Waypoint is the same as Shenendoah, American Woodmark. It’s not lines that I would use unless you are on a severe budget. They do have quality control and shipping issues. About half of the cabinets I’ve gotten from them have no foam wrapping in the box. Just cardboard. And glue lines everywhere. Yes they will give you new cabinets for the defective ones. Eventually. But they won’t pay for the delays and trip charges to your contractors.

Of the ones you listed, Plato is head and shoulders above the rest. It’s truly beautiful kitchen furniture. 100% better than Waypoint comes at a price. Dura Supreme is next. They have wonderful traditional cabinets, and a real way with modern designs as well. They are going to be a lot more than 30% above Waypoint. And worth it. They both are lovely cabinets and built very well. Not a fan of Koch. Dealer and rep support is not good. That can make or break someone’s experience with them. Skip the Costco debacle experience entirely.

17K in Waypoint is a bigger than average cost. Your biggest price driver will be the size of the space. Second will be all of the upgrades. Everything is an upgrade. Drawers are upgrades. Taller cabinets are upgrades. Moldings are upgrades. It adds up.

This is a DuraSupreme kitchen. Lots of no extra charge custom sizes, including a 7” tray base next to the range, and extended stiles to clear the deep door casings. The uppers are a custom height, to fit exactly above the window, and carry that line all the way across the room. The giant crown was existing, and to reuse it, we did an extended top rail for use as a mounting strip. This was right at 35K a few years ago.

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"Shop A.....pushing a manufacturer I'd never heard of before, praising them to high heaven..... issues with the cabinetry, which the resolution was me paying my installer more money to fix the issues."

If a business gives me bad advice or product, I avoid using them again.

I just installed a cheaper WayPoint cabinets. Mostly came intact, but agree about glue lines. A few of the doors came in with paint bubbles/rough finishes. For similar pricing, I was told FabuWood had better box construction.

Good luck with your remodel.

I disrecommend Fabuwood, and any other imported product.

I have no idea of the size of your kitchen so comparing pricing is pretty useless, BTW your contractor works for you and if they don’t like your cabinets that is not their problem they are hired to do what you want. More than welcome to voice their opinion . I have never heard of most of these cabinet companies but generally if my client has budget constraints I go Ikea I have used Ikea for more than 20 Yrs and so few issues I could count them on one hand. I have had them in my last 2 kitchens not one issue .If my clients have the budget and want a specific wood then I go custom.

@User " 17K in Waypoint is a bigger than average cost. Your biggest price driver will be the size of the space. Second will be all of the upgrades. Everything is an upgrade. Drawers are upgrades. Taller cabinets are upgrades. Moldings are upgrades. It adds up. "

Trying to outfit cabinetry for:

one 6' length against a wall (both base and uppers)

one island (total 8' of base cabs)

One L-shape (13' wall with no windows, connecting to another 16' wall - about 9' of that has windows so not as much is uppers)

What the $17k includes, from my understanding:

Two 21" wall cabs

One 27" wall cab w/ microwave shelf

One 27" wall cab

One corner wall cab

Two 36" wall cabs

One pair over-the-refrig wall cabs

One tall cab w/ 4 roll-out-shelves

One 15" base single-can trash

One 36" sink base

One 36" super susan base

One 18" four-drawer base

One 30" two-drawer base for pots

One 18" double-can trash

Two 36" one-drawer/base with shelf (21" deep)

Three 24" one-drawer/base with shelf

Any other ROTS, specialty stuff, aren't included, and neither are moldings.

"Skip the Costco debacle experience entirely." Can I add all big box stores? @User

Your KD is critical to all, whether cheap or expensive cabinets.

My impression is the big box "Free Design" comes with little experience vetting and minimal training.

Regarding assessing cabinet quality.... look carefully at demo installations. Look under the uppers, the end pieces. How do they match? Look at the joints showing.

