That is a lot of money to be saved for most people. I would encourage you to consider buying a high-end kitchen used.

It is definitely a large sum of money to be saved... my fear though is that we'll save now and regret later when over the course of these cabinets life, the cost difference isn't that substantial. If there are any suggestions of brands that have similar quality but might come in a bit less than the Rutt Regency line or Signature Select we're definitely open.

Check out Ikea. Top quality cabinets used by designers and architects in high-end projects.

Have you checked out the reviews of the companies/cabinets, they have different lines, you need to know what the differences are....

http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2540298/rutt-vs-signature-custom-cabinetry

What are your worries? That the finish won't look good?

Have you seen examples of all the lines you're asking about?

You're doing a whole-house remodel...is the $10K or so what you will save for just the Kitchen or the entire house (bathrooms and other rooms with cabinets)?

If at all possible (and it might not be), try to see examples of Kitchens installed a few years ago with the cabinets you're interested in.

Are you interested in natural or stained wood, or painted? That may make a difference as well.

I'm on my third kitchen (two new homes and now a renovation/addition) and have used the same local cabinet maker for all three kitchens. The house I built 10 years ago with his painted cabinets looked, and operated, perfectly when I sold that house this summer. So, I shopped locally with him again.

It all depends on what's available in your area and the reviews of those locals versus the brand name cabinets. A local cabinetmaker should supply references and also have a portfolio to show you of past and present installations.

We have definitely done the research but theres a difference between specs and the actual look and feel of something... The biggest fear is fit and finish quality along with that same fit and finish holding up over years. That 10k was just in the kitchen, I'd guess we'll be closer to 15k if we were to do all cabinets in the highest end option.

We we just happened to walk into a cabinet place today that was very high on Fieldstone and Brubaker cabinets. He compared the signature to Fieldstone and Rutt to Brubaker. In looking at both I'd agree. I've seen some info and mostly positive on Fieldstone and very little on Brubaker though it looked absolutely gorgeous. We didn't get an estimate yet as his designer was out at a job so it will be interesting to see what the pricing for these two brands comes in at.

We also have one other meeting with a designer that sells Omega cabinets. They looked nice in store and the overall reviews I've been seeing is positive so we'll see where thst goes.

I bought Omega cabinets used. I was told that they were about 10-15 years old. They are quite wonderful and in excellent condition and I am pleased with them. They have blum hinges. They do seem to have wasted space, so I would be sure to pull out drawers and open doors and understand how much space will be available for actual use regardless of the productline you choose.

Hi lisevution! I guess the answer to your question depends upon various circumstances and also on taste, which is highly individual. Kindly allow me to ask a few questions that might help clarify things for you:

1. Is $10,000-$12,000 an amount you can afford to spend on higher priced cabinets? Are you financing the remodel, meaning you need to factor in what you'll be paying in interest? Or are you paying cash? If cash, are you doing projects as money becomes available, or do you have it in the bank? If cash, would the extra 10-12 grand completely drain you of your savings? Would you be taking money out of a retirement plan? You certainly don't need to answer these questions here!! They're more for helping you think about the cost relative to your future.

2. What are the warranties on each of the products you're considering? Do they cover defects in installation (workmanship), finish, hardware, condition they arrive in?

3. How will the cabinets be treated? Is it just you and your wife? Do you have kids that will treat them roughly, i.e. slam doors, pull out drawers too far, kick or punch them? Dogs or cats that could scratch them?

4. Are your expectations realistic? No finish will last forever. No hinges or doors will outlast an angry teenager. No kitchen can update itself if your taste changes down the road.

5. What is the aesthetic factor? Are the looks of the expensive ones so much better that you just have have have to have them? Or is the appearance of the less expensive ones just as good, or almost just as good, as the others?

