ..where as Brian at the CabinetJoint was extremely patient and really really helped me 'design' out what the cabinets should look like. Note, both the CabinetAuthority and CabinetJoint are Conestoga resellers ...so they are 'selling' the same product. So if you want to go this route, I recommend CabinetJoint over CabinetAuthority - they'll meet each others' pricing so it really comes down to service and in my case CabinetJoint really shined in this department. I'm expecting my cabinets from Conestoga to arrive the first week in May ... so can't comment on quality of these yet either. I also need to find someone to install them (the downside of ordering online) ... so we'll see how that goes. If you'd like to speak on the phone, please send me an email and I'll be happy to chat. Also I can share photos and experience by mid-may ..at that time all my custom cabinets from Millers and my Conestoga cabinets from CabinetJoint should be in. My house is in Laurel Oaks in Sarasota ... so once they are in, if you want to stop by and see them, you are welcome to do so! Deirdre

Hi everyone - I am also using Section cabinets to create a console for my home office, and then I'm using "Semihandmade" to create the custom drawer / door fronts. I am having huge concerns however with the filing cabinet solution. The Section cabinet frame I am using for the filing cabinet is 18W X 15D X15H. I also bought the Medium Maximera drawer. My issue is that the back of the Maximera drawer is only 5 1/2 inches tall and i need it to be at least 10 inches tall so I can screw a hardware filing cabinet mount into the front and the back. I'm not a fan of placing in plastic or cardboard items that fit inside and hold the files, I know it works well, but I'd really rather this be more professional and have the metal glides. This would be easy to install if only the back was at least 10 inches. Does anyone have any ideas on how to increase or extend the height of the back of the Maximera drawer? They don't make the Deep / High Maximera drawers for the 15D and 15H - so the Medium drawer is my only solution. I also have to use the Maximera drawer as "Semihandmade" is using these drawers as the template to create my custom drawer / door fronts. Thus, it seems my only option here is to figure out how to increase / extend the height of the back of the Medium Maximera drawer. Any suggestions would be beyond appreciated, thank you!

Felt I should chime in here since there seems to be quite a bit of interest in Amish cabinets recently on the forum and I live close to Mullet and many other cabinet makers near what everyone here in Ohio calls "Amish Country." I recently had cabinets made for my entire home renovation/addition. I had the benefit of local knowledge of these places but I still interviewed many of them to make sure I found the best fit. It will be impossible to convey a real overview but I'll mention a couple things that I think will help the most as you're considering your options. There are countless cabinet makers here - many of them will make an outstanding product for a very good price - specifically because they keep their overhead so low with respect to advertising, showrooms, etc.. They excel at fairly straightforward cabinets without a lot of frilly details. Not saying they aren't capable of doing the work from a strictly craftsmanship perspective, they just aren't set up on the front end to intake that high a level of detail - part of that low overhead. These are the places you would mostly hear about only through word of mouth. Excellent value. Then there are a couple places like Mullet - they build a great product but the cost will likely not be significantly less than other more conventional options because they're more or less a conventional cabinet company. Mullet is definitely the most commercialized in this category - they are trying to compete regionally if not nationally. This category of places will/can do anything you can dream up. They have made the investment on the front end with sales people, design and drafting, etc to make it happen. The benefit to using them is you can get a more custom better quality product for the same money you would have paid elsewhere. I had Mullet and several other places from both categories quote my kitchen. My two cents - if you are looking for a place in the second category - great quality with fairly custom details I would HIGHLY recommend Schrocks of Walnut Creek over Mullet. If you're interested in knowing more about specifics of why let me know. Sorry for the long post - tried to keep it as short as possible :)