rev a shelf can be installed by the homeowner.....you're still getting this stuff cheaper than if a cabinet company were providing you with their rollouts/caddys/etc. Still, your cabinet maker should have a vendor and get the stuff without marking it up to you. It's his time and expert installation, I suppose-it is saving you time and you'd probably call a handyman if you didn't already think about doing these yourself...so the handyman could gouge you. I say it's a wash.......accept it.......but check every single rollout/tray/slideout for no wobbles/creaks/rubs before you sign off.

Why should you or anyone else not be charged markup ???

This is exactly the reason many cabinet providers don't offer an itemization of what your kitchen costs. You'll be upset that you found it cheaper somewhere else.

The extra fee is for the "free installation". Those things are a huge PITA to put in.

I don't particularly care for Revashelf products. As Casey says, they are a PIA to install. And uninstall when they fail. Hafele/Kessebohmer beats them hands down in quality. Not any easier to retrofit in the field though. Everything is harder as a retrofit. There's a reason that only the lower end cabinet lines use RS and the upper end ones don't.

There's also a reason that cabinet companies get the going rate for all of those doodads. You're paying for installation and customization. You don't get that with generic after market products. Those are only worth retrofitting if you DIY, don't mind if it doesn't fit the cabinet without wasting space, or can do the customization yourself. Paying the going install rate to a cabinet pro just transfers the expense from one category to another. TAANSTAFL.

Hi Erica! I can understand your concern. These kitchen remodels don't come cheap! It sounds like you will have beautiful cabinets and a beautiful kitchen, which is really exciting! But it can come as quite a surprise to find out how much things really cost. And then sometimes you can feel like others are nickel and dime-ing you to death.

But...let me share a couple of things that might make sense to you, so you can move on from the sticker shock and actually enjoy your new cabinets. :-) I run my own business as a free lance writer and editor. For editing, I charge $30 an hour. What I do first is have a one hour consultation with my client, usually at a Starbucks, unless they don't live in the area, in which case we Skype. I then take their paper, article, dissertation, book, whatever...and do whatever it is that we have agreed I will do. There may be questions or reasons to communicate during the process. If it's a short phone call I usually don't charge, but if I have to spend a lot of time on the phone or reading/writing emails, I do charge.

Most people are fine with the whole process (it's the industry pricing and procedure in our geographic area), but some not so much. One of the biggest concerns people have is that I cannot give them an up front total cost guarantee. This is because, until I get into their article, I don't know how much of a mess it is and how long it will take to fix it. I can give a kind of wide range very general estimate, but that's about it. I always give my clients an option to pay for a certain number of hours and then I will stop at that time and the client can decide whether to continue on with me. So maybe they only want to spend $90. I will spend three hours editing and then stop. I give the article back to the client and then they can choose to proceed or not.

Most people are a pleasure to work with, but there are exceptions. Some people act like $30 an hour is highway robbery. At the Starbucks, I can tell they're indignant that I don't buy them a mocha. They equate what I do with being a secretary and don't think I should have a living wage. They don't consider that I buy my own health insurance, run through a computer every couple of years, and pay for continuing training in editing and style. Nor do they consider I have 13 years of higher education and that what I do is a very specialized skill and I am very good at it. They're always happy when their article or book gets published, but they still don't fully appreciate the role my editing played in getting that publication. Fortunately, 90% of my clients are wonderful and appreciative and understand how important my editing was for their article.

So I think these cabinet guys have felt underappreciated in the past, that what they do has not been valued for the highly specialized skill that it is. To work around that, they offer "free installation." But they have to make their money somehow, so they charge more for the materials in order to provide free labor. It would be like me offering "free editing services" but then charging very high prices for printer ink and paper, or a "service fee" for emailing work to them.

The other thing I'll say is that my cost for my kitchen remodel will be much greater than it would be if I could DIY it. I used to be a great DIY-er and still am at heart, but I have pretty severe rheumatoid arthritis and basically DIY is a thing of the past for me. So I'm really glad that I can hire skilled experts to come into my home and make it beautiful for me! Hanging cabinets and installing sliding drawers, hooking up the new garbage disposal and putting in new lighting are all skills I don't possess, but I'm happy someone does! You can also think of it as helping to support a fellow American and that's a nice feeling, to know that a family out there can pay their mortgage this month because you hired them. :-)

Anyway, that's just my perspective. You are perfectly entitled to have a different viewpoint. But I do hope this helps, at least a bit, so you can really enjoy your beautiful custom cabinets! Have a great day! :-)