I have hard Walzcraft is awesome, has great customer
service and quality wood doors and drawer fronts.
http://walzcraft.com/

I have heard of these others too but If it were me I would
probably go with Walzcraft unless I could get the doors
inexpensively through HD or Lowes.

Outwater Plastics
http://www.outwatercatalogs.com/lg_display.cfm/catalog/2009_Master/page/372

Cabinet Door Store
http://www.cabinetdoorstore.com/

KitchenDoor Depot
http://www.kitchendoordepot.com/

America's cab door shop
http://www.cabinetdoorshop.com/home.php

You are so lucky to have a talented husband. The money
you will save and have a beautiful kitchen too.
~boxer

Most home stores have cabinet re-facing programs from which you can order doors and related accessories (including skins). In my experience many of the counter top places we visited also had door displays. Lot's of on-line choices as well. How crucial your match is depends on the type of cabinet your DH is making - with frameless you don't need an exact match on the edges and exposed ends can be covered with a finished door or panel. Some companies use specific paint companies and can give you the code. If they don't do that you can order a sample door and get the colour matched at a paint store or buy the doors unfinished and have them sprayed locally with a paint of your choice.

My understanding is you order the doors to fit the cabinets.

We really only see frameless in Canada so I don't know if you glaze the face frames in framed cabinetry - I"m guessing no if you are doing full overlay.

ALot of people have been happy with Scherrs.

OOOOO... that Walzcraft has some beautiful stuff. Thanks boxer!

Maybe this is too blunt a comment...I'm sorry

If your husband is a furnature/cabinet maker, I would think he should know where to source the doors. If he isn't, I wouldn't think he should be making the boxes but rather assembling them.

With Scherrs you assemble the boxes and they ship you everything. (I haven't used) or there is always assemble yourself ones in Lowes/HD.

I'm not sure how much you save by building cabinets yourself from materials if you don't have supplier hookups and a real familiarity with workflow

Thanks for the input so far!

Boxerpups, you are always a wealth of info. Thank you so much. And yes, I am very lucky, my DH has been doing our renovation from wood flooring to electrical to landscaping to knocking down walls and hanging drywall. I have posted many pictures of his work on the Home Decorating side of this site. We could have never purchased this house if we had to pay someone to do all this. He has been at his dad's side building homes since he was a child, built our wall unit, bedroom furniture, etc. For those items, he made the doors/drawer fronts himself.

Thank you for the tips, cary and remodel!

Chris-ahhh, what can I say. You don't know my husband or me, so I will just ignore your comment. If you do not want to answer the question posed on a thread, then just don't answer it. BTW, it is furnIture.

We had good luck with Evans cabinet and Doors(someone recommended them on this forum a few years back). We ordered all new unfinished door and drawer fronts from them. The doors were of great quality(we got the cheapest raised panel option- paint grade maple frame with MDF raised panel- since we were painting them.) They even predrilled for the blum hinges as well(for a small cost- the hinges were included). The price has gone up a small amount since we did our kitchen for resale 2 years ago, but still reasonable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Evans Cabinets and doors

Chris, I am wondering where you read that her DH was a cabinet/furniture maker. I don't see that in her original post.

Even if he is one, not every custom cabinet/furniture maker uses outside sources for doors and boxes. Many of them do everything in their own shop and would have no need to establish those types of connections, especially one-man or very small businesses.

My cabinet company is 100% custom down to the 16th of an inch, but they have created their own line - they order the boxes from one company, doors from another, hardware from another, decorative elements from another, etc. This is the exception for custom people, not the norm as far as I understand it.

lishanna-That is an excellent link, thank you very much! I was poking around on it a bit and I like what I see.

thank you, needssometips. :)

I think the way to approach this is to consider why you are having DH build your cabinets. Is it purely for cost savings? Do you need custom cabinets in order for your kitchen to work?

If you are in it just to have inexpensive cabinets but don't need everything custom fit I would suggest looking at the Ikea carcasses and perhaps custom doors from Scherrs. The benefit here is a great cost savings on the hardware (Blum) but also a great time savings compared to building the carcass from scratch.

