If I were you, I would go with the birch/beech interiors rather than white. My kitchen cabs are birch/beech, and the cabs in the laundry room are white. The wood-look wears better IMO. Some of the white interiors and shelves also have a nubby texture that shows dirt a lot more. Unless you are specifically after a more mod contrasty look like Gaucho, I would think the wood would blend a bit better with creamy coffee (dark?) paint. Here's a pic of my wood interior together with the painted white doors. You cannot see the birch at all when the doors are closed, even when you're standing very close. My doors came from Advantage, and I got the factory-finish paint which was well worth the money. Installed 3.5 yrs ago, and today I have no chips or wear or anything, and they are very easy to keep clean. The few small strips of wood that I added later (around micro and oven drawers) and painted myself - on those, the paint has chipped and rubbed off a little. Factory paint = worth it. Advantage did my doors, drawer fronts, all filler pieces, cover panels, trim. l did have to give them exact specs (which I still have btw including spec drawings for hinge placement etc - email me if you want them). And I specified small tolerances between everything (I think 1/8"). I think you'll find that you won't even want or need edge-banding. I used it on 2 cabs, and that was only to cover the rough edge left on a deep cab that was hacked down. It was a bit of a pain to apply (especially on already installed cabs) and doesn't really look that nice (but it is better than rough particle board). I certainly wouldn't bother with a whole kitchen just to change the color of the cab edges, when the correctly spec'd doors already do a perfect job of that. This post was edited by jenswrens on Sat, Jan 25, 14 at 16:32

@LizPel12, we were looking seriously at using Cabico Espresso last fall - I posted a query or two here under a different user name. Our contractor flamed out (I changed my username because I was posting here about what to do afterward and wasn't sure how it would all shake out.) I really liked what I saw of the Espresso line (they had a couple of great greyish brown stains that remind me of what @feisty68 has been posting about.) The cabinet shop that recommended them also impressed me - they only carried higher end lines and were very professional and serious KDs. I also saw the prior posts about glides but was assured that at minimum I could get Blum as an upgrade. We found a new contractor who works with a different shop and a different semi-custom cabinet line; it meant not using frameless, but after the drama with the original contracting firm, our priority was all about finding a rock-solid contractor (and as we're now on day 4 of the reno, I don't have any doubt about that decision.) I couldn't find a stain I liked as well as the Cabico options, and we wound up choosing a painted greige (a totally last-minute call, after about 3 years of planning on stained maple.) I also considered Ikea, but we never found a contractor who had experience doing the incredible hack/customization work that I see on here all the time. I couldn't find any feedback on the Ikea-affiliated contractor in our area, and they weren't game to do the structural work we needed. And we have neither space nor time nor skills for any DIY, not even just box assembly. Still, I love a lot of the aspects of the Ikea kitchens, and there are some seriously awesome ones that have been showcased on this site. I think either Ikea or Cabico are very good options; if you really want to throw a third in there, I priced out Innermost at HD and it wasn't much more than Cabico, maybe 10 percent-ish at a good sale time (which are perpetual to some extent.) Fwiw I also live in a high-priced area, tear-downs in my neighborhood start at $500k. I think there's probably a tiny bit of snobbery that might apply to an Ikea kitchen, but given how many houses sell around here for $750k and upward with kitchens from the 1950s, it simply couldn't be a deciding factor unless you were well above the "lower" end of the price spectrum.

there is no physical advantage to inset drawer fronts. storage capacity is the same as with (whatever the opposite of inset is called). drawer slide length is the same too. every dimension is the same. all range of motion is the same. in your first post you said that for inset scherr's needs accurate measurements. it is normal for scherr's to say that they need accurate measurements. it is normal to respond that the size will be ikea's size; they know what size that is. dieterhansi36 if you are intimidated by this, you are not qualified to DIY this nor to supervise a handyman who would work with ikea and scherr's. The stressors will turn this into a nightmare, even though it's just a series of boxes with everything square horizontal or vertical and with Blum parts that are freely available and with information freely available from Blum's technical support phone number and from the internet. For some people, it could be a no brainer. For others it is impossible to fathom, as there are variables and many things need to be read and studied. i'll guess you are willing to go with the regular system of overlaying drawer fronts that millions of people already have. It can look very good. With "frameless" there is a "frame" in the sense that there is a structure, the cabinet boxes. No point is made when you expose that structure with inset drawer fronts. It's just a cute special effect. Nothing is gained, except that you made your point that you knew how to ask for it and to pay for it. One day, someone might hurt your feelings by saying you were an idiot to spend extra money (and time and attention) in order to make no physical gain in any way. If you want to spend money on fancy things in order to show your discernment, buy clothing of the highest quality. There ARE physical advantages to that.

