We love our Scherrs cabinets. They are the first group in the photo gallery on Scherr's site. Here's a picture: They were worth every penny, IMHO. Scherr's did some really complex stuff for us and it all came together well. They made clipped, fluted corners and 5/4 drawer fronts I wanted that they had never tried before. They made integrated raised end panels which was a first for them as well. As for service, I had a problem with a long drawer front that warped (it was solid wood) and they sent out a replacement very quickly (at no cost of course). The cabinets fit together tightly and are very sturdy. You need a good set of bar clamps to properly put them together. The raised panel door fronts are very solidly made and don't rattle at all because they use rubber spaceballs to hold the panels tightly in place. Leon and his brother are very quality conscious and really want to please the customer, in my experience. They started out as custom cabinetmakers. Like many small shops, they built the cases and bought the doors from large national companies like Conestoga. The reason they got into the door business in the first place was because they couldn't find good enough quality doors from the national companies for the custom cabinets they were building for customers. They then became a major source for high quality doors for other custom cabinetmakers and finally branched out into manufacturing the cases again. Kinda full circle. I asked Leon about plywood sides and he told me that it wasn't worth the extra money, even though he stood to benefit if we opted for it. The melamine boxes have been very durable. The melamine sink cabinet didn't suffer any damage whatsoever even though I had water under there for weeks from couple of slow leaks from a faulty filter that would have damaged your typical wood cabinet. I ran a bead of silicone caulk around the corners of the base to seal it when I assembled it and as a result the cabinet looks brand new despite the floods. Their cabinets are of better quality than almost anything I have seen elsewhere. I also have some IKEA cabinets in other rooms of our house. We installed IKEA at my son's house since it is his starter home and the IKEAs were the cheapest plus they fit the space well. I like IKEA and their quality is very good, but not as good as Scherr's. The box on the Scherr's cabinet is more sturdy and fits together more tightly. IKEA also has a limited number of styles and doesn't have all the sizes some cabinet companies have. For instance, I needed 36" tall cabinets and they didn't have them. I also needed other widths they didn't carry. With Scherr's I saved a few thousand bucks over the up-scale semi-custom I was considering at first. And of the 22 cabinets in our kitchen, only 6 are stock sizes. Everything was made to exactly fit and waste not a square inch. However, if you can limit yourself the the IKEA sizes, they are a wonderful cabinet also and I have no complaints with mine. Matching Scherr's doors to their boxes might be a good way to save some money and still get the look you want. Plus you could have Scherr's make any special cabinets you need.

When I read your question I thought..."Well maybe I can help with this one.." My GC just finished putting my soft close hinges on my Kraftmaid cabs yesterday. There were a couple leftovers, so I ran downstairs and am looking at the bag... I ordered these with my Kraftmaid cabinets from Home Depot The bag says... Blumotion For Doors blum Polybag kit fo compact hinges 971A9700.22 2.624.664.3 Asembled in the USA Components Made In Austria The back of the bag gives directions for Full overlay and Partial overlay application. I hope that helps you out!

Blumotion is the glide system that lets the drawers open and close. The difference is in the drawer box construction. Metabox: uses powder coated metal drawer boxes. This is the cheapest option for Blum. Most custom cabinet companies do not use this. This is similar to Ikea boxes. Tandem: companies typically use hardwood dovetailed boxes and uses the glides by Blum. This is the typical American cabinet system that you see with typical mid to high-end cabinets in America. You only see dovetailed wooden drawers when you open and close the drawers. Tandembox: DO NOT use hardwood dovetailed boxes. The sides of boxes are stainless steel modules from Blum and the cabinet maker only makes the bottom and back that fits the Blum SS hardware sides and bottom. This is similar to what Ikea drawers look like but the components are made of SS instead of powder coated steel. The components are much higher grade than the metaboxes. This is more common with European cabinets. In America, there is typically an upcharge from Tandem to Tandembox. (for some companies, the charge may be the same...) This is not common in America. Tandembox Intivo: the drawer boxes use SS and tempered glass. Tempered glass is expensive. (I have only seen a few houses with this system ever!) I have no idea what the up charge is. I think it is quite a bit higher. If you go to higher end cabinet showrooms that have European style cabinets, they should be able to show you the difference between Tandembox and Tandem. They all have similar opening and closing mechanism; Blumotion. The drawers give you completely different feel when you open and close since what you see is SS versus wood. The difference is really the esthetics, not drawer mechanism.

Ha, Growlery! I told you we have similar taste. Although I now worry slightly about having singlehandedly created a new kitchen porn genre (as it were...). Am always a little unnerved at what they choose to recommend as "related videos" when you post on a free site like TinyPic. I think you're solidly on top of your drawer issue. Caryscott et al make good points, but I myself don't have a single drawer without full extension where I don't wish I had it. Blums may all be tandem full-extension anyways, so the issue might be moot. ---- warning, with apologies to Growlery, extreme mid-thread digression from original topic -- Mindstorm -- nope, no door on the pantry shelves. We basically built a big narrow box out of cherry plywood to the right of the fridge box and then trimmed it out to match. I should think your cubby idea would be great, for wine or jars of truffle oil or pigeon pâté, etc. ;-) I'm very pleased with mine overall, it's not at all intrusive and fairly easy on the eye -- with the caveat that I'm not someone who wants everything tidied away and don't mind the odd bottle top leering at me. It has added a surprising amount of new storage to my small space. A few pictures, if these help -- ignore the ignominious ramen noodles *hangs head* and focus on the wholesome home-canned tomatoes and apple sauce! Here's how the stack fits in on the wall. My fridge is also narrow and tall, so it's a good preview for you perhaps: The drawer housing, from inside: We still have two drawers to install at the top of the stack (for 8 total), but I lost steam (drawer-slide levelling is a nightmare for the impatient) and actually rather like having the extra space on top. You can also see how we raised the bottom of the drawer box and trimmed it out to the height of the toe-kick elsewhere, for a little congruity. Here's a drawer prior to installation (I'm fairly proud of having designed and made these - cherry front with painted ply innards): Finally got my bin for potatoes and onions, yay: