I have Barker Cabinets and LOVE them so much!!!

I emailed Chad when I had questions and he always responded quickly. I THINK I saw something on their website encouraging using email instead of calling, not sure about that.

I didn't use a spreadsheet. My DH is an engineer so he drew up the kitchen plans and we used that software to keep track of everything we needed. The item # of each cabinet was listed directly on the plan and then he did something where all those items then listed in a checklist. It made it so easy to make sure we remembered everything.

If I am able, I would be glad to answer whatever questions I can.

Hi,

We recently received our Barker Cabinets and couldn’t be happier with the quality of the cabinets and how easy they were to put together.

I agree with dcward89, Chad prefers emails. He gets back with answers quickly, and did not seem to mind the endless questions we had. There is also a forum there where we found the answers to many of our questions, at barkerforums(dot)com

We did make a spreadsheet, only because we felt like doing it that way. We had quite a few cabinets including our kitchen, butler’s pantry, mud room and family room entertainment center. There were a lot of details to keep track of between different types of finished ends, some cabinets without toe kicks, crown moldings, fillers etc.

Also, be sure to read about the discounts offered, the list is on the “Shipping Rates” page. Somehow I missed that. By TOTAL coincidence, at the very end of the ordering process hubby had me add one extra piece of molding. All the sudden I noticed that the total price in my shopping cart dropped by 10% as a discount was applied! When I figured out what had happened I saw that we had made it to that discount by less than five dollars! Lucky thing about that extra piece of molding!

Thanks so much dcward! Did you have your cabinets painted/stained by them or did you do it yourself?

Was your estimated lead time for cabinets provided by Barker pretty accurate or did they run late/come early?

Is there anything you wish you had done differently in regards to your cabinets or your order with Barker? Obviously I'm thrilled to hear that you love them :)

We got natural cherry, no stain/paint but the finish, the catalyzed clear coat is gorgeous...no bubble, no runs...really beautiful!

Ours came about 1 week beyond the estimate. They shipped right on time but a snowstorm somewhere between Oregon and Ohio held up the shipment a couple days...no fault of Barker.

As Isnel stated above, it was completely overwhelming when the 4 huge pallets were delivered. I just didn't know where to start!!! Luckily DH is the calm, quiet, methodical type and we got through it all. We had 0 damage in shipping. The only problem with our order was we were missing a lazy susan for one of our base corner cabinets. It was on the order and it showed up on the shipping paperwork but it just wasn't there. I emailed Chad on the Friday they were delivered and, no questions asked, he sent out another one and it arrived on the following Tuesday.

I have absolutely no regrets about our cabinets. To be honest, I was scared to death because it was such an unknown thing to me...ordering a whole kitchen worth of cabinets...but they are just beautiful and my husband and I agree, the best decision we made in the whole kitchen. We were able to get the quality of cabinet we wanted, high quality hardware, made in America including American grown hardwood AND still stay within our budget. As you can see I am a HUGE cheerleader for Barker!!!

You guys are making me feel sooo much better about going this direction. Do they offer any customization at all or is it "what you see is what you get?"

What do you mean by customization? All their cabinets can be ordered in whatever size you need...I think to the 1/2 or 1/4 inch. We ended up with only 1 tiny 2" filler between the pantry and wall which was necessary for the pantry door to open properly. Besides that, every inch of space was utilized in our small-ish kitchen.

I think the awesomeness of Barker is indeed in 'what you see is what you get'. But with that, there are a lot of options, including customization of size to 1/4 inch in every dimension, wood type, stains, door fronts, drawer box material, etc. You just have to click all the options on every cabinet you order which is time consuming and labor intensive. You have to have a list of everything you want before you start ordering. It's like ordering very very many Chipotle burritos, you have to go in order and select every part.

I also found the Barker Forums (found under the 'contact us') button helpful, as people have asked same questions as myself before and they were already answered there complete with pictures from Chad.

Edited to add that you can order sample doors and/or cabinet to check it out. I ordered a couple of doors with the paint color and profiles I wanted to check the quality and look before deciding to go with them.

Check out my thread about Scherr's RTA cabinets. I have posted a bunch of pictures with an explanation of the process. It is a very similar process to Barker's. The big difference is the ability to have Scherr's work up the order, more customization options and they do more finishes. You can use email, but they encourage you to call with your questions.

I think you would be happy with either company. The both make nice cabinets.

Has anyone done a direct price comparison between Scherr's and Barker's?

I tried to check out Scherr's when I was researcing...found their website but something about their website was just not intuitive to me at all. I'm sure their product is good...they have as many good reviews here as Barker does...but their website and their process really threw me off and it made me not want to pursue them any further. I liked that I could get instant pricing from Barker instead of having to submit something and wait. I'm not knocking Scherr's at all...it just didn't feel like the right choice for me.

