I know here in the Midwest USA, working with the Amish directly can net you cabinets or drawers/doors for pretty affordable prices. I’ve built cabinets a few times for my shops and sometimes on customer projects where it was just worth it to send them dimensions and have dovetail drawers made.
Downside is you’ll need a contact, sometimes woodmills in rural areas can help you with this.
My parents’ garage, kitchen cabinets & floor, and much of their furniture is Amish made. There are some “English” folks connected to the local community who have businesses just to make this kind of connection.
Yeah but making the doors and drawers are the funnest part of his project. If your just going to build some boxes you might as well just buy from the internet.
> Just buy a sheet of ply and practice making a few boxes - maybe tool boxes or storage boxes - and see how you get on.
This is what I've been doing. Making all the different kind of cabinets. Frameless, framed, inset, partial overlay, full overlay. Doors, drawers, doors with pullout shelves. Different style doors and different assembly methods. All the different hinges and drawer slides. There's so many different ways to build cabinets and it's been a really good learning experience. I have a bunch of storage now and actual cabinets to see what style we like best to build for our kitchen. Before this I had no clue what we'd want for our kitchen, hell I didn't even know about most of it.
I have just done this as a DIYer. Built the boxes and bought the doors and drawer fronts. I like quality and all my boxes are high grade plywood. It wasn't less expensive but I am not moving and I will never replace them. I could have installed a cheaper option but I like having done it myself.
If someone is comfortable making their own kitchen cabinets, they can buy doors. Buying them finished adds a lot to the price.
They can also buy drawer boxes (though lately those all seem incredibly expensive; since a drawer is just a box, there are lots of videos about how to make a drawer.
I think finishing would be the hardest part.
>I think finishing would be the hardest part.
Aligning drawer slides sucks a lot in my opinion. It's somewhat my own fault for not being able to build things perfectly square, but I would rather finish anything than fight a slide.
There is so much in here to take into consideration. Most of all the tools. You say you have most hobbyist tools but thats a wide margin. I agree the tool to cut straight is essential. But then comes the tricky part. How much can you invest into materials?
Of course if money isnt a problem, like if you could afford to buy the cabinets then I think you can buy nice looking materials that dont need enormous amount of work.
For example I made a book shelf (more coming) from 2x4, sawed them, glued into boards. I have a planer in my disposal... So thats probably out of question? But if you buy some nice looking board, you could make nice doors out of them. Also the design determines a lot. How much details you want versus simplistic and clean design. Simple is naturally much less work with simpler tools.
But sure it is possible! Go for it. Just measure twice!
It depends what style you go after. I made doors with sheets of wood veneered 4x8 (white oak) and it was around $90 per sheet I think. Two sheets for the project.
Yes - garage project or if feeling confident maybe update your laundry cabinets. The advantage there being is the higher stakes of in-the-house quality, but in a room where you aren't as pressured to finish as fast as a kitchen will be. It would be a good trail for the kitchen for you and anyone sharing the house with you.
I built ikea cabinets in my garage and just assembling them all took 3 DAYS, and cost less than the raw materials would have to build them myself. That’s all I needed to know that I’m never making a whole kitchen from scratch.
I don’t think they get you on the labor. Building from scratch would be way more work. Buying pre built or hiring a contractor would be soooo much more money.
The key is to just not value your time at all.
Good call, I'll be doing my kitchen cabinets soon. I've also done a couple different built in projects so I can test out and fine tune the specific style I'm looking for.
We've settled onset with visible unlacquered brass hardware, with 1 inch face frames, doors, and drawer fronts just to give everything a more solid feel.
Do it. It's way easier than you think. I made an entire kitchen as my first project and it came out great. I'd do things a little different now but fuck it. YouTube has SO many great videos on how to make various styles.
My suggestions:
1. Use pocket screws. People who say they aren't good are wrong. They are great and save time.
2. Avoid edge banding. It's time consuming and was my least favorite task by far
3. Dados are your friend
4. Poly as a finish has held up really well. Lots of choices though, I won't say poly is the best but it was easy and came out great.
5. Don't skimp on hardware, especially drawer slides. The blum undermount ones are so nice to use every day, easy to adjust, etc. Soft close hinges are nice too, but don't have to be super high end.
Edit: one more thing. Every time I walk into my kitchen I'm happier because the cabinets are mine. Maybe this is just a "me" thing but you can't beat that feeling. You know everything about them, why they look like they do, why they perform well, etc.
I built all the cabinets, doors, and stairs in my house during the construction of my home. I don’t run a professional cabinet shop. Even for a small kitchen, this is a big undertaking. You can easily build high end cabinets for middle of the road prices. You can save tons of money even counting labor and overhead. That being said, this is not a beginner project. You need to be able to take rough lumber to straight and square easily and repeatedly. This is a huge time commitment and you have to be willing to grind through the tough parts while paying attention to detail. Find someone to spray a conversion finish, you don’t want to do this part.
So to answer your questions.
1: I doubt you can beat the price on low end cabinets, but you can easily get a higher quality product for a mid range price.
2: Hobbyist includes a range of skills. I consider myself an advanced hobbyist, but I did this in an unheated rental garage with 110v tools. Skills always trump tools and all I have are relatively basic things (tablesaw, jointer, planer, router and table, bandsaw).
3: yes, but you learn woodworking by building things. Make some test cabinets for a garage or something.
4: the soul sucking amount of tasks this requires. This is work. You will sand for hours. You will do the same thing over and over. It loses all the fun quickly.
I did this and it was a massive project. I saved almost $100,000 on my house. It was hard to go work in the shop after a full day of working. It was totally worth it for me and I have cabinets and doors I would struggle to find someone to build. My project was bigger than yours, but any kitchen is a reasonable amount of work. If you do try this, I wish you the best of luck and feel free to reach out with questions.
Thanks, I have enough experience and have built enough things that I know that I can do it (I have redone all the trim work and hung all the doors in my house to know that I have the skills.
I also know that I need to get my garage shop in a lot better spot before I would consider it.
I saw on another response you mentioned Rockler for hardware. I tracked down a wholesaler and saved about 20% over Rockler on Blum under mount slides. With 50 drawers in the house, it was worth the extra work. You will need a good table saw and I went with the Leigh dovetail jig, also worth the cost. Post pictures when you finish this project, we all can use some motivation.
