Have you studied all of the catalogs that are available on Northern Granite & Cabinetry's website? They have the catalogs, the Cabinet Joint has the how to videos.

Get a custom top reveal so you can attach crown. Use a baseboard (upside down) to overlap face frames and then crown over that. Leave plenty of space for crown. This will absorb uneven ceilings and ensure your crown doesn't seem to fade behind your cabinet doors. See pic.

Hmmm... There are a hundred other things I could suggest. Can you post your layout so I can give specific advice?

Oh... Don't rush. It took me 3 months to finalize details, and that was after I learned the catalogs inside and out.

Was the pricing from Cabinet Joint less than Northern Granite?

I didn't use Conestoga but we did use Barker and like emilyam819...TAKE YOUR TIME!!! Measure, then re-measure, then re-re-measure...then do that about 15 times!! Don't forget finished end panels, scribe molding, toe kick skins, crown, and remember to account for wastage in all of these, also fillers if needed. Decide on door orientation (left/right side hinge orientation) before sitting down to order.

I did not have my final order priced by both. I just started working with Northern Granite and stuck with them because they were so helpful. I'm sure both dealers are comparable.

Get extended stiles if you need fillers... order Rev a Shelf pullouts elsewhere if you can find them on a super sale... Get mostly 4-drawer base cabinets instead of 3- drawer. The bottom drawer on a 3-drawer is really deep, and I am glad I have one but only one... You can make a narrow island out of peninsula cabinets that open from both sides... The custom wood cutlery inserts are amazing and worth the price. I have 3!

Another suggestion for you to post your layout.

Note that you can customize the height of your 3 and 4 drawer base cabinets, as well as the width. Are you working with Brian? He is meticulous and you will be in good hands.

When you receive everything, keep everything, together. Set up a temporary 'shop table' - big sheet of plywood on milk cartons to save your back, with a clean shipping blanket on top.

OT - emilyam819 - The shot of your granite peeking out makes me want to see more! Have you posted a reveal?

I've been working with Jim for almost EIGHT months. That poor guy has been so patient. Most of my advice has already been given.. To reduce costs I did all of my cabinets that don't have finished ends in essence, finished ends or interior finished are all advantage.

Thanks, oldbat. Here are a few more. Sorry the lighting is not great for photos!

mccb1, where did you go?

emilyam819- it's lovely! You need to do a reveal with better pictures and all the details:) I especially like the corner cabinet with the glass front.

The catalogues are on TheCabinetJoint.com, too. Just dig a bit.
I also suggest Lee Valley drawer dividers instead of the millions Rev-a-Shelf costs. More customizable, too.
And the debate of how many drawers? I wouldn't waste my time on the 4-drawers ever again. Who needs 3 shallow, rather useless drawers? Oh - someone does or there wouldn't be one of the Great Debates here! LOL!

Advice for 'TheJoint.com? Take your time. I'm right there on that. Brian is great, and I wouldn't and don't go any other place. He has had more patience than any other dealer, let alone Conestoga, than anyone I've worked with in 10 years of piecing my kitchen and MBR together. He watches my sanity, along with my very sparse $$s.

The crown advice is right on.
I also found I didn't know to take into consideration the part of a cabinet face frame that extends (or doesn't) out on each side. The reveal? For example, the face frame might be 24" wide, but the actual cabinet walls are set in a tiny bit, anywhere from 1/16 to 1/4". What do you want?

Finished sides is important. Figure that out.
So is the hinge side. Keep in mind that a two door cabinet doesn't need to open right and left. Given one of my cabinets by the sink, both doors open with left hinges, so I don't have to work around a door. Oh - are you doing hinges? Drilled? I didn't, so that was a detail to consider.

My last piece of advice is to actually take your stuff out of the boxes and check measurements when it arrives. I screwed up on a set of doors. Normally I just leave things in the boxes for a few (years) months before I get into my projects. This time I caught it and was able to reorder the doors (anyone want any for W3612B cabs?) while my order was still in the system.

Really, I wouldn't go anywhere else. Communication is excellent, which is everything to me. Quality? Oh, yeah. That's important, too. :) I die for my beaded inset cabs.

Emily. Gorgeous kitchen.

Great advice here from everyone! Thank you! Sorry for my disappearance this weekend...my old house keeps me quite busy with repair projects on every day I have off. Needless to say, now I'm way behind on finalizing my cabinets...but that just gives me more time to solicit advice :)

I'm really intrigued by the 4-drawer vs. 3-drawer debate. I have 2 stacks of 30-in 4-drawers in my plan. If I remember correctly, the top 3 drawers should be 5 inches deep. That seemed like too little height until I actually started stacking up the items I wanted to put in these drawers...then I thought it seemed like plenty of room! But now I'm doubting myself based on CEFreeman's comment! I'd love to hear from more people about this.

