You’re looking in the right place. These are three companies that produce good doors. With Scherr’s, I think, and Barker for sure, you can order whatever sizes you need. I find it hard to imagine Semi can’t make you a custome size. This info from their FAQ leads me to believe there is some leeway in door sizes.

“If I modify a cabinet, can you make me a custom door/drawer size?

It really depends on the cabinet in question. Consult a Sales Associate for details. “

Barker is a bit limited in finishes. As long as they have what you need, I’d go for Barker, but I should add that my experience in working with them was not all that great.

eam44: Would you mind sharing more on your experience with Barker?

We are planning on painting them ourselves, and all three offer an unfinished DIY option.

They made a mistake on my doors and we couldn’t come to terms on how to fix it, so I canceled my cabinet order. I went into details on [this thread from (gulp) 2013[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/alternative-to-barker-cabinets-dsvw-vd~2696248).

I will add that they did eventually give me the credit I asked for, but I did not place the cabinet order there, or anywhere after that experience. Needless to say, I haven’t made much progress since then. I feel a pout coming on...

Unless you can spray a conversion varnish yourself, don’t plan on painting yourself. Scherrs will finish for you and be 10x better than any DIY paint job. Their construction tolerances are also much better. IKEA isn’t a walk in the park to integrate into a real design system. Thus the extra charge.

You don’t get what you won’t pay for.

I'm sorry to hear that, eam44. I will pout with you in solidarity.

Sophie: You are (as usual) a ray of sunshine, offering unsolicited and totally unhelpful advice. Thanks, anyway.

Believe it or not the quality level of kitchen cabinet finishes is not the best available. You can finish by hand without spray equipment to a higher level. It requires time and effort but not some unreachable level of talent or skill. Remember your goal is not to be a high volume production cabinet shop. Here's a tutorial.

Water based info- here. Cherry or walnut finish lighter with water based.

Where are the boxes coming from? It sounds like it’s an IKEA kitchen but then you mention you have some custom sizes. Seems worth asking SH about custom sizes to be able to better compare the companies

Thanks for the link, dan1888, but as I mentioned, we are painting.

Damiarain, it is an IKEA kitchen, but heavily modified. I did already inquire with Semihandmade, and I'm waiting to hear back from them.

I'd like to address a few of the statements made about this situation:

"Scherr's is the mid-range option. They are offering 10% off DIY, but their overall prices just went up a few days ago, so the estimate is quite a bit higher than the one I got a few months ago."

Your original quote request contained 36 items - all entered by you as doors. On your most recent quote, 24 of your items turned out to be drawer fronts. Drawer fronts are twice as expensive per Sq/Ft. This is the single biggest factor in the price increase between your two quotes.

This is our first price increase in about four years. Our price for poplar went up 10.4%. Combined with our March discount of 10%, your actual increase is 0.4%.

"They are familiar with IKEA cabinets and can do all of the boring for hinges, but they also charge an additional fee to work with an IKEA plan, which seems... weird."

Many kitchen designers charge around $100/hr to help design a kitchen. Granted, you had the initial IKEA planner all set up - though several of your cabinets are heavily modified, and were quite challenging to figure out proper sizing/machining for. There are business out there, such as IKD, that charge no insignificant sum of money (which is totally worth it!) to take your IKEA planner and work out customizations for you. Our IKEA design fee is 5% extra on the material cost of the doors for straightforward kitchens and 10% extra for kitchens with significant modifications and/or extras.

"They've been great to communicate with, and very responsive, but I'm just having a hard time biting the bullet now, when I was absolutely ready to two weeks ago. (Wish I had done it then, instead of waiting for the sale.)"

There is only a 0.4% total increase on your quote from a few weeks ago. Had we gone through the process of flushing out the details back then the difference would have been negligible. Moreover, you were given an additional compromise discount of 5% (up from 20% to 25%) off on the material cost of the doors, and we reduced your IKEA design fee of 10% down to 5%. Currently on your quote you have a 25% material discount, a 5% reduction in your IKEA design fee, and the 10% unfinished discount. Based on your situation and what was communicated, you're receiving 10% more off your order than most of our customers.

This post seems to question our integrity. We are not a wealthy business, in fact our recent price increase is an attempt to make staying solvent not so difficult. We've been in the cabinetry business for 40 years because we love the craft and we love making customers happy, to hear that you are potentially frustrated or unsatisfied (especially on a public forum) is devastating to us.

Wow I did not read Hillside's posts that way at all.

Well, I wasn't questioning your integrity, or unsatisfied before, but to be honest, I am now.

Scherr's: This post was about exploring options, and I was very careful not to denigrate your business. But, since you brought some things up that I specifically didn't mention (as a courtesy to you) I will expand on them.

Sure, IKD charges a design fee, as do other cabinet companies THAT ACTUALLY DO THE DESIGN. You didn't. Nor can you compare your "design fee" to IKD, since you didn't work out any customizations for me. In fact, we spent half an hour on the phone with me explaining why I needed the dimensions I entered into the quote form, and not the ones on the IKEA plan you asked me to submit. The plan just seemed to complicate things for you, when it would have been easier (and less "challenging") to just believe me on the sizing I needed, yes?

The reason why I termed it 'weird' is because, along with not doing the design, you don't mention the charge anywhere on the IKEA door upgrade page, and it's not even a line item on your quote. It's just something you throw in there (built into the door front cost?) without the customer knowing.