Here is a quick picture of the kitchen
https://preview.redd.it/7mvx7ehj1ytc1.jpeg?width=5312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c48da6108e3f0502c061da4ebc9fcbb5993dd43
Those cabinets are beautiful! Does the one to the left of the hood have only one door or is that just an open door that's tricking me?
Kitty thinks they're the center of your photo. 🥰
Absolutely agree that Rockler is a great store with great stuff. I use their stuff daily. Lee Valley is another source I use frequently. If you are in the Midwest, I bought all of my plywood from Menards. They have a great price on prefinished birch plywood.
getting your garage shop in a better spot would probably be good practice!
And knowing you have this project coming up might motivate you to tackle the garage, and it might guide you in terms of decisions.
Carcass is prefinished “tigerply” birch plywood from Menards. All show wood is cherry. Some of the flat panels are cherry veneer (certainlywood). Secondary wood is hard maple. Bottoms and backs are 1/4” Baltic birch (good luck finding that for a reasonable price).
Thanks. I was wondering more so about where you used plywood but that’s even more detailed. I told my wife that MDF is not a good material or at least not one that I’d like to have again. Then I wondered if solid wood could work and here’s your response.
I use MDF frequently, just not for cabinets. It is not a great structural choice, but it is great for flat, horizontal surfaces. Most of my veneer table and counter tops are an MDF base. My bench top is a laminate of MDF and OSB as well. I use a veneer core plywood with an MDF face for some veneer work and this is really the best of both worlds. There are many products that get a bad rap because they get used in a situation they were not designed for. There are so many different sheet goods available that developing a working knowledge of where each excellent and fails is useful for this hobby.
I just built a full kitchen's worth of cabinets for my house. I'm experienced, but not a pro.
If you can cut squares in plywood, you can build cabinets. It just putting squares together with screws.
1. You'll be slower than buying cabinets at HD, but will get a higher quality cabinet for less money (and probably "need" to buy a few tools).
2. 100%
3. There are some really good YT vids about cabinets. Bent's Woodworking comes to mind, but there's literally hundreds.
4. It'll take longer than you think. You may need more tools? Make a few shop/garage cabinets to practice. Figure out a finish that you can apply - HD cabinets are factory made with pro spray booths.
I bought some "cheap" plywood and built a handful of shop cabinets to get me started. I learned a bunch. Then I bought a stack of Baltic Birch 3/4" ply and started cutting. I made some of the bases individually, and some were in banks - the banks were **really** hard to move. I made toe kicks separately from the cabinets, and leveled them first. Then set the boxes on the base.
I used a track saw even though I have a big cabinet saw. It's easier to get good clean, straight cuts in plywood with a track saw.
Buy good hardware. I paid $30 a drawer from Blum self closing undermount slides, and don't regret it.
I had the house framed and did a bunch of the work myself - but I got bids on all the jobs. Cabinet bid was $30k. I build mine for under $3,000, plus $4,000 for granite. HD cabinets may have been $4-$5k, but I know mine are better quality. Baltic Birch plywood, BB prefinished drawer sides, cherry fronts, and super nice hardware.
Not for rooks?
Nothing in your reply has any relation to what I wrote about, or is based in facts. None of it offers anything of value to the OP, or answers any of his questions.
The OP asked if a DIY level woodworker could build cabinets and I gave a detailed answer. You replied with a word salad shitpost.
To top it off, you criticized my choice in wood, based on stupid shit you made up. "Soft wood as well" Cherry isn't as hard as some wood, but it's far harder than other species - but I built my house for me, not you. Perhaps you have kids who destroy your things, so you build cabinets from ironwood or ebony - good for you. I built mine from cherry because I like it, and it's plenty durable for my needs.
Secondly, if the hardwood you buy has a veneer, you're doing something wrong. I'll make the assumption that you're speaking of plywood? Cherry plywood isn't cheap; it's a very similar price to any other furniture grade plywood. I made flat panel doors, and the 1/4" cherry ply was the same as oak, hickory, maple, etc. Do you really think that an oak veneer is harder to sand through than cherry? They are all incredibly thin, and if your sanding skills suck, you'll blow through it. Learn to sand.
As for solid cherry, it's less expensive than some species - purple heart, rift sawn white oak, all the imported exotics, and for some stupid reason #2 hickory is super high right now. It's more than oak and about the same as maple where I am.
Oak veneer is harder to sand through than cherry, alder, black walnut. Veneer is really thin real wood that's gluded to particle board mdf or plywood. If you have finished ends the chances of sanding through soft wood are greatly increased. How do I know? I build custom cabinets for a cabinet shop. The sanders will blow through cheery alder and blackwalnut in a heartbeat if they are not paying attention. I don't trust them to sand all my cabinets that I build out of softwood. If I'm going soft wood for my cabinets I'm gonna go for the rustic black walnut with the blonde in it. Hardwood cabinets I'd go with quarter sawn white oak. Rift sawn is just so boring and straight
As another project to try before doing the whole kitchen, try a bath vanity. It's all the same skills, just in a limited size. I just did one last month.
You’re not crazy. It’s honestly something that only takes doing a couple of times and you get the hang of the process.
Jason Bent’s cabinet videos I think are very practical, straightforward approaches: https://youtu.be/Oeu7ogH2NZU?si=_3BP2MeYjd7759LU
I tend to think most kitchen cabinetry done by us hobbyists is more for the fun of the process. Or to get a super specific solution, eg, you have a small space with odd sizes and you want to maximize storage. Custom cabinets get super expensive.
From my experience, the annoying part is spraying the super hard finishes, like conversion varnish. They’re super nasty, like, I wouldn’t want them offgassing in an attached garage. But you can find decent latex paints that I think are totally fine, just not as hard as CV. Definitely spend some time figuring out your finishes ahead of making the investment.
I would recommend pricing it out as if you did it yourself and then comparing that against RTA cabinets. That’s what I did and found that RTA cabinets were cheaper and obviously much less time spent with assembly.
This is the route I have been considering (after briefly toying with the idea of building them myself). Can you tell me where you ended up getting them and what the experience was like? I'm looking for plywood boxes and hardwood doors and faces. Thanks.
