I have Innermost by Elkay (sold by HD) also sold as Designcraft by independent KDs. I had only looked at Kraftmaid prior to deciding I wanted to go frameless. I'm super happy with my cabinets.

They come standard with Blum hardware, though they don't advertise it...soft close doors and drawers. All the adjustable stuff (though the drawers only came with up/down adjustments, but the rep installed ones that also adjust side to side where necessary. I'm not sure if those are standard now or not. My cabinets were ordered in May. Dovetailed is standard, as is 3/4" not- plywood (don't remember the technical name. Since it was 3/4, I didn't opt to upgrade to plywood. Many here say it's not necessary, though I meant to for my sink base and forgot. They come standard with white or birch melamine interiors.

Mine are natural cherry shaker and I. Just. Love them!

MIL is planning an imminent kitchen reno and if she doesn't go frameless, I'll be baffled. I have so much more room than framed, particularly in drawers. Priceless to me.

ETA: While I was pecking away typing on my phone, hollysprings said what I've read a bunch here re: plywood. Also, I didn't consider IKEA because of DH's prejudice. But if I had gone IKEA, I'd have likely used their boxes and aftermarket doors. Someone will likely link a place or two that make them.

This post was edited by cal_quail on Sun, Oct 19, 14 at 13:32

Did Innermost come a lot higher than Ikea. How did the price compare to Kraftmaid?
Thanks.

Didn't price ikea as DH was against it. Innermost and KM seemed similar, but one KM was through Lowe's and Innermost HD. When we moved from one to the other, we asked to get quoted apples to apples to tell, but we hadn't been given an exact cabinet quote at Lowe's so we didn't know if the figure we'd been told had moldings, etc. That was the most surprising to me as a newbie was the up-in-the-air-ness of it throughout the process. Meaning they didn't do moldings, etc. until we were far enough along in the process to have mentally/emotionally committed. And then...'it's going to be HOW much more?' For us, any big up-charge was balanced by the promotion they have where if you spend $X you get $x off. And we caught a couple other good promotions (free shipping, free trash insert cabinet).

For the extra storage, if it WAS more and was a reasonable amount more, I'd go for the frameless. I'd keep old appliances or go with lesser ones, vs. compromising on cabinets.

And I'd be remiss to say we have NOT been happy with the services we bought through HD. We should have just bought the cabinets and either GC'd ourselves or hired a different one. Protections through HD, yes. Ease, no. Lack of communication and too many people to deal with, absolutely. But cabinets...love them.

Thanks! It's my understanding that Design Kraft is the same thing, but sold through independent showrooms.
I will try to get an estimate tomorrow.

Yes, I might have spelled it wrong in my opening, but that's my understanding too.

We have frameless cabinets from Ultracraft and love them. Definetely do frameless especially if you have all lower cabinets as drawers like we do. The biggest selling point for Ultracraft is that they do any size modification for free-so I was able to use every single bit of our tiny kitchen. We went from a 14X8 galley with three doorways to a 11X8 galley but I don't miss the extra space one bit. Infact, I have left over space in my upper cabinets. It is pricey compared to Ikea and like but we would have not gotten all the custom sizing if we had gone with Ikea. Shipping was prompt and all the pieces came packaged beautifully. GC messed up one drawer front on install and the replacement did take time to come in. But, I am not completely sure the company was the source of the delay. We also did consider Innermost and it was around the same price for our layout. Though, if you order during one of the HD specials, you could save a bunch more. However, our GC was flat out against dealing with HD and didn't want to take responsibility for the cabinets. So we chose Ultracraft(after lots of deliberation) and are very happy. I must have read every frameless cabinet thread there is on this forum. Try a google search-you will get a bunch of different companies that you can look up. I also looked at Holiday, DeWils, Barker. Shiloh has a frameless line though I am not sure how it prices out. Brookhaven is likely to be more $$ but it is beautiful. Good Luck-it is nerve wracking but so worth it in the end!

Thank you everyone for sharing you input despite loving the look of inset, I now want frameless since I need all the room I can get. I have had so many setbacks in my life, I will have time to get what I want after tax season and know what counter I want by then. I am learning a lot. Meanwhile I love my new big tile floors and my night LED recessed lights so I will have the right lighting to view the cabinet door colors this time and know it is how everything goes together that counts.

I would love to not have so many fillers but I will have to compare prices.

I checked out Barker, but it seems to me that they only sell online, they don't have dealers, is that right? Shiloh, UltraCraft and Brookhaven are all coming in over 20K. I was hoping to spend less than that. I will try to price out DeWils and I think Holiday is also pretty expensive.

You are correct that Barker only sells online but if you are on a budget, as I was, I would check them out. We used them for our kitchen remodel and they provided absolutely top quality cabinets for a price that was exactly what I was budgeted for. Our 15x11 kitchen came in at just about exactly half what your quotes are coming it at...with all 3/4" plywood construction, all lower drawers, floor - ceiling pantry, soft close doors/drawers...all the bells & whistles.

20K would be an average number for an average kitchen redo. It's right in line for mid grade quality. Hard to say anything else without seeing a layout. If you are handy, then the put together yourself cabinets can help with your budget. Just don't underestimate the amount of work that it can be. If you need to reduce your costs, look at the layout and eliminating some of the wants first. That's always the first place to look.

I believe that there have been positive reports on Conestoga Cabinets via online seller The Cabinet Authority, as well as many positives re Barker. Plus their sizes are customizable.

Ikea is probably the rock bottom price for good cabinets, and exciting for the organization options at a budget price; but you are limited to their standard sizes unless you are creative and willing to piece together odd sizes from their components. In my case, I would have had to create a smaller corner cabinet by either cutting down one of theirs and figuring out a door solution, or putting 2 base cabinets together, and would have had to create a 9" cabinet out of a bottle rack. In many kitchens, though, that is not really an issue because the standard pieces fit in the current space.

You can also look for a local cabinet maker who does frameless. I found mine by googling "frameless cabinets (my state)" His price came in between Ikea and Barker and he did a very nice job.