I have all of The Cabinet Joint's PDFs downloaded. I'm hoping my husband can help me with the crown molding as I don't know what I'm doing with that. Great advice to use upside-down baseboard and then attach crown to that, emilyam819!

Another issue I'm still struggling with is how to get my counter-setting open shelving to work. As you can see in the layout pics, I'm building some sconces into the cabinets. I colored in each cabinet so you can see what I'm thinking.

Thanks for the compliments, everyone.

I didn't know there was a 3- vs. 4- drawer debate! I'm on the 4 drawer side! Although I do have one 3- drawer because the bottom large drawer in that cabinet was meant for small appliances like my mini food processor. It fits in the drawer upright. The middle drawer in a 3-drawer is the same size as the big drawer in a 4-drawer. I think it depends on what you have to store. Here is what I have in each of my shallow drawers, which are 24" bases unless noted:

• Silverware in a custom Conestoga organizer.
• Specialty utensils like bar ware in a custom organizer.
• holiday napkins, toothpicks, other entertaining items
• ziploc bags, plastic wrap, etc
• Cleaning items like sponges
• nice kitchen towels
• stove utensils in a custom organizer
• junk drawer
• 2 are pretty much empty, left for future expansion (soon to be filled with baby bibs, food, and dishes!)
• 33" wide island drawer has spice jars and potholders.

Medium drawers:

• Snacks
• pyrex & tupperware
• everyday kitchen towels

Now I remember your kitchen! Glad to see you are making progress. That baking cabinet in the corner- get an extended stile on the left, unless that gap will be more than 3 inches. Also, get a tall refrigerator cabinet, sized so that it will be the same height off the floor as the top of your upper cabinets (or the open shelves) will be. They look really nice. You can use the cabinet for random bulky items or trays/platters. Just make sure that you'll be able to stand the cabinet up after you build it; the diagonal measurement is longer than the height and might scrape the ceiling when tilted into place (or worse, not fit at all). If you leave adequate space for crown, it shouldn't be a problem. My fridge cabinet is 91.25" and I have 96" ceilings and it was fine.

@emilyam819, thank you for your drawer inventory and fridge cabinet advice! That space between my baking cabinet and the sink wall will be more like 5 inches. I was thinking of leaving it just as it is, for a more unfitted look, plus it gives me a spot to stash a little foldable stool. Bad idea?

Ormolu what are the height measurements of your 3 and 4 drawer configuration?

Perfect place for a stool!

I have several four-drawer stacks. I really like them. A quick measure (I didn't try to be super-exact) shows that the top drawers are 5", second are 5.5", third are 6" and bottom are 7". Funny, I always thought the top three were all the same height. All are 21" wide.

In one cabinet, I have (top to bottom)..and I don't remember everything and am too lazy to look.

1. baking gadgets: measuring cups, spoons, rubber scrapers, various teensy-to-small bowls (I like to pretend I'm on TV, lol), whisks, and other assorted things
2. more baking gadgets: rolling pin, pastry blender, box of parchment paper, digital scale, cookie press, rosette-maker-thingie, I don't recall all what else, too lazy to look
3. 4-cup measuring cup, two 2-cup measuring cups, cooling racks, padded thingie to heat tortillas in microwave,
4. About a dozen mixing bowls of various sizes (most stack together)

In another,

1. silverware and serving pieces
2. plates (dinner and salad)
3. bowls and the extra plates/bowls/plastic cups for the 5 year old
4. glasses

I won't bother with the other cabinets. this should give you an idea.

I have two 4-drawer stacks with all the drawers the same height. One I really like as it works for what I need to store in it:. I don't like the other near as much because in that location, I always wish the bottom drawer was taller for what I want to store there. The perils of piecing together a kitchen with used cabinets, lol.

The one I like is next to the range and has these items:

1. seasonings
2. various gadgets used while cooking (hot pads, tongs, spatulas, wooden spoons, slotted spoons, etc.)
3. foil, plastic wrap, plastic bags
4. pie pans, muffins pans (I don't bake either much so I don't keep these in my baking center, we're more cobbler and biscuits people here)

Hope this helps a bit.

I really like how your kitchen is coming together. Even your drawings are darling. :)

I agree that an above-fridge cabinet/enclosure would be nice but I like your unfitted plan for the baking cabinet. Oh, I can't wait until you get started to see progress photos (oh, please do!) and to see your final reveal. It's going to be awesome.