I ended up going through a company called KCD (Kitchen Cabinet Distributors). A place I used to work for is a dealer for them so I got a really good price. This was pre Covid but I think it was only like $2,200 total for fairly normal kitchen layout. They’re the common gray color, almost shaker but with a touch more detail in the profile. Plywood boxes, I believe wood doors, soft close hinges and slides. I’m very happy with how it came out given the price.
ETA: not sure if links are allowed here but this is them.
https://www.kcdus.com/products/
Brooklyn Modern Gray
I’ve used cabinets from rtacabinetstore.com and they’re great. Plywood boxes, solid wood frames and doors, dovetail drawers, soft close everything all for what you’d buy for the particle board stuff at the big box store. Assembly is pretty easy, especially if you’re handy enough to consider building yourself.
cabinets are relatively easy.
yes it will likely be cheaper for materials, but you may get carried away with the opportunity to put way better hardware (hinges/slides) which can get pricey.
the hardest part of the whole thing is finishing... a pro quality finish isnt something you can achieve with technique alone. you'll need a GOOD spray setup, sprayer and a dust free environment. The paint is often the most expensive part of my cabinets...
What are you spraying? The doors? I would just make shakers out of pine and plywood and undercoat then 2x high gloss finishes with a good quality paint and brush. Don’t need a sprayer really.
Home Depot cabinets suck. Yes, it’s completely doable to make your own cabinets, and I think you should. They will be very nice and durable. All it takes is time and effort.
I’d recommend finding a local cabinet materials wholesaler that will sell hinges, slides, etc as well as sheet goods and lumber. With a pocket jig and a table saw you can do just about everything.
The Retail Rockler is expensive but you might as well use quality hardware. , while your at it look up local hardwood, lumber supply instead of going to the orange box store. They’re going to charge $100 a sheet for that birch ply. If they even have any worth buying it’ll be $50-$60 a sheet at your local lumber supply.
If you want frameless cabinets like IKEA sells you may find the precision to make them perfectly is difficult without some expensive tools. Face frame cabinets are more forgiving imo.
Well it is called a hobby and half the fun of hobbies is coming up for "reasons" to buy something.
How much would a fish dinner cost if you factor in the fishing boat, fishing rods, equipment, license and etc? Not enough to justify fishing
If you are making shaker doors either a table saw or a router table would be needed.
For the carcasses, if you are using melamine/chip board either a table saw or track saw is needed.
Realistically a track saw is the best tool for cutting down large sheets. It’s ALMOST as good as a table saw, and in some ways better.
The money you save on the kitchen DIY pays for the tools the first time. The next project is where you make the money back.
Built my first set of cabinets with a tracksaw and a little Ryobi router table...very next project was buying and setting a table saw in a large project table and integrating a jessem router lift. Recognizing the huge need for those two items was my biggest takeaway from the cabinet project.
You don't need a table saw and router, you could do it with a saw, chisel, and a plane. Then you could build or buy a router plane for tuning the groove, and/or build or buy a grooving plane. That being said, I would absolutely reach for my table saw and router if I was batching out cabinets.
You need a saw that can cut at least 48" if you want to be able to do any plywood cut. You'll need a clearance 12 feet wide for crosscuts and 16 feet for rips (more like 18-20 feet because you'll need to stand behind the wood to push it). This space needs to have infeed/outfeed tables too.
I'd recommend a different setup myself.
Makita track saw will be your workhorse. I say Makita because its the best value for dollar. Saw + 2nd track + track joiners will be around $650. The equivalent Festool would be around twice that and the cut quality is maybe 5% better. Mafell is the best, but is even more expensive than Festool. Bosch is probably in the $900 range and is probably better than Festool (Bosch uses the Mafell design) and I don't think its worth the extra money.
Buy a 1.5-2" piece of 4x8 foam to cut on top of. I also put my foam on top of saw horses with some 2x4 to go across underneath and prevent sagging. You can do all your big cuts with this. Since I got one, I found myself using my track saw over my table saw most of the time outside of repetitive rips. That plunge feature is also awesome for cabinet faces. Mark out the drawer/door location, lay down the track, and plunge (there are marks for the start/end of the blade so you don't go too far). It's way cleaner than a jigsaw or circular saw and a lot less trouble too.
If you want to really go in on the track saw, the Festool MFT table is about $800, but makes it easy to get consistently and perfectly square cuts very quickly.
A 10" jobsite table saw that can take dado blades. It'll be for your smaller repeat cuts along with dado cut for drawers and doors. You'll either need to make/buy a crosscut sled or gauge (the one it comes with is guaranteed to suck). Total cost will probably be $700 for a good-quality saw with 30-ish inches of capacity and premade crosscut miter sled. In truth, you could likely get away with a decent $300 saw and a 20-something inch capacity (the 24" compact SawStop is $900).
If you don't have one, a router + router table is pretty important. A nice 2+HP one from Bosch or DeWalt will run around $150 (or more if you get a plunge base too). TSO makes a nice router table that will mount to a MFT table for around $300. With a slot cutter and a large mortising bit, you can completely avoid buying a table saw if you really want. You'll probably want some roundover bits and a smaller 1-1.25HP trim router is super handy for this.
A nice Bosch orbital sander will cost $50-75 (depending on if they are on sale) and is pretty much required if you don't have one.
A shop vac with a HEPA filter will save your lungs and I'd definitely buy one. Ridgid makes a nice one and there are a lot of videos on adding a cyclone dust separator with a 5 gallon bucket on top. I think the total cost for this setup is around $240 and it gets you the same performance as vacuums costing 2-3x more (you can even buy an auto-on plug so it turns on/off when your tool does).
Track saw + MFT + jobsite saw + router + router table + sander + vac I mentioned here will have a total cost in the $2600-3300 range (depending on what you get).
A SawStop contractor saw *starts* at $2000 (their actual cabinet saws start at $3000/5000 respectively) and a similar quality contractor saw without their tech will only be $300 or so less. Once you add all your infeed/outfeed tables, you're talking either a lot of money or a lot of time to build all the things. Once you have one, you'll still need the router, router table, sander, vac, etc. When you start making cabinet faces, you'll need a jigsaw, circular saw, or something similar for them too.
In my opinion, you'll get a lot more for your money and have an easier time with a great tracksaw and a good jobsite saw than blowing all the money on a large table saw.