We just finaled a Kraftmaid home for move in. The thermofoil doors in the baths are awesome but that's were the quality ended. We are waiting for the 3rd shot at the last replacement door, approaching a year since order. The painted doors were lacking in quality control, inconsistent, with a tremendous number of corner chips at delivery, a pile of replacement doors shipped with the original load, with more arriving every few weeks, often damaged in shipping. Apparently they flag problems as they are produced, but don't fix before shipping. Doors with different edge radiuses, varying door sizes in vertical stacks up to 3/16", almost 100% of all doors over 36" had warpage I wouldn't accept from my custom supplier. Replacement shipments were about 40% failures, mixed with shipping damage and incorrect replacements. Side by side uppers in the kitchen were shipped with doors installed at different heights, beyond their cheezy hinge adjustment capabilities, so we reinstalled a few doors. Finish end panels in laminate that were poor matches to the paint (KD said the rep called them "matching veneer"). Several adjacent uppers have clearance issues when hing sides of doors are butt to butt. I'm guessing that's a KD issue.

That’s a not a classic 10x12 kitchen. Its practically double that. It’s not surprising to get a 17K Waypoint quote. It would be very very easy to get a 50K+ mid grade cabinet quote for the size kitchen that you are talking about. That’s double the average 20-25K cabinet costs for a mid grade. Because you have basically double the size. Islands are expensive real estate, and count double, as they have to be finished on all 4 sides. Base cabinets in a run only get finished ends when they are exposed. Tall cabinets and tall wall cabinets, and all of it adds up in a quality line. Sometimes moving up a bit to a higher quality a line can actually reduce the upgrade costs because the higher the line, the more accommodating they are with the changes being lower cost or free.

”I'm guessing that's a KD issue.”

It’s twofold. Box stores have no real training that’s worth calling it that. And the basic KM that a box store can get isn’t the Vantage a dealer gets.

@User Our current kitchen is approx. 10'x13', with the main pathway directly through the kitchen on a diagonal - entering from the dining room and going to the exterior door leading to the patio. It doesn't have nearly enough storage nor countertop in our current configuration.

I know it would save a lot of money if we kept the existing footprint, but it just doesn't seem to work for us. Maybe if I describe the existing footprint, it might help give some suggestions/ideas?

Existing footprint is an "L" shape, two walls both 10'.

Back wall, left to right:

One 24" wide base cabinet

One 24" dishwasher

One 6' sinkbase; sink is on the left side of the base, and extends to the corner wall as a blind base cabinet.

That run of countertop is pretty much useless: from left to right, there's a large microwave sitting on the countertop (above the 24" base), and then the countertop above the dishwasher has drain grooves leading to the sink (really inconvenient for rolling out pie dough!) To the right of the sink, there's about 2' of countertop between the sink edge and the corner wall edge. It's difficult to use, as I'm short. I literally need to get a stool to stand on in order to reach into the corner.

Continuing the "L" shape from the corner, turning onto the 2nd wall:

One 15" cabinet (that's really the entirety of my current prep space)

One 30" stove

One 15" cabinet (4 drawers) (that countertop is occupied by the 4-slice toaster)

You might notice that if someone is standing at the sink, and someone else is standing at the stove, we are literally bumping each other. If the person at the sink uses more than 15" of floor space to stand in, then they are stepping into the person at the stove. And that's happened, more than once - in one case, I nearly ended up dropping an entire large stockpot of boiling water and pasta on me when I went to turn to the sink to drain the pasta and found the space already occupied.

Dura Supreme is a great cabinet line. I’ve used it several times. I’ve never used Plato, but have a friend that is a dealer for it. It’s gorgeous. They have a secondary line called Innovae, I believe. Similar to how Omega has Dynasty, and others also have less optioned less specified lines. Dynasty is another good line to investigate if you’re looking at that niche above mid level but less than upscale full custom.

I detest Waypoint-American Woodmark. There are cheaper options if you’re trying to go cheap, and much better quality if you’re choosing lower mid quality. Diamond Vibe (Kemper Echo), Medallion Silverline, or Kraftmaid One/Merillat Classic occupy that niche much better.

You’re going to have double the costs for everything when you start doubling the size of your kitchen. It takes a standard 65K kitchen remodel to a 130K remodel. Or a standard 130K upscale remodel and doubles that to a 260K remodel. It is what it is. If that’s what you want, that’s what it costs. If thst isn’t a big deal, then keep going. If you do want to control costs more, get creative inside the existing footprint. It’s far cheaper to move a range or a sink, and stay small, than doubling your kitchen size.

Will the planned result even be proportionate to the home size or your neighborhood? Or the quality level? Will it outshine your neighbors? If it doesn’t fit the house and neighborhood, then you’re losing even more money than the usual 30-40% loss on expense of the usual kitchen remodel.

