There are hundreds of national and regional cabinet brands and thousands of custom cabinet makers. I'd start by looking to see what's available in your area and interview potential kitchen designers/cabinet makers based on how well they listen to your needs, the usefulness of their suggestions, and the best you can do to evaluate reputation (references, years in business, professionalism). The person doing the design is as important as the cabinet line although if you want a specific style such as modern slab front cabinets some cabinet makers will offer choices others won't.

Thank you! I have gotten a few estimates which is why I am questioning the budget. We got an estimate for around 20K for Brighton and 17K for Designers Choice (which does not seem to get good reviews). We have someone working up a price for Brookhaven as well. All of the designers so far have come up with a very similar design. The cabinet type we want is fairly simple so we have found doors we like with every company. I have done a lot of research on this site and I just don't know if we can get quality cabinets for around 12K-15....

try Schuler/Medallion/local cabinet guy. Start with $20,000. for cabinet budget alone and see if that gets you something you like....maple shaker with a light to medium stain...that's where I'd start. The 10,000 remaining: floor-lighting-counters-hardware-backsplash-paint-misc...and so forth. It's not an open kitchen plan so there can be areas you can stay modest-like moldings/omit glass doors/etc. I would have all base drawers in the quote to begin with at least.....give yourself something nice that way as far as function. Two pantry areas as well as "butler pantry" ...can you explain that? You might want to reduce the depth of butler pantry cabinet.....18 or 21 in depth for better use of it. while standing in hallway..... is that right? what is it for?

Are you having to buy new appliances or keeping the ones you have? Herbflavor's "budget" doesn't work if you also need all new appliances.

Thank you for the responses! The lady that is giving us the Brookhaven quote also has Medallion and says it will be out of our price range. I will look for a Schuler dealer. Right now what we want to turn into a butler's pantry is a closet with a rod and a few shelves. We put cans and extra cereal that doesn't fit in the smallish pantry by the oven. We would like that area to have uppers, lowers and a countertop so we can put overflow food, coffee maker and maybe glassware that isn't used much there. The wall in between the kitchen and the butler's pantry will stay. The second pantry by the fridge will only be 18 inches across. I am thinking small appliances and cans/pasta etc will be stored there. Then I will keep the majority of our food where it is now in the pantry by the oven. We are trying not to move or remove walls and keep the footprint pretty much the same to keep costs down. It is a house built in the 40's and we would like to keep the closed kitchen.

We are using all of our old appliances. I really like them! I have read that cabinets should be 35% of the budget which would put us at 10,500. Since we don't need appliances we figured we would spend more like 15K on cabinets but the estimates are coming in high.

I see we can get Shuler at Lowes! Thank you and we will check them out as well.

The big box stores often have good sales too. I know people that got HD cabinets at 30% off so were very reasonably priced. Lots of people on this site highly recommend Ikea for cabs (or Ikea plus separately purchased doors/fronts if you don't like their styles) - that would certainly be a lot cheaper. I also have a smaller kitchen and used a local cabinet place that makes custom cabs (or custom boxes and they source out the doors) and it came in under 15K - so sometimes custom can actually be cheaper.

Look up cliqstudios.com. I'm almost done with my full gut remodel and my cabs they them were 8k, putting my total at 33k including appliances.

The cabinetjoint.com and Barkercabinets.com are two online sources for frameless, custom sized, by reputation good quality cabinets. You have to do your own design and measuring but they do offer some help. I explored both of them when I was planning my reno, and felt they were both good choices.

However, I found a guy fairly local who made mine; the total was about $6k for 2 sets of base drawers, a corner, 2 pullouts, a sink base, a pantry, and 7 wall cabs.

Is IKEA within budget? People tend to be happy with them