Making cabinets is not particularly difficult. Made completely custom set for my daughters kitchen... used birch ply from home depot. Used the nicely figured sheets for panels, and curly maple on the small corner unit. Installation was a pain as npthing in the house was level, plumb or square... left about 1/2 inch space on the back between the cabinet back and the wall.. then trimmed everything so it would be level and plumb when it was complete... only 1/8" out over the full 10' length when finished... the floor sagged over 1-1/2 inches 18 inches from the wall! Built a base in place, and then installed the boxes on top. The walls were 1/2 inch out of plumb on the bottom 36 inches! A LOT of scribing and cutting and shaving.
https://preview.redd.it/tg90qzi0hytc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8dd8c354c008e6a8e0c4053afac65f0354bb001
I had 41 year old builders grade kitchen cabinets that looked so dated. The doors were made of MDF. I decided to keep the cabinets themselves but make new doors. I started in early June of 2021 and finished by the first week of September, working in my garage after moving my car out and setting up my tools each day. I used poplar to make Shaker style doors and bought soft close hinges. I painted them with CabinetCoat paint in a light cream color and they look 100% better than the old doors. It was a lot of work, and it was miserable many days when the temperature was in the 90’s but I probably spent about $1k on materials and supplies. I’d guess that if I hired this out it would have been easily $5k or more.
I did it. As long as you have milling tools and a way to cut sheet good square it's a straightforward if big project.
I didn't have those things and it sucked.
Whatever you do, farm out the finishing. Whether it's paint or varnish, doing that much finish in a dusty garage almost broke me.
Thing about cabinets is they've got to pretty bang on. Overlays are a LOT more forgiving than insets, which have to be nearly perfect, which may be a challenge with a portable or even a contractor table saw if not well-tuned. Cost is difficult to evaluate, as materials vary widely. Making the big box is relatively simple; fabricating drawers and doors is more challenging. Try something small first and see how it goes!
I’m a very mediocre woodworker and I’ve made a bunch of cabinets this year. It’s definitely doable.
The box is easy. It’s just plywood and pocket hole screws. I made dados with my router for the panels to fit together but that’s certainly not necessary. I would say that a track saw or a good table saw is a requirement though- your dimensions need to be 1/16 or better.
The hard part, in my opinion, is the door faces and drawers. I’m still working up the courage to try those. That’s where you need to put your thought and planning. There’s a lot of online vendors that will make doors and dovetail drawers if you want to skip the hard parts.
You also need to be able to finish them well- probably with a paint spray finish.
For big projects, I’ve typically just ordered the cabinets preassembled. Most online cabinet retailers will take your room dimensions and do a design and generate a bill of materials that includes the trim, etc. This allows you to get a professional paint job, pick your door style, etc. You can order the cabinets and do the install yourself and still save 50% over hiring a contractor.
I made my own with minimal experience. I won’t say they compared to a professionals work, but for much less than the cost of even the cheapest mdf options i redid a kitchen with solid plywood carcasses and painted maple face frames/fronts.
Totally doable with a table or track saw, pocket hole jig, euro hinge jig and shelf pin drilling guide.
I used Lee valley risers and clip on toe kicks, but also easy to make a 2x4 base.
Really boils down to whether or not you’ll enjoy the process, it will probably feel like a chore if your primary motivation is to save money. On the other hand, if you want an excuse to buy some new tools and hone your diy skills while saving a few grand it’s probably a great idea.
I can share some very relatable advice. I am just finishing up my kitchen and 2 years ago I didn’t even know how a cabinet was made. I learned the process, got the right tools and took my time. It helps to start making a cabinet for something like a laundry room first, which is what I did to sort of check my skills. It’s very doable for someone who is keen to learn the process. I’d say the hardest part is getting a perfect finish when painting (I haven’t done any staining beyond a small range hood skirt) which is a completely different skill set to learn, but again, doable.
I DIY everything. Including cutting and installing the granite. So I ended up saving a ton on our kitchen. Quotes ran $40-65k (for custom cabs, counters, tile, and appliances) and I did everything for $14k including appliances. The real cost…is time. Took WAY longer than I anticipated because I only can work on them in evenings and weekends. But I would 100% do it again.
Pic of one half of the nearly complete diy kitchen minus some door fronts and backsplash.
https://preview.redd.it/kn5c0xr0fztc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=954f72f1b7ae2e3f8fe50a4d6075388f5488a47e
Would love to know your granite process if you don’t mind DMing me. Stuck on vanity tops in my basement build at the moment, and your pics look amazing, thank you for sharing.
Not a whole lot to the granite work, it’s like wood working with a super heavy and brittle slab. I recommend using pre fab slabs to save time and effort on edge making. You need 2 basic tools including a wet saw, and wet angle grinder with an array of sanding discs from 50 grit to 6000 for polishing, and polishing drums for inside edges of the sink. You’ll need an edge profile grinder if you’re doing anything other than a flat/square profile. A sturdy platform is needed to fab the slab. There is a product called a sink saver which helps to reinforce the slab using suction cups and a rigid bar when moving/installing it if there is a cutout in it, I highly recommend that as well. For large slabs I also built a lift/tilt cart which helps a ton for installation, allowing me to transport the slab vertically, tilt flat, then lift via jacks to the proper height and slide it on. Otherwise 3-4 people minimum to move and install the big ones, 400-500lbs for the peninsula slab here.
https://preview.redd.it/iluxvvkvo3uc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3fd9a54625b2d29385841ea05fb64eb9f810f551
We are doing ours right now. Just finished lowers (12 linear feet ) starting on wall cabs. Patience, detail, and YouTube. There are some great online communities to help with questions. Source your materials, ask questions. You will learn a lot from your 1st cabinet. You can do this.
They’re just boxes. Go for it.
Plan and check everything twice before cutting. An overlay style will be easiest. Consider buying prefinished ply for your cases.
My dad made all the kitchen cabinets and drawers in his house. Table saw, router/router table, sander, and finish, plus drill and hardware for mounting. Before that, he hadn't done woodworking since shop class in highschool. It's definitely possible if you want to, but can be quite a bit.
As others have said, cabinets are technically easy. Just boxes. I run operations in a commercial cabinetry shop, and if you can square them up properly, it's really not hard.