IMO all base cabinets should be all drawers no one wants to get down on hands and knees to get stuff from the old style base cabinets with a shelf. If you are doing this do it right Get an actual KD not a salesperson and up your budget to do what will be a laong term investment I would still need to see the layout of the space all those cabinets have no context so how would we know how they go together at all. POt storage should be IMO at least 2 x30” drawer cabinets with 2 deep drawers and the a shallow pair of drawers at the top these will provide storage for all the utensils you need for cooking. You need a drawrs for spice storage not next to the stove what you need is a good design and then price out cabinets. So a to scale floor plan posted here will get you some good ideas.

@Aglitter Wow, thank you for the extensive write-up on Plato! Given that the one KD said that for their semi-custom Prelude line, they would be about 2x as much as Waypoint, the only way I could consider Plato's Prelude would be to hold off on the reno for a couple more years to save up more money. And since I would prefer a stain vs. paint - that's something to note too. Finding that balance of timing, price, quality, etc. is going to be a challenge.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting I'm trying to find the right balance of functionality, cost, quality, etc. If I had an unlimited budget - that would be great. But, I don't have an unlimited budget. In addition to the cabinets, I need to have money for flooring, electrical, plumbing, countertop, and carpentry.

" If you are doing this do it right Get an actual KD not a salesperson and up your budget".

From a NKBA-cited site, about 28% of the cost of a remodel is cabinetry. If my top budget is $50k, and holding back about $5k for unknowns/overruns, then the "safe" max budget is $45k. Then 28% of 45K is $12,600. So, using that average formula - I should be allotting about $12,600 for my cabinetry. Going above $50k isn't an option - that's my top HELOC limit.

I've been to a few cabinet shops with individuals who say they are KD's. I've also been to the big box stores with their KD's. I recognize that the experience and training of a KD is going to vary a lot, whether they are at a big box store, or at a specialty cabinetry store.

So, I guess a question is: How do you define who is, or isn't, a KD?

If I go by the NKBA website, then within a 20-mile range in all directions, there are only 9 people who are certified as KD's in a very large area.

Chiming in about KraftMaid.

When we redid our Kitchen and Powder Room in 2008, we used Omega Dynasty (with some Custom/Pinnacle) in the Kitchen and KraftMaid in the Powder Room. Both cabinets are stained wood.

Fast forward to 2019...

My Kitchen still looks new -- in fact, I had a party last weekend and someone who had never been to my home before assumed I had just redone my Kitchen. When I told her my Kitchen was over 11 years old, she was bowled over! She couldn't believe it (and immediately started grilling me for details, including KD and cabinet brand!) [This happens at every party...I'm always getting amazed reactions and compliments on my Kitchen from new people!]

The Powder Room, on the other hand, is definitely showing wear on the doors...and they've had far, far less use than the Kitchen cabinets!

My DH had originally questioned why we spent so much on our Kitchen cabinets when we could have gone much cheaper with KraftMaid...he no longer questions our (my) decision! He loves how our Kitchen cabinets are holding up (vs not so much the KM in the Powder Room).

.

My recommendation -- Omega! (They also have awesome Customer Service, as I discovered when I had issues with my KD's design company! When I called Omega directly, they immediately took care of my issues and told me not to worry -- they'd deal with the design company.)

@User It's hard to compare our house to the neighboring houses. My house is a bi-level with an addition for the living room area.

There are a few other bi-levels in the area, and I'd say about half have renovated. In some cases, they've built on additions for their expanded kitchens. A bi-level that was recently flipped had a completely renovated kitchen - but to be honest, I wasn't impressed with their layout revisions.

However, directly across from my house is the beginning of a newer development - "McMansions", where the smallest house has about 4,500 square feet and the larger ones are closer to 8,00 square feet, with huge gourmet kitchens, attached dining nooks, walk-in pantries, and then a huge dining room.

So I wouldn't be over-improving my house when compared to the McMansions - and frankly, there's no way to even begin to compare to those houses. Of course, they list for about 1.5x to 2.5x what my house would list for..

Compared to the few bi-levels that are in our neighborhood - I don't think the kitchen renovation would over-improve our house, but I do think as long as a prospective buyer doesn't mind not having a dedicated dining room, the renovation would be a good thing. And since our dining room is relatively small (10'x13', with part of that being passage to the kitchen) - the dining room feels cramped anyhow as it is.

