What you are experiencing is normal. Of course kelly at Kelly’s Kustom Kitchens will add her twist- she thinks x feature is something everyone needs. End of the day you have to be confortable with the final design weather it’s the exact one you came up with or slightly tweaked. When I design kitchens for a client I design a rough outline (sink here, stove here) and let the kitchen showroom take it from there. When the quotes come back I have them tweak things if needed.

"Some cabinet stores want to change the design, which feels risky."

Why? It may be changes for the better. It may also be deletions of things you don't need. Make sure you make the distinction between "want" and "need". You'd be amazed at how that discipline will cut costs on kitchen cabinetry.

"because of all the little extra details, assumptions, and upgrades that go into a design."

This statement is making my previous point. We haven't seen your design, but I can tell you what I have seen from years of being on this forum. In the way of extras that add cost but aren't necessary, or can be trimmed to get back within budget:

cabinet hood surround plus its additional lining, motor, filters (vs save money with a stainless steel hood, it's all-in-one, and have an easier-to-clean hood to boot), the spice pull-outs on either side of the cooktop (they're terrible), decorative embellishments such as corbels or columns, many narrow cabinets rather than fewer wider cabinets, upcharges on finishes such as glazing, having 2-3 finishes rather than one, 2 counter materials rather than one, an enormous island, an island with seating for 6 when only 2-3 people will ever sit there, appliances panels (huge extra cost), drawer inserts when after-market inserts are a fraction of the price, and stacked cabinets (almost doubles the cost of cabinetry; perhaps you don't need them, or can do them on one wall, not the whole kitchen). Those are just off the top of my head.

I guess it's a relief to know this is not an unusual approach.

The design has generally big, shaker style cabinets, no fancy wood hood, no corbels.. The only pullouts I've asked for is a double trash bin. I think there aren't $10k worth of flourishes to cut. We've kept it simple and I'm happy with the design.

The risk I'm concerned about is architect, GC, and KD all work with each other regularly, so is getting the cabinets from another source going to add another cook and potentially have some unspoken/unwritten design assumption fall through the cracks? How do I prevent that?

The quotes range from 35k-50k for KMVantage at the independent shop, up to Stylecraft from the KD. Hard to know what an extra 10-15k buys us for the same design, and if that's worth busting our budget.

Our forever house so I'm hoping not to do this again for a loooong time.

An issue showed up on another thread that I want to bring up - you must find out whether each of the various cabinet lines you are considering is partial overlay, full overlay or frameless. What you want is either full overlay or frameless. But often when cabinets are much lower cost than another line for the same layout it means partial overlay. I would pay $10k extra without hesitation not to have partial overlay cabinets.

Partial overlay cabinets will have the cabinet frames very visible and also taking up a good deal of space. They are considered dated, builders grade, but also inefficient due to the curtailment of cabinet space due to the frame. Full overlay cabinets also have more frame taking up space than frameless cabinets, but full overlay is a clean current look. Frameless cabinetry is what it sounds like, the frames are not visible between the doors and drawers, and the interior space is increased.

PARTIAL OVERLAY CABINETS:

FULL OVERLAY CABINETS:

FRAMELESS CABINETS:

Kraftmaid is a good brand. Be very suspicious of any lesser price than you get with a line like KM.

Maybe you should post the design here to see what others might suggest

Vantage series is KM's TOP OF THE LINE....all wood product. It's really nice. Wood interiors, no vinyl, no particleboard. I had to look up Stylecraft...it's a high end cabinet line....KM is a mid-grade cabinet line. The only reason to go high end these days is if you need some custom sizes and custom designed cabinets. If you just want/need some basic cabinets, go with the KraftMaid. IF you want a specialized design, you may need a custom line.

I have high end Plain & Fancy in my kitchen....and it was worth it, because I designed my kitchen to look original (or somewhat orginal) to the design of my 1925 home. A kraftmaid kitchen would not have cut it for me.

Plain & Fancy Custom.

Plain & Fancy Kitchen - Dayton Ohio · More Info

Stock size cabinetry (mass produced factory; stock sizes only)

Both are nice looking kitchens. But my P&F kitchen does not look mass produced.

If you want stock size cabinets....really no reason to go high end. KM Vantage is built like a Brick you know what house.

Hope this helps.

This is really helpful.

The kitchen is about 40 linear feet of cabinets top and bottom, (including fridge, sink, etc) with an 8x3 island. All painted. Full overlay. Shakerish style doors. Nothing niche.. Nothing very specialized.

We can definitely afford the KMV. It's slightly under our budget and would let us maybe splurge elsewhere, like the countertops.

Alternatively, we could probably stretch to get stylecraft but mostly to get the polyurethane paint finish they offer. I'm not sure that's worth $10k more. We'd maybe have to skip elsewhere.

I appreciate all the confidence in KMV. That's really reassuring.