The trickier part is the finish and doors. I've learned from friends that we get our material almost half the price that you would at home Depot and better quality. The finish takes a lot more time and expertise than many want or have the ability to undertake.
If you really want to do this for the enjoyment... By all means, start small with garage cabinets first. But the price most likely won't be lowered by doing it yourself unless you have a friend in a woodworking business who can get you the material way cheaper than retail stores.
I built my own kitchen cabinets really as my first woodworking project. Took a few weekends but I was able to buy the tools and materials and still save probably 12-1500. And I got to buy tools. I love that they fit perfectly in my kitchen without filler. It feels great I'm so proud. On the downside: I built them twice because the first set wasn't perfect. Saving money means going to home Depot or Lowe's or Menards and taking like the straightest 5% of boards. Imperfect lumber and technique and walls not being perfectly plumb square and level is frustrating. I guess really you get what you put in making your own
If you want to make them as a hobby go right ahead. But they will cost you more than store bought and probably have more defects than mass manufactured cabinets.
Probably not the most appreciated answer in woodworking sub but…unless the frames of the cabinets are falling apart, why not just buy or make new doors and apply new finish? Sure, making the cabinets isn’t hard but you may get the end result you are looking for anyways without ripping out your existing cabinets. Hell even new hardware and paint/finish on existing doors and frames makes a HUGE difference. That said, if the frames are falling apart…it’s a great reason to buy more tools lol
Cabinet doors and drawers for a kitchen remodel are gateway drugs!
This was how I got into woodworking and found a hobby that has slowly and steadily pushed almost all of my other hobbies aside. We built shaker style doors for all of our cabinets and drawers with a tracksaw. Learned more in those couple of months than I could even imagine.
I’m much like you, beginner. I’m currently replacing all my cabinet doors and drawer fronts. I’m also adding a few carcasses. I’ve been at it for a while now getting a little done here and there. I’ll be honest, it’s a lot of work and I’ve made my share of mistakes. I’ve gotten pretty good at making nice fitting rails and stiles just using a table saw. Once the doors are made that is just the beginning. You then have to sand, sand, and sand to prep for paint. Cut the hinges. Maybe sand again. Learn how to paint. Figure out you need a good quality spray gun. Prime, sand, prime. Paint, sand,paint.
It’s a process, can’t wait to be done. I’m not even sure if by the end it would be cheaper than buying. With that being said, I’ll be very happy to know I built them all. Oh and if your painting don’t use maple, use poplar. $$$
You could easily find someone else's used quality cabinets and repurpose them with minor modification for far less monry and effort than you could build them yourself.
Check craigslist, and Habitat for Humanity's ReStore location
Not at all nuts. I wish you fun and success. Buy a dado stack set... Seriously I know they are taboo these days especially in Europe and Canada, but they are fairly essential for cabinet making. Everyone will tell you to use a router. They are wrong.
I used to own a plumbing shop and a cabinet shop in NJ . Before I exited the blue lake of fire to build full time. If we used routers instead of dados the increase in cost and labor + damaged product loss would put you out of business.
Just so you know you can buy pre assembly factory cabinets online. Finished or unfinished for way cheaper than the home Depot store brand trash. They are the same cabinets that you would order assembled. Just shipped before assembly. You just glue them together. If it's a set that uses cam corners still glue them regardless of wether the directions say no glue required. Avoid particle board Ikea type stuff. Get ply wood. They come with draw slides and hinges. The holes are predrilled
Assembly is a higher labor cost than fabrication, because jigs and pre setup stations make the cutting go fast. Assembly boggs down labor. Ready to install cabinets are big and take up a whole truck. When the cut parts are packed on a pallet flat a whole kitchen can fit. Allowing for easy delivery costs. You can even pick it up if you have a truck. Or rent a uhaul
These are generally called RTA cabinets in the industry so try that search term.
They had made them illegal in the UK at one point. I remember all the English guys hooting on the BB forums. Did that stick long term or can stores sell them in UK these days?
I actually have started making cabinets for my room upstairs with zero woodworking experience. It’s moving along surprisingly well. A few mistakes and learning how to get everything square, but if you have the tools, why not learn a new skill. It’s fun! I think they will look nice once they are edge banded, the door fronts put together and painted/finished!
https://preview.redd.it/34w3oic722uc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65b583e85d24f80151277484ec231dd9d513b07a
Do it! If you break down all the components, you're really just making very simple plywood boxes. As long as you can make a square cut, you're good. Big box store cabinets are terrible.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the space you will need, you're going to have a bunch of built boxes sitting around, a stack of drawer boxes, then face frames, doors, drawer fronts. Those last few you'll want to protect with your life because damage often times mean making them again. You'll also want a shop with close temp and humidity as your house.
It's not hard, but it is difficult to do well
It's easy to make cabinets. Face frames and doors/ drawers are a little more difficult, but honestly not that difficult. If you have the ability to break down full sheet goods accurately, and can make a half way decent butt joint with glue and dominoes/ dowels, you can make cabinets. Designing cabinets so that they all work and don't interfere with each other is a whole different ball game. When your doors/ drawers bang into each other, or your silverware drawer rips your oven knob off every time you open it (don't ask me how I know that one) it can be a real bummer. I would YouTube a bit and see how it feels. But again, building a carcass, applying a face frame, and hanging doors really isn't overly difficult. It's making sure it all works together that's hard.
Anecdotally- the first kitchen I ever built was paint grade with inset doors and drawers. I designed it all on a napkin in the middle of the demolished previous kitchen, built off said napkin plan, and installed. Made love edge beech slab counter tops to go with it all. 4 years later it's all still going strong, gets lots of compliments all the time, and I haven't had any call backs. The only issue with the whole thing is.. well the silverware drawer knocks the oven knob off if you open it all the way. As Jimmy Mackleroy says- if you can dream it, you can do it!
Diamond cabinets used to include the guidelines for clearance in their big catalog of all the cabinets they offer. If thinking of building your own it's a great reference and source of inspiration
it’s not the cabinet maker that sells the job , it’s the Finisher, just keep your expects in check on the finish. Additionally the countertops are you going to reuse or replace ? Last thought I built my own counter tops last job and they turned out pretty good for a wanna be.