I don't mind paying a design fee, if warranted, although I still think it's odd to call it a design fee. More of an IKEA upcharge, I guess?

Barker used to do the boring for hinges, and probably still can, they just need to know what template to use. It may have changed when Sektion came out, but do a google search for Barker and Ikea hinge bore, and I’m sure you’ll find the right info. This guy figured it out.

Or just use Semi. At this point just get it done, or you’ll lose momentum, which is not fun.

They will do boring for the hinges, but they use different ones (as does the blogger you linked to) with different placement. I think the more reliable thing is to do it ourselves on site.

We're definitely ready to proceed. I'm sick of looking at the insides of my cabinets!

One of my goals in responding the way I did was to let others know that we're not suddenly charging a lot more for our product and trying to cover it up with a sale. After reading your post, even if you had not intended to word it that way, I had the sense that someone could interpret it that way. Because these posts stay up indefinitely, and are viewed by many of our potential customers I feel the need to clarify any sources of doubt or confusion.

I apologize for interpreting your post the way I did. I was getting the sense from reading it that we had let you down in many ways, despite making the effort to explain everything over email and offering a compromise of sorts.

Our IKEA design fee, along with all of our material and door costs, are not public. We stand by its necessity though, and the ability to charge what we know something is worth. In order to properly machine each and every door - especially for customized cabinets, we need to understand exactly how the cabinet was customized and how it will be used. Having proper sizes isn't enough - hence our drawn-out phone call and having to request your drawings. If we don't, there is a high chance of us needing to remake the door over simple things like incorrect hinge boring and misaligned reveals. Even re-making (and shipping) one or two doors can sink the profit of an entire job for us. As the saying goes, "Trust, but verify." Being able to check for all of these things involves setting up a system, developing a library of readily available references, knowing the manufacturing process inside and out, and plenty of time to get right. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that we need to account for.

The IKEA design fee is often a different percentage or dollar amount that is applied to individual items and isn't a line item at the bottom of a quote. (Sometimes an item that is being heavily customized will get a higher percentage but the others won't.) This creates a challenge in providing a simple way of sharing that information with the customer.

For what it's worth, speaking as an individual, I really am sorry for letting my emotions come out in my response. Having had a hand in some of the decisions that have lead to the pricing and policy decisions that have been made recently - I felt the need to defend them. I should have waited until I could have responded more logically - with my mind and not my heart. I did feel like the situation was slightly misrepresented - though I should have handled it privately, not publicly. Sorry for that.

Scherr's:

Thank you. I apologize for any misrepresenting I did. I did give a very abridged version, but that was really because I didn't want it to come across like I was slamming you guys, and I was trying to give a concise, accurate summary. I wasn’t trying to be deceptive.

I appreciate your willingness to work with me, and I specifically didn't mention the additional price discount because I didn't want to risk you being locked into something similar with other customers.

To reiterate what I said in my original post, your responsiveness to calls and emails has been fantastic. The quality of the door is great. Absolutely no complaints there, I'm just weighing options.

That's fair.

You've been very kind and polite to us. I wish you good luck in whichever way you end up going. You've proven to be very knowledgeable (you've definitely done your homework!). I hope you end up with a kitchen space you love.

We're fans of Scherrs, and have a lot of the respect for the quality of their products. We've been making Ikea doors for about eight years; I think they've been doing it even longer. Despite the fact that we are "competitiors" and are frequently bidding on the same projects, Scherrs and Barker being around and making great doors benefits every one of us in the Ikea ecosystem.

I applaud anyone for transparency on pricing. Talking about that stuff is hard. Deciding what things cost is an especially tricky thing; all three of us manufacture in the US, so matching Ikea prices - or even coming close - is rarely possible. Things do also get complicated when custom elements are added. That's likely why you're seeking a company like ours in the first place, but it does come with an additional cost. At Semihandmade, we try and make up for the price gap by offering a wide variety of door options, solid support, and a really great customer experience. We fall short sometimes, but believe me when I say that really is always the goal.

I'm honestly not even sure what point I'm trying to make here other than - I understand all the sides being presented here, and can definitely relate on multiple levels. Semihandmade started with just me, and the challenge of keeping the lights on is never far from my mind, so I "get" taking things personally and having my feelings hurt... and maybe sometimes pushing a little too hard back.

That's not your concern, though. As a consumer, you guys need to shop around, do your due diligence, and hopefully land on the company that serves you best. As a business, we need to continuously innovate, provide a quality product, and never stop focusing on our customers. Renovating is a bloodsport, full of obstacles and disappointments and more compromises than anybody ever deserves or expects. Pace yourselves. Maybe that's the takeaway here. And hopefully remember that - even if you don't go with one of us, or you do pick one of us and not the other, or you stick with Ikea doors, or (God forbid) you end up going the way of full custom - all of us really truly do care.

John McDonald

Well said, John.

I am certainly impressed with Scherr's and Semihandmande's willingness to be open with their prospective customers. I can well imagine the business and PR imperatives present in a forum like this and in a very competitive environment.

I am so relieved by the resolution of this thread! (Almost) every poster on the Gardenweb forums is so helpful, and I just hate to see people disagreeing. Now hug it out you guys :)

I’m just hoping Chad Barker will pop in and post, too. That would make this thread truly awesome. ;)

Kudos to Scherrs for clearing the air. I am a customer, patiently(not!) waiting for my doors/drawers so I can finish my kitchen.