Custom Cabinetry is often viewed as too expensive and often thought to be unnecessary. We believe there are many benefits to custom cabinetry which is why we install nearly 100% custom Amish built cabinetry. It is due to these benefits that customers are raving about our products.
#1 Custom Cabinetry is Built out of Solid Wood
Why does this matter? Over the long run, a solid wood cabinet will stand up to the test of time. The solid plywood boxes offer stability that cannot be replicated with furniture board boxes. These boxes allow the screws to soft close hinges to be fastened tightly without easily loosening up over time.
The solid wood doors and drawers are able to be touched up or refinished should a ding occur or a puppy dig in. We once had a puppy chew partially through a leg of an island and we were able to repair it. Another time we had a customer damage a cabinet door and we were able to refinish it back to it’s original form. Wood can take children digging through looking for snacks and teenagers in and out multiple times a day. It is built to last.
The reason we feel so strongly about a well built cabinet is because we want to give you the best we can offer for your home. These cabinets will be used day in and day out every day of the year. It is vitally important to have something that can hold up to everyday living.
#2 Custom Cabinetry Should Have a Better Finish
Not all custom cabinetry is the same, however. The custom cabinets we build are hand finished. Why does this matter? Hand finished cabinetry allows the stain to be rubbed into the wood grain whereas factory finishes often spray the stain on without rubbing it in. You will notice this on cabinets when the finish appears to be rubbing off over time. When the stain penetrates the wood it will not rub off easily. It is then finished with a top coat.
When it is a painted cabinet, we use the highest quality paint with a catalyzing agent in it that allows it to harden fast and hard. This type of finish is a durable finish that will last. Not all paints and catalyzers are alike, however, we have experienced some cabinets that still stain and chip easily once finished and installed in a home. These finishes are a lesser expensive option that many less expensive lines will use it to save money so they can charge less. Beware, less expensive is not always better and may create a more expensive fix in the future if the finish does not hold up.
We believe that the most used furniture in your home, your cabinetry, should be extremely durable and fixable should an accident happen.
#3 We Can Create Exactly What You Want and Need
Boxed factory built cabinets come in 3″ incremental sizing. This works for most of the cabinets in a kitchen, but invariably we have some cabinets that require a modification to fit the existing space. Reducing a size or increasing a size of a cabinet by a quarter inch or half an inch can cost a lot of money in this type of cabinet because these are factories that build only certain sizes, so asking them to change it increases time and cost. Adding rollout trays, silverware dividers, and other inserts that make the kitchen storage most functional becomes very expensive as well in these lines of cabinets. Many times, by the time you have created the kitchen you love and with what you need, the kitchen is as expensive as a custom built kitchen.
The advantage of custom sizing allows us to create a truly custom look for your space. It is rich and looks as if it was made for your space – because it was. It will not have fillers to fill gaps between cabinets or along the walls. All of these small details add up to a beautiful end product and an installation that is flawless.
The other benefit to custom built cabinetry is that the color options are unlimited. We can match a stain color that you like, create a color altogether new, and we can add glazes to paint finishes if so desired. The sky is the limit which makes your kitchen even more a reflection of you.
#4 Cost versus Price
You can purchase cabinets at a lower price from many sources when you are shopping for cabinets for your home. The problem is that the “price” may be less now but the “cost” may be higher over the long run. Let me use purses as an example. You can purchase a purse for $30 easily that is not real leather. This purse looks great when you purchase it. Over the course of a few months, however, the purse starts to look worn, the threads start to come out of it and fray. Pretty soon, you are in the market for a new purse. So you purchase another purse, this time for $40, thinking that it will last longer. The same thing happens a few months later and you are in the market for a new purse. You can see how this adds up over time. Over the course of a year, you could easily spend $100-$200 on purses.
Now lets say you purchase a real leather Coach purse. This purse is “priced higher” than the lower end purses at the time of purchase. You could easily spend $300 at the time of purchase. It appears to “cost” more. However, this purse will last you for years to come. Some coach purses will last 5-10 years. If you divide out the spend over that time, you will see the higher priced purse actually costs less over time.
The same thing is true of cabinetry. If you invest in something that is priced higher at the time of purchase and the quality is significantly higher, over the long run, it will cost you less. You won’t have to have repairs done and deal with refinishing things down the road which is costly.
Buy once and buy well, you will never regret your investment.