I think I should clarify my own bias against 4-drawer cabs.
Before I knew about RTA, Brian, and anything in general, I bought 9 Norcroft cabinets. DirectBuy, and all. Well, after many, many errors, I ended up with 27 cabinets. Cool, whatever. Anything "drawer" was difficult. The top drawers of every single piece were only 3". The 4-drawer cabs had 3, 3" drawers and one big, nice 10" drawer. Sure, the top openings were 5", but with the undermount drawer glides and space to actually open the drawer? shrink shrink shrink. The 3-drawers were fine, a stupid 3" top drawer and 2 10" drawers.

So.... In 4 of the 24" 4-drawers, I knocked out a divider and bought deeper drawers. I put the same drawer faces back on so it looked like they did originally, but eh, the top drawers remain worthless.

In the kitchen I am in progress of face framing 3 base cabinets to look like one piece. Beaded inset. Drawers" 36"w, 24"w, 36"w. Sadly, those stupid top drawers remain ... stupid.

(Hey! I just, in the middle of this message, sold an antique door for $100, and a colonial-ish end table I made in a class for $50 YEAH Craig's List. :)

3" drawers? Uhhhh, no. I can understand your dislike if that was your experience.

Yes. I think you can understand why I'm knocking out the dividers and making a single door.

Now.... The CabinetJoint cabinets are perfect. If I'd known then what I know now! Not only what to order, but that I lived and breathed for beaded inset. Norcroft makes nice cabinets, but the drawer bases are stupid. (I think I mentioned that.) In 2007 it was radical to want all drawer bases. Yes, I've always been at the head of the pack. LOL! Now, Brian's my man and I love anything I get from him.

@CEFreeman, if your 4-drawer stack was from Conestoga, you would have had 5-inch deep drawers for the top 3, and a deeper drawer for the bottom one (I'm not sure exactly how deep, maybe 8in?). Would that have worked for you? I can't imagine a 3-inch drawer anywhere but in a toekick!

Oh, sure that would be just fine, which is why I save and buy from Brian at TheCabinetJoint.com. I thought I made that clear.
It's the Norcroft drawers that are stupid. I know I mentioned that! LOL! I bought 3-drawer (which still ended up with 3" drawers) but through that mis-ordering I mentioned, I ended up with 3, 4-drawers.

I actually cut one of my 3-drawers up and stacked the bottom, 10" drawers on top of the 4-drawer ones. This is MBR cabinetry, not kitchen.

Hm. Now I'm wondering if I should change my baking stack of drawers to a four drawer! I just assumed with inset four drawers was a bad idea!! Aghhh! Poor Jim!

Amber, if you're using TheCabinetJoint.com, the top drawers are functional. Other manufacturers, i.e. Norcroft, make the drawers too shallow. I mean, try putting a potato masher in there. Yes, I have a potato masher!

Anyway, you've got several drawer stacks. Figure out where you'd use more little gagit-y things and where you need pots, pans, plastic wraps, etc. There are many threads about planning where you'd put your stuff before you buy your cabinets.

Figure out where you'd use more little gagit-y things and where you need pots, pans, plastic wraps, etc. There are many threads about planning where you'd put your stuff before you buy your cabinets.

^THIS!!!

Hey guys. I just had a thought. (Don't worry, it didn't hurt.) If you're using European hinges on your inset cabinets, email me before you buy. Send me a picture of the hinges you're going to use.

I bought a ton of these, then had the AHA! moment when I realized I love exposed hinges. If I have the ones you're going to use, please let's talk a deal. I can't return them, but I'm sure not using them.

This came to me as I'm installing cabinet doors. This very moment!

@CEFreeman, I want to do exposed hinges too...where did you get yours?

I bought These.

The thing is, the ORB are out of stock. I've used some in antique brass to go with my faucet.

Really shop around because the prices change and they're all over the place. I don't like the Hafle style of the same hinge, but you can get them for less.

At one point I bought packages of 10 for $20 also on eBay. ShopLadder was the seller. Expensive shipping, but still came out for lesss.

Putting them on your cabinets: Put them on the door FIRST, then the face frame, face down on the ground. Space 'em right (use a zip tie, for example) and screw 'em in.

My Conestoga cabinets were just installed about 2 months ago (no big revel thread yet) and I have 3 stacks of 30" 3 drawers and 1 18' 4 drawer stack. In hindsight I wish I had made one of the 30" stacks a 4 drawer but it's still fine. Overall I was really pleased with the cabinets and they certainly look beautiful. I'll come back and post some pictures if you want

The cabinets didn't come with hinges? I was thinking of inset on a few of the uppers

My only worry is losing storage capacity with the Conestoga framed vs Scherr frameless.

My best tip to save money was to order the moldings from a custom millwork shop at 25% of the lineal ft. cost from Conestoga. Since I did my own finishing, this made the colors seamless. Moldings must be their big profit center, since the cabinets are so reasonable.