@helaurin93 Based on your budget and number of cabinets, I'd strongly encourage you to give IKEA a go. They have a sale on right now, too, for cabinetry. Their construction standards are surprisingly good compared to the cost. If you want more door options, you can do something from Semihandmade to add to IKEA boxes. @Patricia Colwell Consulting is Houzz's resident expert on IKEA customization. Maybe she'll share some links of examples of her work that looks both modern and professional.

I have mentioned to the OP if she could post a to scale floor plan I could maybe help her get a good idea of the cost for an Ikea kitchen but honestly the size of the kitchen wriiten out is not enough, As to her question about KDs cabonet salws people are not KDs they sell cabinets that is their job. If there are 9 true KDs in her area that is a huge bonus.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting I remember seeing photos of your own customized kitchen in another thread somewhere, but the project isn't linked to your bio. It didn't at all look like what you might think an IKEA kitchen would be because of your customization work. Would you mind sharing photos or a link for the OP of that kitchen or some of your other IKEA projects? I've also read that people are putting IKEA into million-dollar homes now, so the customer base has become quite broad.

OP is giving a budget of $12,600 for 21 cabinets and roughly half a dozen interior accessories. Anything but IKEA for that budget and that breadth would be inferior in quality, based on my understanding from a year's research into the cabinetry market unless maybe the OP was interested in building RTA cabinetry.

I will try to post a floor plan tonight - both of the existing kitchen dimension, and the proposed kitchen dimension.

@Patricia Colwell Consulting If I go to the closest KD, these are their options for cabinetry brands, which I don't know much about:

Aristokraft

Bertch bath

Medallion

Plain & Fancy

Wolf

Elmwood

What is your cabinet budget? You seem to indicate that it’s well beyond Waypoint by asking about much better quality. Then there’s some assumption that IKEA won’t even be adequate for your budget. If that is the case, then the remodel isn’t realistic in breadth or budget. Which is it?

@User I haven't broken out a budget specific to each piece of the project - and perhaps that's part of the problem. I know that as a grand total, I'd like to keep the entire project cost to $45k or lower - including cabinets, drywall, flooring, electrical, lighting, plumbing, countertops, and a new stove, labor to install everything, painting, backsplash, etc. My home was recently valued at $419k, so the budget is slightly more than 10% of the home value.

What I don't need to replace is the refrigerator, dishwasher, and the kitchen faucet - those were all replaced within the past 2-3 years. And the hardwood in the current dining room doesn't need replacing, but the flooring int he current kitchen is an older laminate - that needs to come up and have hardwood installed to match the rest of the house. That's about 140 sf, give or take, of flooring.

And it might be, from what I'm getting the sense of, is that $45k for a kitchen renovation is not enough.

I've heard both good and bat things about Ikea products (like anything else). One thing I've heard is that they look good for a couple of years, but that they don't hold up well to incidental exposure to water, pet nails/scratches and even getting bumped into.

45K is enough for cabinets for a space your size. Cabinets are usually 30% of the overall budget when you are paying pros to do it for you. Or, it’s enough to do a whole DIY labor remodel for a space half your size.

As a %, the usual figures are 20-25% of home value when making structural changes and doing a kitchen redo. As a national average, 66K for your average middle priced 12x15 kitchen. Without structural changes. https://www.remodeling.hw.net/cost-vs-value/2019/

Your budget may benefit from more work, and may need to be raised. Talk to people in your area who have re-done their kitchens recently.

We re-did our kitchen five years ago and spent something over 50K, not including the floors and painting, which we were doing throughout the house. Our project did not include structural work, we are in a low-cost area, and our space is 8' by 12'. Cabinets (installed) were almost half the price!

Definitely take advantage of the expertise here to get the most from your budget and space.

Are you eliminating a dining area in exchange for a large island? Another helpful source of information is local real estate agents. You may not be planning to sell, but you don't want to make a substantial investment that makes your house hard to sell!

@User and @latifolia Raising the budget isn't a possibility. Long-and-short of it - I'm the only one who is/will be paying for the renovation, and I'm not comfortable taking on even more debt than what the HELOC would allow for.