If you do need custom cabinets I really do hope DH is properly setup for this task. I am not doubting his ability for there are some issues to overcome and consider.
1-Interior finish
For durability you pretty much either need a catalyzed lacquer (ie: spray booth setup with ventilation) or a pre-coated material such as Melamine. There are some places where you can buy cabinet grade plywood with a pre-applied finish but this should be sourced before starting work.
2-Sheet sizing
DH will need a way to safely handle and cut down 4x8 sheets of material with furniture grade accuracy. Either a really good table saw with a large outfeed table or a panel saw setup (like the sheet cutter you see in HomeDepot or Lowes). Either way if he doesn't have this prepare to budget $1-2k for tools.
3-Workshop space
This is a balance of how quickly the cabinets are made vs how much space you have. In order to make them efficiently I would plan on monopolizing the space equivalent to a 2-car garage to turn in his cabinet factory. You will also need this space climate controlled for wood stability and finishing.

I don't mean to seem down, I personally would have loved to be in the situation to make our cabinetry as I am a woodworker at heart. When you start looking at the setup it becomes impractical unless you already own most of the tools and have a workshop available.

Best of Luck!

dirtymartini: I have no advice to offer about where to buy the cabinets and doors, but I did want to encourage you to pursue this. One of the most amazing all time favorite kitchens on this board was done by pharaoh, a member who made his own cabinets. Perhaps he can chime in or you can send him an email. I look forward to hearing about your progress.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pharaoh's kitchen

dirtymartini, I feel your pain! When hubby and I decided to make our own kitchen cabinets we got TONS of nasty remarks about not having the skill, not being able to finish, blah blah blah! Well let me tell ya, cabinet boxes are EASY! And as far as finishing, I talked to some very nice cabinet makers that didn't make me feel like and idiot that gave me brands of brush on finish that is almost as good as spray. We did a clear finish instead of paint though. The cabinet grade plywood is very pretty with a clear finish.
I don't know where you are located, but we visited woodworking stores, and wood supply warehouses. Not Lowe's and HD, they really don't know a lot there. These people were wonderful! They really went above and beyond the call of duty to help us. They gave us the confidence to do this project, and we decided to go ahead and build doors too. They are turning out beautiful, if I do say so myself. I will say it has taken way longer than buying, but we are saving soooo much money. Our estimate for cabinets was $25,000 for cabinets. We will come in welllllll under $10,000, and we went with a budget busting wood. We got reclaimed wormy chestnut, one of the most expensive woods out there. And we had to buy some tools, this is included in the total amount.
Oh, and as far as Blum goes, they are nice. We used them on the upper drawers all around our kitchen. Then we found knock off glides at half the price. No, they don't glide quite as easily, but they are way nicer than side mount glides. Oh, and Kreg screws/jig are your friend for making drawer boxes.
I guess what I am trying to say in my rambling post (sorry!) is that you can do it! Ignore the nay-sayers, find people that give good advice, and go for it! Oh, and post pictures as you go please! I'm always so excited to read other DIY posts.
S
P.S. If he has a router, Freud has a fabulous bit set to make raised panel doors. Easy!
P.S.S. I'll answer any questions you have if I can, and I won't make you feel like an idiot in the process, I promise! :)

You know my cabient maker made my doors and they are gorgeous. Maybe you may like them and then hubby can make them...... I wish my DH could make me this stuff, would save a fortune! Good for you! Here are some pictures.They are not completed- I will have the same type of door with the mudroom lockers and the master kitchette is missing the other set of doors....