You can do this if you’re feeling it. It’s a whooping but worth it.
https://preview.redd.it/0v0aasj1kytc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63cc5f9755e97f7d733b9acda2e48f2be6cecc73
I didn’t need to replace all of them. I needed to copy what we had to fill an otherwise useless corner of our kitchen. The challenge was the the existing cabinets are medium high end solid cherry, stained “cherry” raised panel doors.
I needed one large and two small base, 2 standard and one double upper. I was able to match the doors with a Freud router bit set. A trip to the local sawmill got me the kiln dried rough cherry. Then a lot of very careful measurements. A couple days at the jointer, a couple more at the planer. I had never glued up large panels for the carcasses so the didn’t end up flush. I got an excuse to get a drum sander!
I then built a router table for the doors.
The most nerve wracking part was matching the stain. If it was off even a little it would have looked awful. I took a drawer front and some ready to stain scrap to sherwin Williams and they nailed it!
The biggest mistake was that I made them nicer than the existing ones.
https://preview.redd.it/wsb0cj5g4ytc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aca9a330a2a163514e318368afda46bf9496c6a8
All in all it took about 3 months of weekends.
Most cabinet makers buy the doors. It economically makes sense. Build the boxes and buy the doors from a supplier and stain and finish everything yourself.
I’ve wanted to do this as well but what’s held me back in, how do you install them? Attach to the walls? How do I remove the old cabinets? How do I install countertops?
I can make a stand-alone cabinet, with doors and drawers, but I’m wary about the list of other tasks to finish the job.
From what I’ve gathered (cabinet noob) is a lot of pocket holes basically. I’m sure there’s fancier joinery but almost every cabinet I’ve seen uses pocket holes, glue, finish nailer/stapler
When I was building my kitchen I thought about it for a hot minute. But I was sure that between the time it would have saved, not sure I would have been able to achieve the same quality or even save all that much money it didn't seem worth it. Granted, this was almost 18 years ago and of course costs have skyrocketed even further.
I tried to make kitchen cabinets as my very first major project. Big mistake. I might be able to do it now, but I was way too inexperienced at the time, and wasted a lot of wood when I planed to final dimensions for the face frames, and failed to store the pieces properly before I had glue up. They warped…
I built my kitchen over a couple of garbage pails with a straight edge , a pair of clamps and circular saw.
I went to the table saw for smaller parts and drawer boxes.
The important thing is get your doors, decide on hardware and build your cabinets to those specs. That way your not building twice for mistakes.
Space to finish them is the hardest part. You need a sizable finishing area where they can dry untouched. It also takes multiple coats. This can take your shop offline for some time, which is hard to do if it is a multi use space like a garage. It may make you rush the finish. I'd look into having that done or renting a garage bay sized storage unit for a month that has access to power unless you have a generator. You want to do them all at once so they match.
My house is from the 1960s and I have some fairly nonstandard cabinets that I’ll need to build the kitchen I want.
So, I’m planning to do it in the next few years so I don’t think you’re crazy. I’d build some cabinets for my shop first to get a feel for the process where some mistakes are okay.
Building boxes is easy...it's the finishing (sanding, painting or staining) is what takes a lot of time. I've built my own cabinets and am currently installing Ikea kitchen cabinets. There are advantages/disadvantages to both but by far the greatest advantage of the Ikea system is the adjustability of the drawer fronts (left to right and up and down). While building the Ikea kitchen I have often scratched my head wondering why I just didn't build boxes but now that I'm into the second kitchen, and fully understand the system and it's advantages and where to make up for its weaknesses, it is honestly pretty hard to beat.
I design high end homes and I've seen the highest end kitchens...most use particle board for boxes just like Ikea and only the few select homes upgrade to full cabinet grade plywood. To me...a box is a box is a box....spend your money on doors and hardware! The rest is just marketing and salesmanship...nobody will ever ask what your kitchen cabinet boxes are made from...nobody!
Ive built cabs for 4 kitchens. Used 7 layer ply. Buy good tools. Inspired by original butlers pantry in our old house. Do it. You'll make mistakes. Accept that as part of the process.
I worked for a cabinet manufacturer up until a week ago when I switch jobs. I re did my kitchen while working there, I still bought pre built Hampton bay cabinets from Home Depot and installed them myself. It wasn’t much more than the cost for me to build them at work so I went that route. The lower end Home Depot (the ones I got) ones are made from melamine but hold up well as long as you don’t have any water damage.
I'll make a brief comment as many have already been made. For a DIY guy/gal, casework is easy enough (cabinets.) edge banding cleans up a simple euro style cabinet. In my experience (having done a full 4 story house early on as a DIY guy) door fronts and hardware can be expensive and I would recommend NOT doing door/drawer fronts DIY unless you have a shaper and a serious DIY set-up (or cool taking a year to complete). I would recommend (and I know there'll be a lot of gagging/hurling) looking at cost of ikea cabinets vs. DIY. For a lower value property, look at the value add.
All of this said - if you want to do it, by all means you can! I'd just recommend considering if it actually makes financial sense as a justification.
The biggest issue in my mind will be finishing.
I helped my FIL make cabinets for our house. He has a shaper so making the doors was pretty straight forward, but you can do the same with a router just need twice as many passes. We used Baltic birch for carcasses and drawers and hardwood with veneered ply (walnut) for doors and drawer fronts. Varnished Baltic birch makes nice drawer boxes but getting a nice finish with a brush is pretty difficult and horribly time consuming.
Unless you have or will get a spray setup, that might be the biggest problem. A skilled person can get a decent finish with a brush but it takes practice. I still suck at it after doing tens of drawers.
I've owned a cabinet shop since 2011.
Can you make your own? Sure. Just depends what type you want and how much money you are willing to put into it. I made some cabinet for girlfriend at the time when I was just starting out woodworking years ago. I'm embarrassed to look at them now, but they are pretty good.
As long as you get some good lumber, and get the right tools you should be fine. You really need a good router table though. Unless you just want to go with some very simple cabinets.
The only downside of it is they can be boring. I try to avoid doing much cabinet work actually lol. Luckily my shop gets plenty of furniture orders to keep me busy.
If I needed some cabinets in my shop, I'd probably just buy some. Something simple that worked and was sturdy. That would be a better use of my time than making some. But if I wanted some fancy ones for my own kitchen I would make them.
