One of my goals with my new kitchen was to get quality cabinetry. Another goal was to maximize my space. I think I did a good job with the end result.
I’m going to start this by telling you that my kitchen I designed is not what you would call a traditional kitchen. When I sat down with our architect to design our new floor plan, I had visions of a grand kitchen. I want an island with a built in table to seat eight. I want tons of storage and so many drawers that I would never fill them all. My kitchen needs to be my favorite room in house. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen and knew what I wanted.
As we were going through the layout of the new house, I pitched my idea. I want a large kitchen island with built in seating for eight. The architect just looked at me and then back at the plan he was pitching us. I remember him looking at me and saying, “That isn’t a good idea for when you sell your house. People want a dining table.”
What?! When I sell my house?! Man, I was planning to die in my house. I loved my house! Why in the world would you think I have a resell in mind when my house just burned down?! It made me so angry. I didn’t like him after that. He designed what he thought would be “best” for me. I guess architects don’t get trained in what not to say to a client that just lost their house.
I took my floor plans and moved on with my life, all the while hating the kitchen island. It is too deep to be fully used and it doesn’t make sense to have chairs scooting back to meet each other. I vowed that I would have someone listen to my reason. The island portion wasn’t set in stone. Not yet. Not until I was buying cabinets….
Enter Here, My Island Dreamers
I took my dreams to the first meeting with our new contractor and when we landed on the page with the kitchen, I didn’t hesitate. I looked my contractor in the eye and told him I didn’t want the island that showed in the blueprint. He looked confused and asked why I didn’t want an island. I rushed to explain my T-shaped kitchen island idea with seating for eight and have no dining room table. He took a moment to look at the plans and then looked back at me and said, “I think that’s a great idea for this space.” Victory!
I was so excited to meet with the company that is building our quality cabinetry. They had our floor plan and knew all the dimensions before we met. The woman who helped us was so personable. I knew she would design exactly what I wanted. With my plan laid out in front of me, I told her what I wanted and she looked at the space for a minute. I was so scared she wouldn’t be on board, until she finally said that what I wanted could be done, but that engineers would be needed to make sure the granite was supported right. YES!
Are Custom Kitchen Cabinets Worth It?
My short answer: YES!! Without buying custom quality cabinetry, the above dream is just not possible. They are more money, but keep reading and I will give you my list of exactly what I love about the custom cabinet experience.
I know we could have filled this space with premade cabinets and I would have made do if that is all my budget allowed. I had a beautiful kitchen we had just redone a few years before our house fire with premade cabinets from Lowes and it was a pretty kitchen. So I have nothing against them because I have already loved a set.
Gorgeous, right? I had an amazing peninsula in place of my dream island. Premade cabinets can be beautiful.
When my house burned down and I had to start thinking about a new floor plan, I knew the sky was the limit. I could have what I didn’t get before, a giant kitchen island. I also had a few items behind that first item on the list….
- Giant Kitchen Island
- No walk through kitchen! I want it in it’s own corner.
- A walk in pantry
- Storage that I could never run out of
- A cabinet for my garbage to live in
Not a long list, but an important list. My previous kitchen had to be walked through to get to the basement. While this was a huge step up from the kitchen when we moved in that still had to be walked through, the dishwasher was like a gatekeeper to the basement. No one could access it when I was doing dishes.
My Custom Quality Cabinetry Experience
Here is my list of why I think paying the extra price for custom quality cabinetry is worth it.
- They can be exactly what you want and need them to be. Size, color, shape…anything is possible. I have a weird little nook in my kitchen where the cabinets and pantry meet. Without the custom cabinets, it would have ended up looking very odd. Going the route we did, I was able to design a cute little end cabinet that has open shelving. It’s super cute!
- No need to build a drop in the ceiling. With custom cabinets, you can have them go all the way to your ceiling. My new house has nine foot ceilings. It would look extremely silly to build down the ceiling. The alternate….I would have had tons of space above. My old house had seven foot ceilings and looked pretty good with the drop.
- Two words: Soft Close! Now, before you start to argue with me that premade cabinets have soft close too…I’m going to counter with: Kinda. They kinda do, but it’s a fake soft close. Custom cabinets have a true soft close built into the hinges and drawer slides. Premade cabinets have a device you put in the cabinet to fake it. I know….I had them. While it is nice, it’s still fake.
- You are buying from a company that values their reputation. The company that built our cabinets proudly put their company sign in our front yard. When you spend the extra money and find a company that values their reputation, you know you are going to get a quality cabinet.
- You can get a package deal. By going with custom cabinets, we also rolled in counter tops and appliances. It made it so much easier than trying to source them all separate and trying to merge them all at the right time in the end. You’ll appreciate a company that just handles it all.
- You can have a giant kitchen island!