Sorry to hijack, aloha. Hope it's ok. flwrs: We were almost as pleased with our GC as our cabinet maker and I would use him again in a flash. Compared to some of the horror stories I read here, it was smooth sailing for us. But there were some issues, as I suppose every major remodel encounters, but they were smallish. Our GC was Tim Floyd (Home office 303-425-7351 cell 303-881-4104). He has subs for electrical, plumbing, granite/counter tops, and flooring. The subs bid separately directly to you and you pay them, rather than Tim paying them. I liked this arrangement because I preferred to deal directly with them for questions, changes, etc. I loved his electrical and plumbing subs, counter tops was fine and went to great lengths to help me find my granite. I used my own flooring company and that caused some problems with scheduling - they insisted on doing things in a different order than Tim is used to (for example, IIRC, they insisted on a few days between texturing the walls and floor finishing due to the high moisture environment during texturing. They were also concerned about spills during texturing). Tim did not appreciate this and I ended up having to schedule their work myself. I wasn't that happy with them in the end, so if I was to do it over again, I would consider using Tim's flooring sub. Tim insists on pulling permits even for small remodeling jobs. He says it's the rare job that doesn't require it. I interviewed 5 GCs, and 2 said we didn't need permits ("we never pull permits for a job like this") and one said we might be able to get away without permits. We clearly needed permits. We didn't change the layout a whole lot, but we raised the ceiling (and with 2 bathrooms above the kitchen there was a lot of pipe re-jiggering to do!) and of course there was a fair amount of electrical work required on our 1975 house. As far as issues that came up with Tim, the biggest one was the OTR microwave. My DH and I took it out of the box, carefully measured the height at the sides, gave that measurement to the cabinet maker so that the MW sides would be even with the wall cabinets on either side. Then when Tim installed it, he put a piece of filler above the MW so it wasn't even. He had his reasons for doing it, but we went back and forth on removing the filler, and in the end he wouldn't do it. I gave in on that and I find the whole confrontation thing quite stressful, so I didn't feel good about it. Of course, I don't even notice it anymore. Then there was the day he brought a guy with specifically to install the pulls and knobs. This was before the cabinet installation was totally complete. I had bought various sizes with lots of extra pulls because I wasn't sure what I was going to use. So I told him that he would have to wait a day to install them. If you look closely at the picture I posted, there is one crooked pull (left side of frigde, middle drawer, left pull). I didn't notice this until the kitchen work was complete. That's what I get for delaying the pull installation - his brother ended up doing it instead of the guy that he brought specifically for that work. We weren't completely happy with the backsplash installation. The mesh backing shows through on some of the glass pieces. I had told him of this concern before he installed it, and he said that he's using the recommended white thinset (which he did). If my DH and I had done it, we would have cut the backing off of the glass pieces. Also, we had him replace some of the glass pieces with a different color and it doesn't seem random to us. But, as I said, I would use him again. He was excellent at getting back to me promptly when I contacted him, and correcting the things that I pointed out (with the exceptions that I noted). His carpentry work is beautiful. The cabinet guy was really worried about that since they had never worked together before, but after they were installed he told me that Tim did a really beautiful job. And we have had some construction types over since then and they say the same. He took so many calls during the day that I was amazed that anything ever got done, but it did. Also, he wasn't great about telling me if anyone would be at the house (or who would be), and there were days when no one would be, but I think that's normal. I got his name from the cabinet store that I almost ordered cabs from. That is how he usually works (he installs/GCs for several cabinet stores), and that is how he prefers it. I was an unusual case - when he originally bid, I was getting cabs from the store. He told me that I could give his name out but he wasn't sure that he would take non-cabinet store jobs. It depends on how busy he is. He's in Longmont and I'm in the tech center, so sometimes he was late in the morning because of traffic (we tended to meet in the morning to discuss things). He would always call me to let me know if he was delayed. He was really patient with me when I put a stop to the cabinet installation because I was concerned that an aisleway was too narrow. In the end he and the cabinet maker (and a friend that I called over in a panic!) convinced me that the aisle was ok. I agree that the GC decision is a very difficult one. Hope your remodel goes smoothly!