Let me just add this: My parents bought a brand new double wide mobile home in 1973. The kitchen and bathroom cabinets and cupboards and drawers were made of that cheap particle board mobiles used to have. I was 13 and the eldest of four children when they bought it. However, my parents taught us manners and taught us to take good care of our things. Slamming a cupboard door or kicking a bottom cabinet would not have been tolerated. When they sold the home in 2007, it still had all the original cabinets, cupboards, drawers, including hinges and pulls, and they were in perfect, like new, condition.

So my feeling is that if you and your wife take care of them properly, any of the cabinets you are considering will last a lifetime. With real wood, you will need to paint and topcoat them every long once in a while. The extra $10,000-$12,00 won't change that very much. Therefore, I wouldn't recommend spending that extra money unless there are other significant factors in your decision besides longevity of the finish and hinges.

Hope this helps! :-)

We purchased Kraftmaid cabinets from Lowe's 13 yrs ago for our kitchen remodel. Our cost for oak cabinets was $5500.00 at that time. Today, they still look great and function wonderfully . Kraftmaid was wonderful to work with. When I was concerned that the grain was to large, they came to the house immediately and switched the door panels that I didn't like. You can get a high end look, a well made American cabinet for a reasonable amount of $ from Kraftmaid. IKEA is imported. Check them out before you decide. Good luck!

IKEA is imported.

Only partly. Doors are imported, cabinet boxes for the US are made in VA by Sauder.

We have Signature cabinets in our kitchen, and they have held up beautifully for the 5 years they have been installed. They were actually the "mid-range" option offered by our KD in our pricey area. While we were not doing a whole house reno, we were doing several bathrooms at the same time on a newly-purchased house, so cash outlay was a consideration. We opted for higher quality on cabinets, tile and other items that we have no intention of ever replacing. We opted to save by not installing frills or going super high end on all appliances. We also went with lower cost cabinets/vanities in the bathrooms. Nicer cabinets have a better look and feel than cheaper ones, but it is an individual matter how important this is to you. We feel we made the right decision for us.

When we had our flood and the cabinets were ripped out, they were builders grade particle board boxes. Mind you this is what they put in a million plus home at that time and still do today.

The doors are still in pristine condition despite 18 yrs of use. I would say that the doors were probably mid grade and because they had the conversion varnish on the stain, they lasted a long time.

Where I had issues were the drawer slides and attachment to the drawer fronts. Those were fixed later by upgrading to Blum. IKEA drawers would have been a much better quality.

Through a lot of research and looking around, I focused on functionality for my cabinets and spent the money on doors.

Thats what you and people will see, the doors and design. The functionality and ease of use is what keeps you from hating your kitchen.

Our previous kitchen looked perfectly fine but we hated to use it because of flow, bad design and aisle blockage.

We remodeled a 24-yr-old kitchen. It had cheap, builder grade cabinets and ugly laminate countertops. We did not remodel because anything was worn or deteriorating, but because the layout and storage was horrible. The cabinets and counter were in perfect condition, in spite of two kids born and raised in the house.

To me, durability is only part of the question. If you can get an ideal layout, with all the features you want and need, in a less expensive brand that still looks decent, go for it. If the cheaper option limits your layout, spend more.

I made a pretty long post about cabinet levels some time ago, might be worth finding.

One question I'd have is frameless, inset, or framed overlay?

The difference you are looking at : local maker will be making pocket hole frames, or screwed together frameless. Most likely using pre-catalyzed finish. Wood will be bought just for the job and allowed to acclimatize for a few days to a week if he is good. Je may or may not be making the doors, drawerhead and the drawer boxes.

If they are a good one you will get excellent personal service.

Specs like soft close, full extension, blum, plywood could very well appear the same. Those tell the average consumer very little to nothing useful.

Better manufactured cabinets: some of the brands you are considering will have mortise and tenon or doweled frames. Frameless boxes will be doweled and assembled in a press to keep them spot on. Finish will be fully catalyzed, in ideal cases color is completely controlled. In a percentage world that should mean a better finish but even some better companies can have a rough season (at least one of those brands had a bad spell a little while back)

Wood moisture should be completely controlled and grading should be better. (now that varies a lot even at the price point - a relatively busy modest sized brand will have the best combination of that. Big enough for stock material, small enough to fuss with secondary grading at the plant).