I'm in my mid-50's, still have a fair chunk of the original mortgage to pay, and am also raising my grandchild. I feel that if I don't plan to do the kitchen renovation in the next year or so and then allow myself a few years to pay off the resulting HELOC debt.... it won't ever happen. My thought is that if I do the renovation soon, then I'll have just enough time(5 years) to hopefully get it paid down before my grandchild will need me to take out parent-based loans for her to go to college. I'm expect she'll qualify for a few scholarships, but these days it is rare that scholarships will cover everything. I'm not planning to sell, but I do want the house to be in pretty decent shape in case I kick the bucket - if it happens while my granddaughter is a minor, it may need to be sold, and if she's 18 by then, she'll probably want to be able to still live here - and she shouldn't need to be saddled with the house needing major work when she's a young adult if she ends up inheriting it. Not that I'm expecting to kick the bucket any time soon, but I have to be aware of that possibility. I also have to be aware of the possibility that I might live another 30-40 years in this house too, LOL.

I have spoken to a few realtors; they seem to feel that with both the kitchen and dining room being cramped, I wouldn't be hurting the house value by combining the two spaces into a single eat-in kitchen and losing the dining room. The dining room at 10'x13 is on the smaller side - and part of that space has to be kept clear to go from the hallway through the dining room to get to the kitchen.

Comparing this to car-shopping....I certainly don't want cabinetry comparable to a Yugo or a '71 Ford Pinto. But nor can I afford this renovation to be the equivalent of a BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, or Cadillac. Something in the range of a Chevy or Subaru is where I'm hoping to be, if that makes any sense. Obviously, I'm not expecting to get Lexus quality for the price of a Subaru; but I also don't want something that will HAVE to be redone again in the next 20 years because it's falling apart, etc.)

One possibility might be to keep approximately the same footprint (10'x13') for the kitchen and dining room, but then some of the current issues, such as traffic flow to get to the kitchen, wouldn't be solved, and I doubt I'd be able to get much more storage out of the kitchen if we kept it as a 10'x13' room, and that's a problem as well. Not to mention the issues of having the sink and stove practically on top of each other.

It might help to understand that the current kitchen cabinets that I'm living with have numerous issues, even beyond just the layout of the kitchen issues. The current cabinets do not have any adjustable shelves, they are literally cut into the frame of the cabinets (I suspect to help give them strength). Anything taller than about 7" will not fit in an upper cabinet.

Several of the base cabinets do not even have full sides - they are partially open. I have to say, it is entirely possible for a mouse to come up the kitchen sink pipe, take a stroll out of that cabinet since it doesn't have full sides, duck under the adjacent dishwasher, and then hop into the next base cabinet since on the other side of the dishwasher since that doesn't have a full side either. We figured that out when we tried keeping cereal in the base cabinet... some mouse had a field day. Now, we keep the cereal on top of the refrigerator, and only keep cans in the base cabinet. We have plenty of field mice in our area; one year, even our dogs were running even with the cats for mice caught. Our dogs were catching them in the backyard; the cats were catching them in the house. We live in a suburb, but it borders on a somewhat rural area, we've had deer sleep in our backyard, raccoons, snakes, voles, foxes, tree lizards, etc. all in our yard. Evan an possum briefly thought our house might make a good place to winter over; poor thing was pretty traumatized when he/she realized that the house already had human occupants and left in a hurry. So I'm really looking forward to someday having cabinets that actually have sides to keep things contained properly, and shelves that adjust in wall cabs, and ROTS/drawers in base cabs. And not having the sink & stove be dangerously close to each other, and not having to have the only main base cabinet and dishwasher be inaccessible if someone has the door to the patio open (that door opens inward and blocks those areas of the kitchen).

@helaurin93 "And it might be, from what I'm getting the sense of, is that $45k for a kitchen renovation is not enough. I've heard both good and bad things about Ikea products (like anything else). One thing I've heard is that they look good for a couple of years, but that they don't hold up well to incidental exposure to water, pet nails/scratches and even getting bumped into."