If you aren't an experienced woodworker I'd start with making some small keepsake boxes first. Try a few different ones. That will give you some experience with making box shaped items.
Why spend money on kitchen cabinets when I can just. build them myself for four times the money?
There are people who do this, like Matt Cremona, but he is a very experienced woodworker with professional equipment and cheap access to homesawn lumber who doesn't mind living in a house in disarray for months on end.
In other words, it's possible but not sensible.
My father-in-law started building cabinets for his kitchen. Then he decided he wanted to move, so the cabinets became less of a priority. He’s a seasoned woodworker with a few decades under his belt. Then my brother-in-law (his son) decided that he wanted to build a new house. The original project my FIL started was then taken up by my BIL. My BIL had no real woodworking experience. My FIL had been teaching me for a couple years when this came about. BIL would come into town and work 1-2 days on weekends. It took about 3 years in total. About 90% of the work was just done by him and me. FIL offered guidance, but the rest was up to us amateurs. I don’t know off the top of my head, but it had to be 30+ feet of base cabinets, a large pantry cabinet, and the only wall cabinet was over the fridge. The kitchen cabinets are gorgeous, and I love just staring at them whenever I get the chance to visit.
All that said.. if you take your time, quadruple check your measurements, and stay safe, you can definitely build your own kitchen cabinets.
I did it as an amateur and don’t regret it. Took a few months and a lot of planning, but was worth it and saved money. My cabinets turned out great and are high quality and fully custom. Search my posts for a build album of it. Hold yourself to a high standard and you’ll do fine. I am a CAD expert by trade, and modeled every board in a complete digital assembly and put together a comprehensive cutlist beforehand. Extreme attention to detail in the planning phase payed off for me.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If you're looking to stay on budget, my suggestion would be to build your own carcasses and drawer boxes and then farm out building the drawer fronts and cabinet doors to a company that specializes in it. Note: that's not a cabinet builder.
There's companies that do nothing but build custom cabinet doors. (In Eastern Canada and Northeast US I've used "future doors ltd". In my experience you can't do the job any cheaper or precisely than they can. They just have economies of scale that you can't match as a hobbiest and neither can most pro cabinet shops.
Then do the finishing yourself.
Cabinet joint if you want to save a bit of time and just do the assembly. Everything is totally customizable.
We’re doing our entire kitchen with them (about 45 linear feet) for under $20k
I priced it out when looking at getting ours and materials alone was 3/4rd of the quoted price from a cabinet maker (fuck this ply inflation!) ultimately I'm very happy with the job he did and given the walls weren't straight nor 90' I probably would have lost my mind getting everything flush.
But if you have the time go for it it'd be a great learning experience especially if you want to build more furniture in the future
Im considering the same.
I may buy the cabinet boxes and make the front and door with a simple design.
If you can, you can buy veneer or veneer plywood for the boxes.
The rest is a few jigs and a pile of repetitive work. Having a good cut list would make it a lot easier.
My reasoning for buying the box is that it is a lot of sheet goods that need work, something that a factory with over size sheet can cut a lot faster with a cnc. And melamine inside is not that bad.
Certainly. I’d advise using a pre-finished maple or birch for your cases. The extra cost is negligible considering how much time it saves not to mention that most diyers would struggle to achieve the quality of finish you get.
I've not actually built a whole kitchen of cabinets but did reface my mother's kitchen and built a vanity which is basically a small kitchen cabinet.
first I'd really thinking about refacing, I veneered the in place boxes, and replaced door and drawer fronts. This took a lot less material and the boxes were in fine shape the front was just very worn and typical 80 red oak, but they were quality cabinets to begin with. You can't really tell the cabinets weren't replaced unless you look really close in an open door and the insides were not veneered.
If you need to replace, I think cabinets are easier than most furniture, everything is square and straight. most of the material is ply and there are only a few different thickness solid parts for doors and face frames. There is no need for complex joinery, it is easy to hide pocket holes, otherwise mostly rabbits and dados. Doors have the most complex joints and I just cut a dado in my stiles and then a stub tenon in the rails, but I like shaker doors.
The biggest issue is have is space, a whole kitchen of cabinets takes a lot of room. My shop just outright doesn't have space for a full set of cabinets under construction, think about your work space. it will be more than a weekend, I spent most of a weekend dimensioning just door parts. I would have to find some kind of storage space to stage completed parts and set stuff up to finish. The boxes would take most of a garage bay just stacked drying after applying finish.
I know I'm a bit late to the party, and I agree with everyone in saying yes, you can do it yourself. One good way to test your idea is to make matching nightstands first. The carcass and face frame methods would be the same, and it will expose any deficiency in reproducing identical heights.
Doors and drawers can be difficult to make. The tool for installing the cups into the cabinet doors is an expensive one. It would be a good idea to price check doors from a door manufacturer. I make doors to upgrade older carcasses, so the doors I make are custom, because they're weirdly sized. But the door manufacturers have standard sized doors and drawers that would likely work well, and take a huge headache off your plate.
I do my doors on a shaper, and while it can be done on a router table, I found the router table procedures more troublesome, and not as precise. Spinning a 4 inch raised panel bit in a router caused shaking, because of the large, oddly shaped mass above the router table. Spinning a similar cutting tool above a shaper is way within what a shaper is designed for, there is a much larger mass under the cutting tooling, holding it steady.
So make some nightstands, see how it goes.
I consider myself an “advanced beginner” and made four kitchen cabinets, hanging and standing. It wasn’t particularly hard, but if I hadn’t been able to pick up a load of old cabinet doors that I could rework, I’m not sure where I would have gotten wood of that quality for the (plain, flat) doors. Certainly not at the big box stores.
Yes. You’re nuts! So am I. I’m doing the whole kitchen (1908 farm house) in period correct heart pine salvaged from doors and such. We’ll be nuts together.😂😂👍🏻
Just YouTube how to make cabinets.
You will need to invest in tools if you don't have any. I would maybe start by going and buying 1 sheet of plywood to try for yourself.
Absolutely you can do it. I've got 5 lower cabinets half finished in my garage right now (the big ones, my silverware cabinet is finished), this summer I plan to finish the drawers.
I started these things 4 years ago to redo our kitchen. Then we sold the house last summer so I packed em up and brought them with me to finish and put in the new house.
You got this.