Function? In the right hands an equally functional kitchen can (AND SHOULD) be created across price points. There would be a difference in how details,as there should be. BUT more money doesn't always guarantee that. (I've turned down some high end brands)

So in part its like picking a car brand AND a trim level - what suits you and your pocket.

As to the details- how they are handled by the designer makes a difference. in some ways a really really good local guy has an edge, in others not as much. OTOH a really really glad KD, coupled with a great factory tech department might win.

In the end evaluate who you are dealing with. Unlike buying a car there's more to what they do than presenting 3 trim levels and negotiating a price.

I understand where you're coming from:

I'm remembering that when my husband and I were married, we each brought a nasty old sofa into our new home ... and on our first anniversary we bought ourselves a nice sofa-and-love-seat set. It was lovely, and we were so happy with what was one of our first big purchases as a couple ... but it was low quality, and within months we were sorry we'd chosen that set. Right away it became clear that the fabric showed dirt (and couldn't be cleaned effectively); as time went on, buttons popped off, and the frame sagged. We lived with it for about a decade, which was made worse by the fact that we had two small children in those years.

Finally it was worn past our tolerance level, and -- although money was still a factor -- we agree not to skimp. We replaced that old set with a high-end leather sofa ... and today -- 16 years later -- you wouldn't confuse it with a brand new set from the store, but it is still in great condition: No sagging, no stains, no holes. You have to LOOK to find small bits of damage. I expect we'll use this set another 10 years or more.

You want to buy the "high end leather sofa" of cabinets. I do too, though I'm not sure what brand to tell you to choose.

I would encourage you to consider buying a high-end kitchen used.

How possible is this? I mean, who gets rid of high-end kitchens that're still in good condition? And what are the chances that you'd find the very layout and dimensions you'd need? I once saw a beautiful island at Habitat for Humanity's resale store -- not the whole kitchen, just the island, and I only sw it once -- but other than that, I've never known of a kitchen being sold. Am I missing something big?

You can buy used kitchen on eBay! I also remember hearing somewhere that showrooms sell their displays when they bring in new displays. You probably would call kitchen shops, etc.

I have seen a few posts on here with people buying (or being given) used kitchen cabinets. I think you have to be extremely diligent and/or extremely lucky in searching for them. Often, though not always, people are planning to change the finish in someway (gel stain or paint).

I think you also have to be very flexible. You aren't going to be able to choose your door style. You aren't going to find a 48 inch sink cabinet for a kohler stages 45 sink. You aren't going to find a panel that fits your Bosch dishwasher. You aren't going to find uppers that are the right height to go all the way up to your 8 foot 7 1/2 inch ceiling. And you probably aren't going to find all drawers in the lowers. And so on.

Buying used cabinets isn't all that complicated if you're planning on changing the look anyway. You might not find the uppers crl_ describe above, but you might find all the lowers, for example, and then buy the uppers new.

We currently have four different styles of door/drawer fronts in our kitchen with different finishes. We are reusing all our lower cabinets from our old kitchen, a few moved and re-purposed. The three unmatched cabinets consist of three 4-drawer stacks, one 3-drawer stack, and a 36" sink base and cost us a total of $375. You would be hard-pressed to find just one of these cabinets new at that price. We want a modern look so we will put new slab fronts on. Probably from Barker. We will probably get paint-grade fronts and paint everything but we are also considering finished fronts and then refacing the fronts of the cabinet boxes ourselves. Either way, we are saving thousands by doing this.

I did once see at the Habitat Re-Store in Seattle a huge collection of cabinets removed from the same kitchen. Enough to outfit 2-3 more normal sized kitchens. They looked brand new to me. Soft-close drawers and cabinets. I didn't check closely for brand but the drawers seemed to have good quality glides. I suspect it was removed because it was very Tuscan with off-white finish with a glaze. Not to everyone's taste. But could have been stained with GF or painted and would have looked lovely in a more traditional or even transitional kitchen.