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awww, see, these are the kinds of posts and comments that make me warm and fuzzy inside! Thank you so much. I cannot WAIT to share this thread with DH. He is going to be so encouraged, and I am sure he will want tips and suggestions from those that have "been there, done that."

peytonroad-WOW, just GORGEOUS! I will show him these doors. You must be THRILLED with your outcome. Thank you for sharing those pictures!

silverraven-Thank you for the encouragement! am also thinking that with saving money in one way, we can spend a little more on other things. Like, for instance, I really don't care about "granite" in this house...I don't think it really matches the style of the house. We are saving a ton on the countertops, so I can apply that to my appliances...and maybe a gorgeous, artistic looking hood over the cooktop island. I think that is awesome that you got top notch wood, and I would like to do the same. I will give my DH the names Freud and Kreg and all the info you shared with me. I appreciate it, and you can expect to hear from me again! Are you on these boards often? Can I email you from your "page?"

valinsv-Thank you for that link, I will definitely try to get in touch with Pharoah to ask questions. That is impressive work, and I appreciate you posting it for me to see!

pharoah's kitchen is my all time favorite. You should see his bathroom work! OMG!... genius. I've communicated with him regarding building questions. Very helpful and genrous with his explanations.

Dirtymartini: We are in the process of redoing our kitchen and my DH is building our cabinets. DH is very handy and has done a lot of work on our home. He became interested in woodworking a couple of years ago and started to acquire many power tools needed for making cabinets. He practiced by building cabinets for the garage and then building a raised panel door to match the cabinetry in our kitchen. I was really impressed with how well the raised panel door looks. DH is also building drawers for all of the base cabinets. He is doing all of the drawers with I believe he called rabbit joinery (similar to English dovetail, but square shaped). All of the drawer boxes have half inch plywood bottoms instead of quarter inch and all of the cabinets are three quarter plywood.

So, my point is that if your DH is very handy at DIY and has the necessary power tools, etc., he should be able to build your cabinets and even your doors. The process takes a lot of time and is messy. We are both retired and DH is able to devote all of his time to this job. We like knowing exactly what materials went into our kitchen and that the job was done right. Unfortunately, we have had some disappointing experiences with some of the outside help we have used in the past. It's often true that if you want a job done right you have to do it yourself. No one cares as much about your home as you do.

Good luck and don't let your DH get discouraged.

Kathy

Blum makes more than just hinges and drawer glides. Take a look at the entire TandemBox system, which I first saw on the cabinets in the Vitsoe 606 Universal Shelving System:

Here is a link that might be useful: Blum TandemBox

Dirty Martini--
Here's a link to one of the better (priced) sources of Blum Hdwe.

Good Luck with the project!

(Oh--FYI, I wanted to mention that Walzcraft doesn't sell direct to DIY'ers. But, since DH is in business, he can probably find a way around???)

Here is a link that might be useful: AHTurf-Blum Hdwe

hi there dirtymartini and dirtymartini's DH,

I too applaud what you are doing and thoroughly respect the unvaunted skills of the inspired homeowner. We didn't build from scratch, but used recycled cabinetry and made up new doors/panels/boxes as we needed them. The really hard part for me was matching the stain, but that won't be an issue for you.

Two pieces of advice from our experience:

1. Even better than the Kreg system is Festool's Domino joiner for biscuiting joints. It's $$ but the exact German tolerances are pretty impressive and the joints are gorgeous. Really nice system that makes the process much easier and will be useful for many other projects if you can afford the initial outlay.
If you went with this, making your own shaker-style doors would be very easy.

2. We have an HPLV sprayer and used a 2-part mix-it-yourself catalyzed finish for most of our finishing work (interior and exterior of stained cabs, trim etc), but then we found a pre-catalyzed spray-can version and I quite honestly can't tell the difference in sheen or hardness/durability. It's by Mohawk and you should be able to find it at any high-quality independent finishing/paint store. (This is assuming you aren't painting, otherwise ignore.)

Our "new" end panels & feet on "old" cabinets - nobody has ever been able to tell that we added them:

Do keep us posted, there are more hard-core DIYers hanging around the forum than you'd suspect. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Mohawk finishes

You can get doors and drawer fronts (complete drawers too if you need them) from the Showplace Renew line ...

Doors made to the 1/16 of an inch and available from their same dealers who sell the completed cabinets.

Same door styles as the full cabinet line ... either finished or unfinished.

Here is a link that might be useful: Showplace Renew