>We went down the Ikea route, but am thinking about avoiding that.

Why? It would help to know the reason. Ikea doesn't have to look like ikea, you know. Look at vsalz's gorgeous walnut kitchen, for instance:

Ikea with custom walnut doors, still very reasonably priced

Here is a link that might be useful: vsalz's thread with details

The reason is mainly the overall look and drawers. I have personally installed a small kitchen in a friends basement using stock Ikea, and it was the fastest and easiest kitchen I have ever installed. I think it looks nice too. The custom cab doors was something I was going to propose as well, but not sure on what those cost in relation to RTA which as the wood drawers. I think they are just concerned about the overall inside look vs a more traditional look. However I have noticed more and more cabinet makers are starting to offer a Blum interior metal drawer, which is basically the same as the Ikea. I think their nifty interior fittings are worth something as well.
I will bring it up again and press them on it.

Does anyone have any costs of what the custom doors cost to add to Ikea? I know Schers (sp?) is frequently brought up.

Well, of course it depends on where you go and what you get, but in vsalz's thread the cabinet boxes were $900 and the solid walnut doors (unfinished) $1500. More details in linked thread in my first post.

The thing about ikea is that everything is sold a la carte, as it were, and so you save a lot by not buying doors if you don't plan to use theirs. Doors are the most expensive part of a cabinet, so that gives you a lot more cash to play around with. Besides Scherrs, there's cabinetnow.com (what vsalz used--very nice traditional styles), semihandmadedoors.com (modern slab fronts in exotic woods), advantage (used by Shelayne here), maplecraftusa, and others.

Scherrs has one advantage in that they already have the drilling patterns for the ikea doors so you don't need to provide that info as well, but they are a bit more expensive than some of the others.

The reason is mainly the overall look and drawers. I have personally installed a small kitchen in a friends basement using stock Ikea, and it was the fastest and easiest kitchen I have ever installed. I think it looks nice too. The custom cab doors was something I was going to propose as well, but not sure on what those cost in relation to RTA which as the wood drawers. I think they are just concerned about the overall inside look vs a more traditional look. However I have noticed more and more cabinet makers are starting to offer a Blum interior metal drawer, which is basically the same as the Ikea. I think their nifty interior fittings are worth something as well.
I will bring it up again and press them on it.

Does anyone have any costs of what the custom doors cost to add to Ikea? I know Schers (sp?) is frequently brought up.

thanks for the info writers! I will dig more into with them then.
The door style they were looking at is one of their more expensive styles as well.

I got my cabinets a couple of years back from Scherr's Custom Cabinets and Doors ( http://www.scherrs.com ) which I learned about through reading this forum. They are a great company to work with, and they truly are a custom shop. You specify what you want and they manufacture it.

In my kitchen on one section of one wall I had 51" to work with, and had them make a 34" wide two door cabinet and a 17" wide single door cabinet. On another wall the base cabinets and the uppers are 3" deeper than normal. On a third wall I had them make a 44" wide cabinet with two 15" doors and a 14" wide open space for a wire wine rack.

Here is an image of the cabinets in the kitchen which links to a slideshow of other images. As well as an overhead view showing the layout. For all of the cabinets pictured here, the price was $17400 + about $800 shipping. Included in that price was plywood construction, full extension slides and 170 deg Blum hinges, and pullouts in every non-drawer cabinet.

The cabinets are very well constructed, and are designed to be easy to assemble well and easy to install correctly.

{{gwi:1596168}}

My shaker style paint grade maple doors from Scherr's were about the same cost unfinished as an Ikea Ramsjo door of comparable size. I am very happy with my Scherr's doors and working with them was great!

The most significant cost was having them do the paint finishing - logistically, that was my best option and they look beautiful, but if you can arrange for someone near you to do it (or DIY) it would cost quite a bit less.