I've seen other complete kitchens in good condition but this was definitely the largest matching set I've seen. I've also seen many complete bathroom sets in great condition.

Quite often we advise people here not to do a new kitchen just to sell because the new owners might just rip it out to put in their own kitchen anyway. I suspect you'll see quality kitchens at Re-Stores or other salvage stores more often near high-end housing where this is probably more typical. The Seattle store gets all the kitchens in King County so that includes areas all the HCOL areas. The Habitat Re-Store in Bellevue sends kitchens to the Seattle location but keeps other items and, wow!, I have seen some amazing things there. A friend got a pristine 36" SS FD fridge/freezer, with ice-maker, water dispenser, and the drawer between freezer/fridge sections for $700 and everything works. There was a teensy crack in one of the door shelves. She put some clear shipping tape on it and it's covered by food so you don't even see it,

Time to shop for my finds? Not much. We go to plays in Seattle quite often so, when we did, we took the pick-up and left early enough to stop at the Tacoma and Seattle Re-Stores each time until we found the sizes we needed. It took three trips. So not counting travel time since we were going that way anyway, maybe 4-5 hours total.

I realize this isn't for everyone and that's OK but it's really not that difficult. And, if you're going to reface and get new fronts, you could always, for example, purchase those from a place like Barker or other RTA site and then also purchase whatever cabinets you weren't able to find second-hand from them, too.

Oh, we recently decided to put storage on the back side of our peninsula instead of an overhang and I want at least part of it to be glass fronts. We're going to Seattle several times in Jan-Feb so we'll be checking out those places for more cabinets. If we can't find anything that will work and that will look the way I want, we'll just order new. We saved enough on everything else so that buying these new isn't something that puts us over budget.

Sorry for writing a book but cheapie-me is just really into this type of stuff. :)

I've also seen complete kitchen at Re-Store funkycamper. I think that it's cool to reuse things. I found a double bowl stainless steel sink and installed faucet at Re-Store for $25.00. We used it when we were flipping my MIL home. There are cool things at Re-Store. We should all ck out Re-Store. Surprising what can be discovered there.

mrspete et al. Here is where you buy pre-owned luxury kitchens: http://greendemolitions.com/

Best kept secret ever.

I have Rutt cabinets (stained walnut) that were installed in 2012. They are gorgeous. I was going to go with their less expensive Regency line but at the last minute, I upgraded to the regular, more expensive line. It is the little details that make all the difference. Not in terms of function but in terms of luxury and beauty. It was the little things like the interior of the drawers that are finished in walnut, the metal door catches as opposed to plastic, the fact that there is no lip on the uppers, the curved sides of the drawers--those are a couple of the things that the regular line has. The Regency line is the same though in terms of structure and the beautiful finish. My cabinets look and feel luxurious, which Is what I wanted and I figured that in for a penny, in for a pound. Other people might make different decisions. Only you can decide whether this is all worth it to you. You can get all sorts of lower-priced cabinets that will be just fine.

Do some reading on cabinet design and quality (I'm sure there are some great threads on this forum.) Armed with knowledge about what to look for (e.g., do drawers have solid wood sides, dovetail joinery, full extension glides?), you can compare brands objectively. It will also help to compare name brands with local custom builders. In many cases, custom is less expensive than name brands, and of course with custom you can get exactly the sizes you need and avoid wasting space with fillers.

Here are a few links; I'm sure you can find many more.

Consumer Reports on Kitchen Cabinets

Home Style

TOH

a furniture grade finish is the only thing that would drive me to select the most high end cabinet brand....so many really good semi custom cabinets now will provide excellent options and choices. What is the aspect in your design, goals for your home, that is driving your thinking about this?? Durability over time doesn't warrant the jump to pick "above and beyond" brands vs.the mid and high-middle range. Never go cheap with cabinets.....but that's not the issue apparently. Look around some more...it's educational.