When I was pricing out my old kitchen design, the Decora was more expensive than the Kemper. I know Decora does come standard with plywood sides and full extension soft close drawers while these are upgrades in Kemper. I'm wondering if they priced those upgrades into your Kemper quote. Your choice of door style and color can have a significant impact on the final cost. In some cases, a special glaze or paint finish can be a 20% upcharge. In Decora, the Antique Bronze (cream w/brown glaze) finish was a 7% upcharge while the Eggshell & White paint finishes were a 15% upcharge. In Kemper, the Amaretto Creme or Toasted Almond are a 12% upcharge. You might want to take a look at buycabinets.com. They have a spec. book that shows the retail list prices for the Kemper cabinets. They call them Somersby. I'm not sure what buycabinets discount from retail is but Costco had a 67% discount off retail on Kemper cabinets for comparison. The Warwick door style is the same as the Tyson one in Somersby and is the second most expensive door style even more than most of the door styles in Cherry. If you love this door style, you're in luck since you can really shop around as Kemper, Schrock, Thomasville (Home Depot), Diamond (Lowes), and Somersby are all pretty much the same cabinets. Here is a link that might be useful: Price list (warning-takes a long time to load)

It's one of the lowest priced real cherry doors that are decent quality with a good selection of heart and sapwood and a great finish. Most other ''cherry'' doors in that price range aren't really cherry. In the import world, they are usually beech or birch with a cherry stain. Not at all the same quality level, and frankly they are intentionally misleading in the descriptions. One of the last projects I did before I retired was a whole house in Cerise. Kitchen, dining buffet, pantry cabinets, entertainment cabinet, entry bench and storage, 5 bathrooms, all of it. Was right around 50K for all of that, which was an astoundingly cheap price for a whole giant truckload's worth of cabinets at that quality level.

I agree with smalloldhouse on the RTA cabs. Barker might be a good quality at a cheaper price, but not a great solution if you don't have the time to assemble. My husband would have killed me if I ordered RTA cabs :) I have said this before in another post because I just researched cabs myself. It seems like there isn't a cab out there that people are not complaining about. Pick 2-3 cab makers you like, compare the specs & go for it. I read another thread where someone basically said mid grade cabs are generally the same (except for what Adorion said - make sure you are comparing apples to apples) and to buy from someone you like & will help you through the process. Not sure if that is helpful. Reading reviews for months will make you nuts and will paralyze you into no decision at all. Who knows what some of these people are doing to their cabs that are writing reviews?? I have had builder grade cabs for 20 years!! And there isn't one thing wrong with them, except that I hate them :) I know a few people who have medallion & are happy with them (except the silver line for reasons stated above), my dad got Starmark without a minute of research & they are really nice.

That kitchen is on the large side, and that is also a large island. Island cabinetry is more expensive than average because it must be finished on all sides. $26K doesn't sound out of line to me for Kemper and in fact is probably a pretty good value. However, have you read some recent reviews about Kemper? It has historically been a wonderful brand as a subsidiary of Omega, but if you'll look into more recent reviews you will see that they were having some finish problems pop up around 2 years ago, as did Omega. There have also been some complaints of poor warranty terms fulfillment. I'd spread my net a little wider and get some more quotes. Where are you located? We might be able to give you some advice based on your area. Check here and here and here for starters to see some recent reviews on Kemper/Omega, and remember that this is the same company with cabinets that come off the same manufacturing line.