Dcward89, I told Leon Scherr that his website was old and clunky. He said a new one was in development. Essentially, you fill out the form, he emails and calls you. Then you can iron out any issues when you talk to him.

I bet they will see an uptick in business when they do upgrade. I just disregarded doing business with them because it was not easy.

lol @ lenzai's description of It's like ordering very very many Chipotle burritos

Heh thanks. Can you tell I was hungry when I wrote that?

Ours arrived the other day. We are building, so I was not able to measure the exactness of what I needed. My fingers are crossed most of everything will fit into place. If not, I will just have to order a few different things. I had a wonderful experience with Barker. The prices are great and you can get nearly any size you want in most anything. My husband gets back into town this week. Once he is back, we will start putting them together and I can report back and share pics. We have cabs for our master bath and our kitchen. I hope I can remember which is which! lol I hope he has patience, as I know I will be overwhelmed! Wish us luck.

Did anyone use their cabinet vision software? It's making me want to pull my hair out! So now I'm trying to come up with an alternate way to get the best layout.

I didn't try to use their software (I think they introduced it after I started working on my layout and I like the ability to be able to do things offline). I used Home Designer Interiors (about $80) to get the general 3D look of what I wanted and elevations. For the actual cabinet specifics I used a giant spreadsheet and Powerpoint with a grid template to lay everything out and lots and lots of numbers. That was the easiest to keep tweaking the widths - worked well since i'm numbers obsessed in general.

I couldn't figure out cabinet vision either. I used the Ikea one for just a general idea of what it would look like. It's pretty easy to figure out and although it doesn't have completely custom sizes, you can get a general idea You can move things around easily and put in different colors, cabinet styles, etc. http://kitchenplanner.ikea.com/US/UI/Pages/VPUI.htm

Then, as I said above, my DH drew it up in Solidworks so we could get it down to the exact measurements we needed.

I'd love to see the finished Barker cabinets of those on gardenweb who have installed them already!

Has anyone priced out Barker vs. Ikea?

KL I priced both along with Conestoga RTA cabinets. Ikea was by far the cheapest, especially with their current promo but I just couldn't get past the white interior they have now and I wasn't in love with their door options. I ruled Barker out for a few reasons but limited paint options was one of them. And I'm super close on ordering my conestoga cabinets and I'm super excited :)

I'm interested in Barker, too. Would love to see more completed Barker kitchens! For you that went with Barker, did you install yourself? Is it trickier for installation of frameless? I don't know where to start or who to hire!

This is a recent 99% finished pic of our Barker kitchen...the only thing left to do is the light rails. I have a ton of pics on Photobucket but I need to download them to my laptop before I can post them on this new site.

We did the whole remodel ourselves except electrical. Assembly was super simple and we had no issues with installation...just the usual time consuming leveling, leveling, leveling issues. We really love our cabinets. I'll see if I can get a few key pics downloaded to show them off!!!

I've price-compared Barkers vs IKEA as they are both on my short list. It's easy enough for anyone to do, given you can estimate them both on-line on your couch. In my case, when I put all the bells and whistles into the plan - including a wall of pantry cabinets, crown, toe kick, light rail, etc - it came to something like 13K for Barkers, 8K for IKEA with the most expensive (acrylic) doors and 5K for basic IKEA doors. Those numbers are rough estimates - and using the old IKEA system in late 2014.

@Steph -- thanks, this is really helpful! I find the Barker site a bit overwhelming and trying to figure out the price by adding each and every piece to my cart made me a bit queasy. Your ballpark is very helpful.

My quotes were very close to Steph. There was around $9k of difference between ikea and Barker. In the end I chose conestoga because of wanting to be able to talk to someone about my order and get just that extra bit of reassurance.

Glad to help. For contrast, this kitchen was heading up towards 20K in Bellmont 1900. I'm only looking at frameless, so all of my quotes have been in that direction.

I have one issue with my barker alder cabs. I ordered them unfinished as the finishes they provided were too light. I can't for the life of me stain them without blotchiness. I wouldn't have this problem if they were all slab fronts. It's the inset panel part that is totally different from the outer part of the drawers and doors. It's really thin and is impossible to stain to match the raised thicker wood of the cab.

I've tried everything. So, we are just going to have our painter paint them. I have them finish my white cabs on site and they are gorgeous. It all has worked out.

I just wanted to make the suggestion to not try and stain the alder cabs yourselves unless it's a clear coat. Or maybe have them apply a clear coat and then use a gel stain over it. That might have worked for me. Not sure though.

Aktillery9, I ordered my island cabinets unfinished from Barker. I first considered staining them, however I searched "staining alder wood" which brought me to the Woodweb forum discussion about it, and have decided to paint them. They did give some good tips on how to get better results with alder if you want to check them out.

Thanks Design. I think I am now more into the idea of painting them anyway. Guess it worked out for the best!