You're right! $45K for a kitchen renovation that includes 21 cabinets with 7 interior accessories in a brand with quality in the upper-mid-grade to high-end bracket such as you seem to be seeking plus drywall, electrical and plumbing changes as you cited, natural stone countertops I am assuming to go with your quality cabinetry plus a new floor isn't possible unless you are a builder getting rock-bottom discounts on generic supplies. The posters here are simply trying to save you time. You'll find out with your own research and quote gathering that to hit your stated limit of $12,600 for cabinetry and total of $45,000 overall, you won't be getting a Lamborghini for a Toyota price. I'll comment briefly on the additional cabinetry brands you asked about, as follows:

• IKEA = In my previous comment, I suggested IKEA with Semihandmade doors to get your natural wood fronts that you're wanting. Most of the water damage you may have heard about with IKEA is coming from edge banding that isn't sealed perhaps as well as it could be, usually on the doors since most of the water that is dripped in kitchens lands on doors. If you use a solid wood Semihandmade door, you'll minimize this risk. To get a brand that offers a total seal around edge banding, you'll need to increase your budget. I have an IKEA walk-in master closet with which I am extremely pleased relative to the budget price of $2,000 we paid for wall-to-wall cabinetry, and I have had some scratching of the laminate where I used a plastic vacuum implement to clean, but I'm careful now and treat the cabinetry carefully and haven't had any further scratching issues. Side note, if you use Semihandmade doors for 21 cabinets, you'll likely need to increase your budget even for IKEA. Do your own research on specification comparisons, because you will find that fitting tolerances, smoothness of drawer and door hardware functioning, elegance of accessories and thickness of construction materials with IKEA is superior to essentially any similarly-priced brand. People are putting IKEA kitchens into homes that are valued in the million dollar range, and the same cannot be said of most other budget brands. One warning is to keep your shelf spans at a minimum to prevent sagging. The Sagulator can help with these calculations, and this can be a problem not only with IKEA but also with any brand depending on the material used, length and load of the shelving.
• Medallion = This brand is the same as Schuler that is sold by Lowe's. The cabinets are made by the same manufacturer in the same factory. It's a fairly decent line of cabinetry based on my research, but there have been rumors of problems with the finishes recently being botched around late 2018, earlly 2019, so I crossed off both Medallion and Schuler from my list as I've been researching my own kitchen renovation. You can do your own research and see what the latest reviews might be regarding finish quality. Schuler is one of the higher-priced lines that Lowe's carries. It won't be a money-saver. I was quoted over $9K for a preliminary plan that totaled 8 cabinets with zero interior accessories in a natural maple 5-piece door. If you can get in on a sale at Lowe's for Schuler, this might be a possibility for you, but again I will repeat that the finish quality especially on a natural wood door could be problematic if the recent issues haven't been resolved.
• Plain & Fancy = This cabinet company is based on the East coast of the United States and has a fabulous reputation for finish quality. The painted door fronts are so good that some people say they look like they've been dipped in plastic. Unfortunately, I have run across one review that had accompanying photos of the interior quality of the cabinet boxes and drawer boxes that weren't up to the same standards as the exterior door finishes, so I crossed off this company from my search list. I'm sure the construction is better than many brands out there, but the interiors aren't a match for a brand like Plato, and you'd also be spending your entire $45K allowance possibly plus some on cabinetry alone if you went with Plain & Fancy for 21 cabinets. Some dealers run sales occasionally if you want to up the budget for this brand.
• Wolf = If you're concerned about IKEA quality, stay away from Wolf. It's one of the "budget brands" indicated when people talk about low-end cabinetry, and it has problems to match. If you see an in-store display and are willing to take the plunge based on what you see and reviews you research, then you'll save a lot of money going with this line.
• Bertch = I would stay away from this brand. It's a moderately high price for low-quality tolerances. Your drawers and drawer fronts won't be even, and you'll pay a lot. Go look at an in-store display if you want to see this for yourself. You'd get better tolerances with IKEA than this brand.
• Aristokraft & Elmwood = I don't know a lot about these brands, so I'd recommend you do your own research. These aren't names that pop up on a regular basis in reviews of cabinetry at least during my research in the past year, and there are a handful of other names that do pop up regularly, so your own online research and viewing in-store displays will be essential here. Search for reviews about the brands in the Houzz forums, and then search the general web to see what other websites might have in the way of reviews both from the past and also more recently, since companies like Omega that once had stellar reviews can sometimes run into problems as Omega has with finishes within the past year. Even if problems might have been resolved since the reviews were written, you'll get a good idea of how the company might handle defects, whether they offer to replace all the affected parts, try to "fix" parts unsatisfactorily, take months to respond or fail to respond whatsoever.
• Local Shops = I mentioned in a previous comment that you can sometimes get a good value going with a local manufacturer, and that still applies to your situation. If you are working with a builder, sometimes the builder can also negotiate a good discount on cabinetry for you.

Best wishes on your remodel.

