We installed (ourselves) shaker inset white Conestoga RTA cabinets from & worked with Cabinet Joint to order. Would I do it again?... not sure. It was a lot of work & since RTA and factory painted, you have to plan everything super careful to account for seams, joins, etc. No t sure I would do insets again as those shows any misalignment unlike overlaps which can hide door alignment issues. The cabinets are very high quality wood and construction for the price BUT factory (white) is beginning to show yellowing around stove and garbage bin door where you touch it, etc - in other words, hard to keep factory finish looking great for long if you use your kitchen like we do. So we saved a ton of money over semi custom or custom but it was a lot of work to build, install, rewire, etc. Took me months of working by myself to do it and probably could have done a bit better job. There are some limits as to what you can do RTA but I found out after the fact, I probably could have done a bit more custom orders on a few cabs with Conestoga but I went with a more standard size which left a couple cabinets not exactly custom looking but fine (like a gap between frig and upper cab is not a exact fit but show a gap of 2-3 inches (I would have preferred it to be a built in, custom made look but nobody really notices its a nitpick. I am think they will need to be repainted after 10-12 years (white shows alot). Out painter does repaints of old cabinets and uses a specific euro product to do so . Never realized how many necessary steps there are to do a cabinet repaint correctly but here is a video (he has q couple which discuss the product and steps). https://www.facebook.com/toddthepaintr/videos/195740918684028

Holly sent me a link to this thread to see if I could help you with some specifics. I'll just tell you about some of the jobs that I've done to see if that helps you with any specifics budgeting information, and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. Let's see. I'm doing a job right now in East Memphis with 35K worth of Dynasty cabinets in a painted maple finish. 8' ceilings with 36" tall cabinets and 6" worth of crown molding, a custom china hutch and wood hood. And a few other details like mostly drawers and an oven cabinet. 8K worth of Cambria for the counters and 10K worth of flooring, and 3K for the backsplash. I think her appliance budget was 10K, but she says she doesn't really like to cook all that much. The overall budget for the job is around 75K, and most would consider the home fairly high end for an older home in the area. I did a home in Collierville in Kemper Cherry cabinets for 48K, but that included a dining room hutch, breakfast room pantries, an entertainment wall, and a powder room vanity. 42" high cabinets with molding in 10' ceilings. The island used some funky shaped specialty cabinets, and she did an exotic granite that was 12K. Not a lot of specialty items in it, just a lot of cabinets. I would call the home a high mid grade family home. I'm working on a new build in the Forest Hill Irene area that will have around 70K worth of stained gray Dynasty and Omega cabinets in the two kitchens. (They fell in love with the Porch Swing desk area that I have in the showroom, shown below.) They have a very simple modern aesthetic and VERY tall ceilings with 27"s stacked on top of 42"s. The Silestone counters will probably end up being around 20K, simply because they have to purchase whole slabs and they want different colors in each kitchen and bath area. I think it's around a 8M build price for the home, so definately upper end for this area. Or just about any area! Dynasty Porch Swing on Cherry So, I think your 100K budget would probably be overkill for this area, unless you are wanting something with a lot of details like corbels and onlays and lots of glass and stacked cabinets. That can add up quickly! Even so, upper end in this area isn't quite so costly as East or West Coast areas. I work with a couple of full service licensed general contractors if you'd like some names, or just a good old boy installer if you'd prefer to be your own GC on the job. If there's any way I can help you to sort your thought processes out, let me know. You can reach me through email on this forum if you like. Or, I'll answer your questions here as best I can if you prefer that. This post was edited by live_wire_oak on Tue, Jul 30, 13 at 17:27

