Hi - Not sure how big your kitchen is, but for 5k, I believe your best bet for the money and quality is ikea with the Tidaholm door (if they still make it). This is a true shaker door style. Then you can prime/paint yourself. You can do Scherr's too for the doors, but when I priced them recently, my ikea cabs were $2,500 and the Scherr's quote alone was 8k.(That was with custom doors, side panels, mouldings etc - everything). I can find some pictures of Tidaholm if you want them!

I did Ikea boxes with Scherr's shaker doors in paint grade maple with MDF centers and have been very happy with the result.

The Ikea door styles weren't what I was looking for, but the quality of the cabinets themselves and especially the drawer boxes (Blum hardware) is quite high (nothing at all like Ikea furniture) and the price can't be beat.

I had Scherr's do the paint finish - the upside is they came out beautifully; the downside is the finishing cost isn't cheap. It wasn't an option for me logistically, but if you can DIY or arrange for the doors to be sprayed somewhere local to you the cost would be significantly less.

For my small kitchen with 11 cabinets, the Ikea cost was about $1,000 for boxes, drawer parts, hinges, toe kicks etc. Scherr's was $2,300 for the doors, drawers and trim plus $1,500 for finishing and $550 for delivery (I had a floor to ceiling panel that was too large to ship UPS - depending on your pieces and where you live, this could be quite a bit less also).

You might want to check out the "Under $20k Kitchen Remodels" thread below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Under $20k Kitchen Remodels

I meant to add, I believe that Ikea has discontinued Tidaholm. :(

I have been contemplating using Ikea boxes and Scherrs drawer and door fronts. My biggest dilemma is painting the cabinets. I know Scherrs can paint them, but I think with the paint being the same or more then the cabinets, I would have to paint them myself. I don't mind painting them but I am afraid the paint will start chipping after a white. I know Scherrs uses catalyzed paint, which you can't but at a local hardware store. I think this would be my best option since I have heard such great reviews for their prices and quality of work.
zoecat- was the ordering process easy? Is it a lot to go through Ikea and Scherrs for doors?

I understand that Costco is going to be offering white shaker cabinets starting in February. I have no idea as to the cost and quality, but it may be something to check.

Zoe, your cabinets look very nice!

Working with Scherr's was very easy and pleasant - it's a family-owned business with really nice folks. The only slightly tricky thing was figuring out how much (and what size) trim I needed to order, but I'm happy to walk you through that if you decide to go the Scherr's route.

First I designed my kitchen using the Ikea kitchen planner, which can be buggy and frustrating but it's worth it because after you've chosen your cabinets, it automatically generates a shopping list for you that you can adjust (ie if you're using Scherr's, you delete the doors and trim).

Then at Ikea, they pull up your saved planner design and use it to pull all the parts for you. From my Ikea store, home delivery for up to a full truckload of stuff was $60 and it could be delivered as quickly as the same day.

For Scherr's I sent the planner-generated list of the cabinets and they sent me the list of pieces they would make with prices. They were very patient working up multiple estimates for me as my design evolved.

I was extremely detail oriented about the ordering and went through everything with a fine-toothed comb and didn't find any errors in the Scherr's list and everything was delivered perfectly.

For the Ikea delivery, it came off the truck so fast and there were so many pieces, I couldn't keep up and just made sure the big things like the dishwasher and sink were included. As it turns out, of the 60 or so pieces, they only forgot one small thing and when I went back to the store, they just gave it to me no questions asked.

And finally regarding painting, from what I understand you can have an auto body shop spray your doors with the same kind of paint you would get from Scherr's. You might want to search the Ikeafans site, because I'm pretty sure I've seen discussions about it there.

Hope that helps!