You can not compare an older used split level home with a double the price new McMansions being built. Those are different planets. Split levels have the lowest appraisal of any used home, and are the least desirable of any home form. They’ll automatically be on the low price end, even if the neighborhood didn’t have double priced new housing to attract all the buyers to.

The newly renovated split level that you “weren’t impressed with” probably kept the overall financial commitment to less than impressive because of that real world fact. It is a poor financial decision to extensively remodel a split level, unless you are turning that split level into a multi level by adding an addition to the cramped and small entry and turning it into a tri level. It takes Mucho $$$ and long term occupancy required to make that worth the expense.

If 45K is all that you feel comfortable spending on this project, you have to immediately change your plans to keeping the layout that you have now, and just refreshing the finishes. Renoving a sit down dining area in favor of an island only is a really terrible plan to begin with.People require table height seating in a home. It’s simply not optional unless you live in a 300 sf apartment in San Francisco.

@User Yes, they are different planets. When I say I wasn't impressed with the changes to the other bi-level that was recently renovated - I wasn't even talking about the finishings, but rather, that they did make changes to the layout (removed a wall, incorporating the dining room to be part of the kitchen) but they didn't resolve the issue of having an exterior door that swings into the kitchen and blocks three feet of countertop, including cabinetry and the dishwasher, whenever it is open. They also didn't resolve the issue of the diagonal placement of the kitchen and the living room, so there's no easy traffic flow between the dining room and living room. They did make other changes, though, that resolved issues such as the proximity of the stove and sink. And in the process, bumped their house value to $475k.

Given your situation, I'd set a firm budget of $45K and see what you can get done within that. In fact, set a budget of $40K, so you have a contingency.

Ikea cabinets make a lot of sense. They are good value for the money and have enough options to create a functional and attractive kitchen.

One option might be using a kitchen table in lieu of an island. In my opinion, big islands may be the green shag carpet of this decade.

Please post your dimensions and let the talented folks here suggest ways you can get a new kitchen within your budget.

@latifolia and @Aglitter and @Patricia Colwell Consulting and @User and @User This is the wall and window layout of the existing kitchen and dining room space.

We have a kitchen with Dura Supreme installed cabinets. I wish I had gone with another brand. There is a huge lack of quality control. Half of our wood cabinets matches one color stain sample and the other half match another stain sample. There are gaps in the the trim on the face of the doors. The light rail trim pieces are not cut the same. They used a “bad“ router on the the faces of doors. There are large dings in the trim of the doors. The stain is coming off in small circles on drawers. One of the sink doors has 2 horizontal stain lines on it. We have been waiting for months for the replacement doors, cabinet tops and light rail trim. The cabinet tops were sent again in the wrong stain. It has caused us stress and frustration. The installers say the cabinets are warped. They are tired of coming to the house to fix problems that came from the factory. Plus the quality just isn’t there. Our contractor says he doesn’t want to use Dura Supreme again. I know I wouldn’t. Way Way to expensive to have the quality and problems we have.

This is probably the only kitchen remodel I will ever do because I don’t see myself ever having the money again.

HTH

Waypoint, Thomasville, American Woodmark, and Shenandoah are all the same thing. They're all owned by the same company and have the same doors and colors etc. Not sure if they're made in the same factories - I can't recall. And they're right. They have the potential of having issues. They're a pretty inexpensive middle-of-the-road brand. So they're on the low-end of that "middle of the road" group. Which I wouldn't suggest for the long haul.

I know nothing about Koch.

My biggest competition carries Dura Supreme and they have a really great product.

I'd avoid the previously mentioned brands and go with Dura Supreme if you can afford it.

And I'd go with that same outfit as before, too. Sounds like they're honest - they got rid of that cabinet line after they had too many issues and are telling you about it instead of sweeping it under the rug. That honesty is invaluable, IMHO.

If you trust your contractor, follow his advice and go with shop A. He's probably trying to save you (and him) a headache if you were to go to L/HD. I've worked at Lowe's an know a bunch of others who've worked at both, designing kitchens. And now I've been at my current local shop doing kitchens for 11 years. Manager of our kitchen dept for 7 of those years.

(Answered in July 2022)

I’m planning on Durasupreme for a kitchen remodel . Has anyone upgraded the standard furniture dovetailed drawer to dovetailed all maple drawer ?
Wondering if that’s a worthy upgrade since drawers get so much wear ?