The size of uppers that you can use depends on how much crown molding that you want, as well as you understanding that tall doors have the tendency to warp over time. Which is why tall ceilings tend to have stacked cabinets over having taller single doors. You can do: 42" tall cabinets, with standard or stacked crown, leaving space on top. Standard 42" cabinets with 12" of molding, which can be top heavy. The corner cabinet shown below is 42", with about 6" of molding, and the lower wall cabinets are 36" with the same 6" of molding. [[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/kemper-echo-wine-bar-traditional-wine-cellar-phvw-vp~8377733) [Traditional Wine Cellar[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-wine-cellar-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_755~s_2107) by Other Metro Kitchen & Bath Designers ProSource Memphis 54" tall single door uppers, with no molding, which can really highlight the unlevelness of the ceiling. 51" H cabinets with 3" of crown, which has the same out of level ceiling issue. 48" single door cabinets with 6" of stacked crown molding that disguises the out of level of the ceiling. Same with 45" H cabinets and 9" of a stacked crown molding. Lots of molding can be just as expensive as the taller cabinets. And tall single door cabinets can warp much more than their shorter cousins over time. The corner cabinets shown below are the 48"H with the stacked molding to the "ceiling". [[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/dynasty-omega-showroom-vignette-transitional-kitchen-phvw-vp~8549929) [Transitional Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/transitional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2112) by Other Metro Kitchen & Bath Designers ProSource Memphis 30" cabinets with 18" cabinets stacked on top, and 6" of crown molding, which can be a more expensive approach because of the stacking. (Same with 33" cabinets with 15" stacked on top, which would be more proportionate to the 2/3-1/3 pleasing proportions.) The pantries below show the 84" H cabinets (same top alignment height as 30"H cabinets) with separate 18" H cabinets stacked on top. The seam between the two on the side is concealed with scribe molding. [[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/mudroom-organization-by-kemper-echo-transitional-laundry-room-phvw-vp~11312364) [Transitional Laundry Room[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/transitional-laundry-room-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_753~s_2112) by Other Metro Kitchen & Bath Designers ProSource Memphis "Prestacked" cabinets. that are 45" H (which in my medium priced line that I use, simulate 30" with 18" on top) This is my Kemper display with the "prestacked" uppers. Note that the oven cabinet had to have a refrigerator cabinet stacked on top in order to line up. [[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/kemper-showroom-vignette-contemporary-kitchen-phvw-vp~8376626) [Contemporary Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2103) by Other Metro Kitchen & Bath Designers ProSource Memphis

Ashley, I don't know, we can only speak from our experience and the way the companies current quality and service. We got Painted 410F Full Plywood. As for full plywood construction, this was also a lie. The backs are made from fiberboard, and not even MDF, some kind of strand board. The shelfs are also made from a low-quality strand board and many of ours have defects. We also went through the supplier / showroom as that is the only way to purchase waypoint products with a warranty (Which is worthless in our case). We are going on 16 months without a kitchen now as the cabinets are still not fully installed / missing parts. Some of the drawers had only 1 soft close shock on one side, some other had none for 2 drawers and 1 drawer that has them. Total lack of quality control. That is what we get for buying an American made brand. As many doors show seams or poor paint coverage as doors that are correctly made. Installers cracked 3 or 4 of the cabinets or maybe it was shipping and so far, we do not have replacements after over a year. We cannot complete our kitchen and may be forced to sell our house at a huge financial loss as I'm tired of playing camping with plastic tables setup in the living room for a microwave and air fryer oven we purchased months in as it appears we may never have our problem resolved by waypoint. These shady companies are the kind of installers / retailers Waypoint associates themselves with. We are currently shopping for lawyers that might be able to help, us, but it appears it would be as expensive to sue them as it would be to take the $28000 loss on the cabinets. At this point I would rather the lawyer get paid than the waypoint retailer though. I cannot even pay for / order any of the missing or damaged parts directly from waypoint as you must go through the installer who is not supporting us since he already has our money. So even after they refuse warranty, I cannot order replacement parts. This basically means that we need to tear out all the cabinets and start over with another brand. American Woodmark is the parent company, and I will never purchase American Woodmark, Shenandoah, PCS, Timberlake, Waypoint, Allen+Roth, or Hampton bay products again. Chinese Cabinets have better QC than Waypoint and are much much cheaper. I should have just bought Ikea cabinets and installed them myself. At least I would have a working kitchen by now. Stay away from Waypiont Cabinets and any retailer associated with this brand.