As long as you are willing to pay the 20% contractors fee on top of the cabinet quote, and are willing to accept full responsibility for the issues associated with your choice, then he should be willing to let you use whatever cabinet line you want. 20K on cabinets (24K with his markup) would be about an average expenditure for a middle of the road redo. Not an upper end line, or design.

Poor guy deserves more than 20% on this job! I'll bet the next time he had a cherry picker that he either declines it entirely or does time and materials on everything, including customer meetings.

Great advice Sophia, so very helpful!

I often do time and materials on my own projects. Just understand that it's the most expensive way to pay and you are responsible for any issues with the materials you purchase yourself. And the relationship with the kitchen designer. I am a designer and act as my own project manager through. It's possible the current contractor may not want to work on time and materials.

Maybe I dont understand the whole situation, but I dont understand why he wouldnt show you cabinet samples or direct you to a place that carries them. I dont know many people who would be willing to spend that kind of money without seeing a sample of the product beforehand. I might consider ending the relationship and consulting with the cabinet co. to install them. But I would also take another look around for other potential cabinets, since you might have picked the current ones out of duress.

Palimpsest - the designer recommended that the contractor work with him on getting the measurements exactly right and for installation tips. The cabinets we really like are inset and my understanding is not all contractors are familiar with the installation. If they work together my hope is they would get it right. The contractor could build the cost of working with the designer into his contract with me (the designer is at a lumber company that does not charge for the design).

Rockybird - thank you! I think this is my biggest question and I was trying to figure out if everyone does this and I just didn't know. I would never buy anything that costs $30K without having a chance to see it first - like buying a car online with no test drive. When I was at the lumber company I saw a door and thought it looked good BEFORE I saw that door in a display of cabinets. It was too much. Cabinet pricing is so opaque, the thing that I really liked about the kitchen designer was he could show me exactly what I'd be buying and tell me what to substitute to stay within budget. The contractor hasn't been able to do that in the two months I've been working with him.

It's worse! It's like ordering a 30k white SUV but you dont know what model you are getting.

I think a kitchen designer is good idea.

You need to do this right. it is a huge expense. you do not want any regrets when this is done.

I've seen this sort of thing where contractors give the client a price only if they use certain cabinets, but typically this has been for very low budget jobs. A client of mine's first kitchen was remodeled with new cabinets, and countertops/sink. But the contractor gave a price based on three cabinet doors and a certain grades of formica. Your job doesn't sound like this, I would expect more options.

I think that the contractor's expectation and the homeowners expectations are both not in alignment with what doing an upper end inset cabinet remodel job will cost. I think the contractor is used to doing the inexpensive Chinese menu type remodel where the customer chooses one from Column A and another from Column B and a third choice from Column C and that he has zero experience doing a higher quality job. And the customer is equating a 30K cabinetry expenditure as being an upper end remodel project. Both are incorrect expectations.

The contractors cabinet source obviously cannot produce a quality inset product or he would have been more than willing to show that product to you. 30K for a high end cabinet would mean a VERY small kitchen, or a lack of appropriate finishing details such as combined cabinets or scribed extended stiles and integral inset finished ends.

I think though, that $30K is a reasonable budget for cabinets isn't it? I've never done an inset job though, so I don't know for sure. One of my clients did inset cabinets ( I was not involved in this part of the project) and I think the tab was 50K for the cabinets in a medium sized kitchen and a large entertainment cabinet that matched, about 10 years ago, with Amish cabinet makers.

I would agree with this statement about the contractor and me. My kitchen is very small so it isn't going to require a ton of cabinetry. I didn't even know what inset cabinetry was until I kept compiling pictures of what I liked and what I didn't like and looking through the contractor's cabinet specification manual trying to find a match. I found the spec manual through a link he sent me, I don't think he intended for me to have it.

I kept looking at the wood types, construction, colors, door styles, partial overlays, standard reveals, full overlays, etc,. I sort of figured out the overlay thing about a month ago but I didn't realize until last week that that what I liked was the inset cabinetry when I hit upon a picture that described it as a type of cabinet. I then went back through my pile of good cabinet examples and realized they were all inset.

The cabinet line offered does not carry inset. If I had been working with someone that represented multiple single cabinet lines, I think I would have found what I liked much earlier. I am willing to push my budget farther to get the inset cabinets because they are exactly what I want and will fit well in a 1914 house. It also helps that the new cabinetry line is offering 20% off their inset cabinetry and no upcharge for increased depth. And the pricing is at least semi-transparent when working with the kitchen designer.

30k sure sounds like a very reasonable budget for cabinets, especially a small kitchen. I would consider that mid-high end. It's certainly not ikea or home depot.

I think I would have been looking for a new contractor when he wasn't able to provide samples or details of the cabinetry.