Casey

Good thought, Casey. I'm at the molding stage on another project and hadn't thought it through. You're right on time.

My problem is I haven't started hoarding kitchen stuff yet. We spent our early twenties doing double house payments so we would have a lot of equity when we sold. Which meant no fun kitchen toys. I can get online and make a huge list of all the things I NEED though....... If y'all condone that kind of behavior...

I'm doing what Casey said and finishing moldings myself. They sell their stain for like $30 a quart. I wanted to source my island legs myself plus I'm sure having the stain will come in hand for when... Uh.. If... My boys put a huge gouge in my beautiful island.

Make sure to check the videos on cabinetjoint.com . They have a lot of useful ones. They recently added 4 new videos regarding the ways to get a quote from them.

tigger9759, please post some pictures.

@Sombreuil, what a great tip! Do you have any other tips on crown molding? I identified a crown I really like from Conestoga (and now I think I'll price it from a custom millwork shop), but I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to figuring out exactly how to measure so the crown will perfectly reach the ceiling.

@beachem, I think the cabinets DO come with hinges if you want the one and only type they use, which are hidden/European style. If you want exposed, you have to purchase your hinges elsewhere.

Has anyone made a moveable island/table from Conestoga components? I need one in front of a low window in our kitchen and I'm not sure where to begin.

Thx Mccb1.

For crown molding, it will not match if you just measure from the top of the cabinet to the ceiling because of the angle that you choose so you can pick whatever you want and fill it with smaller pieces. To give you an idea, here's what I planned on crown molding.

I left 6 inches between the ceiling and top of cabinet. The crown molding that I bought is cherry 6" molding. When it's angled, it probably would be anywhere between 3 1/2"-4". I plan to put a slim flat piece on top of the cabinet and on the ceiling to have an attachment for the molding. Depending on how the molding can be angled, I might make it thicker by adding additional molding via baseboard turned upside down.

Basically, it will be 3-4 pieces to make an ornate molding profile.

Yes, if you use the two pieces (crown and upside down baseboard), then your measurements do not have to be exact (which they never would be because of uneven ceilings).

Measure, measure and measure! We measured several times, just to be sure and we did find some minor errors, so it does pay to take the time and remeasure. Go over everything you will need, so you don't forget something and have to order it later. When the cabinets arrive, take them out and measure everything. We did find one tiny mistake, a drawer front that they had made 1/2" too wide. Since it was their mistake, not ours they replaced it immediately, no hassle. But everything else was perfect, sized correctly, packed well, not a scratch or blemish on anything. I would definitely use Cabinet Joint again.

"Has anyone made a moveable island/table from Conestoga components? I
need one in front of a low window in our kitchen and I'm not sure where
to begin."

Conetsoga sold a "work table" unit with any leg style that they carried, and drawers and a open bottom shelf. IIRC they came in three sizes. You would supply your own top.

Mine:

The key to making it all look good is a quality installation, not just ordering the correct sizes and extended stiles or rails. If you have never scribed to a wall, then skip all of that unless you have 6 months to practice it first. Buy scribe molding to hide those inevitable gaps that those whose first time scribing to the wall will end up having. Or go cheaper and just do fillers for the sides and a cleat for the crown. The hand has to match the glove or it falls apart. If it don't fit , not only must you acquit, but you also are wasting money on details that can't be fully realized. Know your abilities.

@emilyam819, did you give yourself about 6 inches from the ceiling like @beachem did?

@lam702 - did you demo your whole kitchen before you took these precise measurements? I only have one run where the cabs have to fit in between two walls. Everywhere else I have some wiggle room. But of course this run is my sink wall, the only one I'd like to keep intact as long as possible. I was thinking that I'd order the cabinets so they're about half an inch smaller than the run (based on my measurements with the current cabinets intact), just in case - and if there ends up being a half inch gap, I'd put it next to the blind corner where it won't be seen. (See pic)

@Sombreuil, this is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. I'm going to email Jim about it today. THANK YOU!

@Sophie, you're so right. I have a few handy men in my life who have installed cabinets before so I'm trusting them with this. I think it also helps that I don't have many (any?) walls that need to be scribed to (and only 1 upper). But there's no doubt that installation needs to be on point for a good-looking kitchen!

Leave yourself more than half an inch on the sink wall. Probably give yourself 3 inches. The cabinets need to be able to tip in order to get them level, and that takes more space than I anticipated ( but luckily everything still fit!) And get extended stiles on either end so you can cut down to the size you need.

I left 4.5 inches for crown. Of course, I knew the vertical height of the crown, how much the baseboard piece behind it would overlap the face frame, and I knew that I left enough room on the baseboard piece to allow for imperfections in the ceiling.