Islands take a big chunk of the cost due to the amount of cabinetry in an island, and the setups for electrical and for the island counter to be supported properly. Your $46k includes the counters - but you don't say what material the counters are. Counters can be $500 or can be $15k or more, depending what they are. Regardless, that adds a chunk to your cabinet quote from Canada for $25k which did not include counters.

The dollar is up so check back on Canadian options. If you're doing all drawer lowers, make them 36-48" wide to save and get better usability.

As @User wrote, god is in the details in terms of the cost of cabinets - and certainly the cost of the counter is a significant factor as there is cheap granite choices or ultra expensive other materials.

That said all you can do as a reasonable consumer is to get apples to apples estimates from other brands of *comparable* quality to see if the line is out of whack. Semi-custom lines run a huge gamut in terms of cost as there are lower prices ones of decent quality and very expensive ones.

If you have a budget then you can see what you can do to cut costs in ways that don't impair functionality. For example, glass is expensive but some people save some money by having glass installed locally and not by the cabinet company.

@Angela Beresford - as has been already said, so much of the price depends on the details of the kitchen you've chosen. With no information about what you've chosen, I'll provide some areas you can save money, even though I don't know if they were within your kitchen plan or not: keep crown molding to 3" thick, not thicker - crown molding is expensive and provides little utility. No decorative corbels or columns. Do not add drawer inserts of any kind - aftermarket ones are much less expensive. Look at your kitchen design and see if there are a lot of narrower cabinets/drawers that could be combined into fewer wider cabinets/drawers which will save money. Do not have upper cabinets that meet the counter. A big savings would be if your plan had included stacked upper cabinets; eliminating stacked uppers will save thousands. You mentioned both cherry and painted wood - choose one of those, whichever is less expensive. And finally, my pet peeve for expensive add-on is the hood cabinet surround. It can add thousands to the cost - as opposed to buying a good quality stainless steel hood - and is a PITA to set up and to maintain.

S, N Hampshire should be easy to locate local cabinet maker. I would at least search a bit . Housing is slowing down. there may be good skilled people looking for work now.

we found semicustom quotes to be as much as custom. if you are planning on moving i’d look for something cheaper. i know lots of people that have been happy with ikea or kraftmade. you certainly aren’t going to get 46k roi on those cabs!

If that quote includes counters, that would be a good price around me (DC/Baltimore area). As mentioned above, islands cost quite a bit more than perimeter cabinets (finish on all sides, etc.), cherry is usually an up-charge, and painted are often more expensive than stained wood.

If you're gong to cover up cherry with paint, get a less expensive wood species. There's no sense in upgrading the wood if you're just going to paint!

@lharpie FWIW Kraftmaid are semi-custom cabinets as they have a wide range of sizes. I believe there are three lines which have different pricing but I don't have specific information.

Semi-custom has a price range in terms of different brands and it is only when you get to the super high end brands like Small Bones that they are fully custom.

There are also custom made by local shops and the quality (and price of those can vary). My cabinets are custom and were made by a local shop. The quality is extremely high and the price was less than what I would have paid for a similar semi-custom line and way lower than a Small Bones kitchen. The advantage is that there are no fillers necessary at all and also anything that you dream of is possible (or almost anything) and it doesn't add to the cost - for example I have a custom knife "block" built into the upper drawer by my prep area which wasn't expensive for them to add.