If you make a list on paper of the pros and cons for each arrangement, the best choice should become much clearer for you.

Tricky situation. I keep going back to Ikea because I love the WYSIWYG of it. You see cabinet. You buy cabinet. No surprises. No mysteries. Try that at any other cabinet supplier. But....I didn't like the door styles and I benefit hugely from custom sizes, so I'm going custom.

Is it possible to get the Amish guys to do a bath or something before committing to a kitchen?

For long distance Ikea ordering, go to the ikeafans.com website. They have a whole section dedicated to ordering, and many brave souls do it long distance. You might be able to order most of what you need by phone, have it shipped, and then take care of missing parts when your store goes in (or take a field trip to a different state, though doing road trips in the winter is a bit iffy).

Anyway, which door style at Ikea did you want? Unless it's a funky modern one, there's no reason a real cabinet maker couldn't emulate it. The interior fittings will probably be more traditional than Ikea, but will probably be fine. But style is important here! They must at least get the look of the cabinet you want. I shouldn't say this on the kitchen forum, but you can learn to live with bad drawer glides, but an ugly kitchen will never rest well.

Just because they use solid maple doors and all plywood does not guarantee that the quality is better than IKEA. I'm assuming you've searched the Ikea threads on this site to see the rave reviews. Honestly, I've yet to find one negative comment posted.

Have you seen any samples from the Amish cabinetmakers? Can they give you any references of kitchens that they've done that you can go see? What kind of warrantly do they have? Who is going to "own" that part of the project, the GC or you? Personally, I wouldn't want to work with anyone that is just "going to do their own thing" anyway. It would make me very nervous.

I too keep contemplating Ikea. While I don't even have a layout yet, I think the quality is very good and you get ALOT for the money. Maybe I'm getting cheap in my "old age", but the thought of spending so much money on cabinets when I can get good quality so much cheaper is very enticing.

To me, it sounds like you really prefer Ikea. If you don't need a lot of customization(which can be done to some extend with Ikea anyway) and you've found a door style you like, I would go that route. You can always buy "custom doors for the Ikea cabs from Scherr's. There have been a few people on this forum that have done that. Also, since they came in higher priced than Ikea, at this point you might as well consider other cabinetry lines. Why is it only between these 2?

Any chance you are referring to Friese Cabinets in Ohio? I had my cabinets for the house we are building, quoted from them. We visited their shop in - I think it's Fredricksburg, or maybe Walnut Creek. Anyways - if you haven't been there in person, it's worth a trip. Their quality is unbelievable. Just beautiful, solid craftsmanship. It's a real art with them. When I was there they had a large variety of sample doors and finishes available, plus he showed me some of the more unusual customs design doors they have done for people. Very creative.

I LOVED their cabinets - but we live in SC, so transport would have been an issue and they are very hard to get hold of. No phone, no computer. I could not talk dh into using that shop - he thought it would just be more hassle then what it was worth for us. We wound up going with a local custom shop. My cabs are nice - but I don't think the quality compares. :(

All that blathering on to say - go with what you love. If you like Ikea and they are cheaper -then do it! No matter what anyone else comes up with, it probably still won't be the same in your mind...and then you'll regret not doing Ikea.

It's HARD...picking cabinets just about drove me completely over the edge!

I'm with you - I love Ikea kitchens. The quality is excellent for the price and it is sooo easy for DIY'ers. We are in the middle of completely redoing our kitchen with Ikea cabs and my DH who was quite reluctant to use Ikea at first can't imagine going any other route now. Visit the ikeafans site and you'll quickly learn that you can have a custom kitchen with all the modification possibilities. For example I turned an ugly hall closet off the kitchen into a full 80"x30" pullout pantry and broom closet using two 15" wide cabinets and just fashioning our own slab doors from MDF (Ikea doesn't make 80" high doors). Popped in the Ikea pullout drawers and tnere you have it. It's really quite easy. We are luckiy in that we are within 30 minutes of two Ikeas however i know lots have ordered long distance and generally have few problems. As long as you don't mind the delay if you have to exchange something etc it shouldn't be a problem.

Can you go with IKEA cabinets but the Amish doors and maybe the hutch? In other words, can you mix and match somehow so you can get the best of both worlds?

I also keep going back to IKEA because of the Blumotion hardware and interiors. But I am also toying with the idea of using Scherr's for the doors and drawer fronts.

In my mind there's no comparison between solid wood/plywood and the fish-oil-and-sawdust concoction used by the majority, including Ikea. You're talking real cabinets v. disposables.

If you have a chance to get the real thing at a reasonable price, and you're just not sure what the final product will look like, how about asking them to build you a small sample cabinet--one door and one drawer?

You could open and close that drawer 100 times and see how you like the glides, among other things. Blum is a good brand, but it's not the only good one. I'm thinking that if they use real wood and real plywood, they're probably not going to ruin their work with lousy hardware.

LauraG

Nothing wrong with good quality PB.
Cork2win, here is a link you mind find helpful.

http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/green-living-building/692-plywood-vs-particleboard.html

Here is a link that might be useful: ikea cabs

Thanks for the opinions everyone. There are times when I just need someone else to make a decision for me, and this time it was DH. He didn't want to be responsible for yet another project on this house (putting all the cabinets together) when we have so many other things we're doing ourselves, and I know I couldn't put the cabinets together myself, so the decision was made for me. We'll be doing the custom Amish cabinets.

I spent most of the weekend drafting a letter to them with all my concerns and notes and measurements and pictures and templates. I'm sure they're going to just love getting that package.

I just have to sit back now and trust that they do a good job, and tell myself to be happy with whatever it is I get and stop comparing it to the look of IKEA, because there is no comparison between framed and frameless cabinets (at least in my mind). I may get some IKEA cabs down the road for our laundry room, just to show DH how nice they really are (he's never seen them) and to satisfy my IKEA buying urge, but that can wait a while.

To answer some questions, it was between only those two decisions because I've priced other brand semi-custom cabinets and the prices always exceeded those of the Amish guys. The only cabinets that were cheaper were IKEA and junk, so there were really only two choices. And no, it wasn't Friese cabinets, although maybe I should check with them too. ;-) I'm sure if the IKEA was closer or the one near us was open already this decision would be harder, but since I've never assembled an IKEA cabinet and DH has never seen one, the solution to go Amish seems best, for now. Thanks again everyone!