I'd go with Scherr's and painted. I suspect you are getting a much better "base" door with Scherr's. You will get the exact color you want, too.

I got some samples of the "fake wood" thermofoil from SH and I think that the underlying structure isn't that awesome.

I also think that SH has a wonderful marketing machine and there are better options out there.

No "real world" experience with either - disclaimer.

Curious how many doors and drawers the price includes?

jannicone, thank you! That makes sense, I think a lot of what's happening in my mind is that it's hard not to think the SH is "better" because the marketing is so much more slick, and the Scherr's is so reasonably priced (not the painting though!) Any idea on how well the painted finish holds up?

atiman, I have 24 cabinet doors and 25 drawer fronts Uppers white and lowers gray. The kitchen is probably 15 x 12, with uppers and lowers, and a small peninsula with a trash pullout and dishwasher. It seems like a lot of cabinets, but it's because the wall upper cabinets are stacked (a 30" with a 15" stacked on top to go the height of the ceiling), and the lower cabinets are all drawers (mostly bases of 5/5/5/15 or 10/10/10) and not cabinet doors on the bottom except for under the sink and the trash pullout. 2 tall 15" pantry type cabs with drawers under, and there's also refrig. wall cabinets on the floor to make a banquette seating area. Basically, the painting will cost about the same as the unfinished doors/fronts/panels. Scherr's charges a base price for white and an upcharge for other colors.

staceykdm - WOW! thanks for the info. Sounds like an Ikea kitchen??? Doing the same color concept, too. Same kitchen size here with about another 9' to complete a "U" shaped kitchen with stacked (20") cabs, plus an island and lowers all drawers except for the corners, and trash. I haven't even counted, yet! Gulp! Thanks!

Yes, it's Ikea boxes! It really isn't a big or extravagant design, I was pretty surprised when I tallied up the # of doors/fronts. Never mind the 53 pcs of hardware I need- I've accepted that I'll have no hardware for awhile :) Your kitchen sounds great! I really wanted an island, but had to admit once pen hit paper that we just didn't have room for one (at least, with us still being able to walk around). Are you considering custom door as well?

Yes, I'm looking at custom doors. So does this price includes some of the panels, etc? I cant wait to see your kitchen.

homechef59 - I haven't read your reveal, yet, but I will do it next. Did you have any parts that you painted yourself like toe kicks or trim to match your paint color? if so, what finish did you use? And do you think it matched up well, if so?

I used Scherr's toe kicks and base trim. I used my own trim at the ceiling and soffit. I painted them with SW Dover White latex semi-gloss. The paint on the cabinets is a catalyzed varnish paint and not latex. It's an industrial version. I specified the color. The different finishes, mine versus the Scherr finish colors are slightly different. It's hard to explain, but the light hits them a little differently. So, it's not an exact match. It's pretty darn close. For anything that is directly touching, I would order painted from Scherr's. The doors and drawer faces do cover the box frames. If everything has to be exact, you may want to paint them yourself. If you were ordering a complete new set of cabinets, I'd say use Scherr's paint shop without question. But, I think you said you wanted to keep your old boxes. They may not match up. Talk to Leon. He'll be a good resource in your decision making. He won't lead you astray.

Thanks for the review of your cabinets over time homechef59, your kitchen came out great! Yes, you are correct, I have a ton of doors/drawers! Our house is a 1922 craftsman, and I am trying hard to keep update the kitchen to the modern age while still keeping the spirit of the craftsman era. The stacked cabinets added quite a bit to the cabinet cost, but I feel like having single taller cabinet doors is a more contemporary look.

It helps to hear that you've been able to keep the painted finish clean- we painted out current cabinets white when we moved in and they seem like they have a constant film of grime, and, 5 years later they are in desperate need of touching up.

I see that you had the doors painted Dover White, how do you like the color? Overall, they seem like they read nice and white. I ordered a sample door in that color and was hoping it wouldn't read too yellow. When we moved in I had the trim in our house painted Decorator White, and it was so stark I hated it. I spent three months slowly re-painting them all a creamier white.

I love the small touches in your kitchen- the dog bowl on the side of the cabinet is a great idea! I always see photos of kitchen with the dog bowls on the pull out drawers, but I the practical side of me think s they are absurd- who wants to leave a drawer open all day, or not give a dog access to water b/c a drawer is closed? And we spend a fair amount of time kicking the water bowl and cursing.

Can I ask you how you made the drawer with the bain marie inserts? How do you like the BlueStar rangetop? I've planned for the 36" cooktop, but I'd really love the rangetop. I'm just not sure if I can justify the big cost increase between the two. I'm dreaming that one will turn up in my distributor's open box section (he's currently remodeling the showroom and moving stuff around, so you never know!)

atiman, yes, the price quoted from Scherr's includes the doors, drawers, panels and toekicks.

My house is a very formal 1951 Southern Colonial Cape Cod traditional home. So, I was very conscious of trying to honor the traditional style. Rather than doing the stacked cabinet, consider what I did with the larger single wall cabinet and dropped soffit trimmed with crown and trim moldings. It wasn't difficult to do the dropped soffit. It might save you a significant sum of money. I think it might be worth exploring.

I love the BS range top. It's a beast. I scrimped in other areas to get that range top. I'm glad I did. Don't forget the ventilation. It adds to the cost. I recycled the existing Vent-A-Hood. If you have to wait a year in order to save up for it, I would do it. Once you fire it up, you will understand the difference. I was replacing a very nice Thermador cooktop. I am happy customer. It was a good decision.

About the tall utensil storage drawer, we had a very deep drawer in a three-drawer stack. The two drawers above are the same size as all of the other top drawers throughout. The remaining space in the stack is taken up by the single tall drawer. One warning, the drawer face is very heavy. So be sure to have really beefy drawer slides on that drawer. The Blum slides were plenty hefty.

We purchased a bunch of of bain marie's from Amazon. We bought a piece of fancy maple veneer plywood from Lowe's and a can of spray-on varnish. We traced the outline of the bottom of the bain marie's on the plywood and cut out the outline with a hole saw attachment on our drill. We sprayed the plywood with the varnish and let it dry. It looks just like the maple finish of the rest of the interior. We attached a couple of pieces of wood on each side and back of the drawer to allow the plywood form to rest on them. We dropped the ban marie's into the slots and filled them with utensils. It was pretty simple once you thought about it.

You can do something similar with the Rev-a-shelf pull out drawer, remove some of the shelves and add ban marie's. There are a number of examples if you ask for them on GW.

Scherr's is amazing. I've used them and recommended them for several projects. Every time a great experience from start to finish.

If you get the doors from scherrs - i want the quarterline are you putting these on the ikea boxes? How does that work? Do they make panels for the sides, trim etc?