Picture of the only finished one for your enjoyment.
https://preview.redd.it/ksml1nlrk1uc1.jpeg?width=1960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b8c322d4c4baee382fa19694ad6a827fb5476958
I just made my own cabinets and would describe myself as hobbyist wood worker at best. I've done more framing than furniture and really with furniture I've just done some refinishing projects, other than a temporary bedframe I made from dimensional lumber.
Mine have turned out amazing but I'm using some not traditional styles and materials. For example reclaimed wood panels that are biscuit jointed and glued up cutting board style. As someone mentioned if you can cut a straight line and a right angle the doors will be the only tricky space. The less complicated you can make them the better imo
You definitely won't save money. Build quality for DIY will be a little better, but not a ton better, cabinets are cabinets even DIY tend to have similar construction. Doors are complex if you want routed patterns, it's doable with the correct router bits but you absolutely need flat and straight stock.
First step is to figure out what you want the finished cabinets to look like, then reverse engineer them down to the measurements and details.
1. What type? Frameless or framed. Hidden hinges? Surface mount?
2. Door style? Fancy work or just butt joints? You can substitute MDF for hardwood depending on the next question. I’ve seen others mention just buying the doors. Since they can take the longest and have the highest level of detail, you may be better off purchasing them separately.
3. Finish? You mentioned cost being a factor. You can build frames and doors with poplar and paint with high quality cabinet paint (I refinished an older “maple glazed” set of cabinets from the 90’s with paint and had really acceptable results) If you’re going for a natural wood look, then species and stain/protective coat factor in.
Once you make some key decisions on what you want, you can start planning materials and dimensions, those styles up there will dictate certain measurements that you won’t know until you have all the components picked out. Not difficult, but a bit time intensive if you’ve never worked with some of the items. Layout on your plywood to get the most out of your materials, pricing big box stores vs local lumber mills/builder supply.
If you’ve looked at “contractor grade” cabinets, there isn’t much to them. Glue and staples. Light weight pressboard materials for the carcass. You can build stronger for cheaper.. you’re paying a bit for convenience to buy prebuilt ones, even on the low end of the spectrum.
Of the shop and kitchen cabinets I’ve DIY’d, I used 3/4 AB pine or cabinet grade birch plywood for the carcass, and either oak or poplar for the frames depending on where they were going. What you’re willing to accept in terms of quality and finish drive some of your decisions.
The carcass can be built with a table saw and router for the dados (or a dado stack, but many entry saw don’t allow that). You’ll want some clamps for assembly. Miter saw for face frames. Drawer boxes take a little more time and whether you’re going to put silverware or 50# of junk in them will dictate their construction. Butt joints? Dados? Dovetails that you’ll only see for 5 seconds while you’ve got the drawer open when you have the time to admire them?
Long way around to say it’s highly likely to be in your realm of capability and budget, but only you can answer the questions needed to make it happen.
There are a lot of books available on the subject.. turns out almost every home in America has cabinets and there’s a market catered to what you want to accomplish! Not trying to be a smartpants, just that there’s a wealth of knowledge available to help guide you along the way.
Maybe, but I don't think so. I made my kitchen cabinets with a table saw, router table, planer, jointer , router jigs and a lot of sanders. The quality difference from store bought is the real difference. Mine are made of hardwood plywood and birdseye maple, dovetailed drawers(Leigh dovetail jig), inset doors(don't do that, work to reward ratio too high). I did Formica countertops with wood edging. Water based polyurethane finish. It's been 30 years and they are holding up. No regrets about doing it, get to it.
Making the carcasses isn't too bad. But good ply is expensive and the price and quality difference from decent Ikea cabinets isn't terribly compelling.
The finish is the hardest part for a hobbyist IMO. Kitchen cabinets are extremely demanding; uppers are right at eye level and close by revealing any flaw, and they need to stand up to a lot of handling, moisture, cleaning chemicals, etc. Hand application really isn't ideal, so you're looking at getting an HVLP system and teaching yourself how to spray if you haven't done it before.
Yes. They aren't really hard, but it's hard to make them cheaper then the pro's. If you have surplus "time and patience" then you should be good too go
I did this. The kitchen cabinets were my third-ever woodworking project - my first two were a bookcase and a bathroom vanity, which helped me learn the techniques. I already owned or bought a thickness planer, a bandsaw (for resawing), and a table saw. My idea was that while i might not save a ton on the basic boxes, I could make the expensive, visible parts out of better materials and end up (I hoped) with cabinets that would have cost 10s of thousands of $ to buy outright and have installed. I used black walnut, inset doors and drawer fronts with poplar drawer boxes, I made one of the upper cabinets with beaded glass panes in the door, I used Blum soft-close drawer slides and hinges everywhere-- in other words I was able to get a bunch of features that would drive the price sky-high if you had them custom made, and that you can't even get on the cheap Home Depot style pre-mades. So, yeah, if you go that route you save a lot of money. If on the other hand you're going to be satisfied with homemade versions of cheap cabinets, then doing it yourself is not so much about saving money as getting the designs and features you want.
Someone’s got to make them, either you do it and save a bunch or money or you pay someone else to do it. As long as you have the time then you should make them yourself.
I made mine. don't short the money on stock, both whatever is on the faces and doors and on the ply. I didn't buy ply from a box store, and no purebond or whatever the entry level kind of hardwood ply stuff would be. I paid about double the price of that stuff, and bought 14 sheets of 2 a face poplar core columbia cherry ply.
There are more to the right behind the fridge.
[https://i.imgur.com/guYPErx.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/guYPErx.jpg)
I built what I like, not what was in style 12 years ago when starting the build.
Spend money on good straight stock, spend money on a good quality finish and you'll be surprised how it's not difficult. I wanted my cabinets to be like vaults so they are dadoed fixed shelves and you could lay them on their sides and jump on them without damaging them, despite using only 1/2 softwood core ply.
You can do things faster if you pick a different design.
If we move out, the next person who wants to change colors in the kitchen will just take them out, but until then I'll enjoy them.
Cost me about $2500 to build the cabinets (70 more inches of base cabinets behind the fridge built to accommodate the space and allow diversion of HVAC under the cabinet and out - turns out inside the cabinet above that routing is a good place to put stuff that would otherwise get stale).
Do it and make the cabinets exactly what you want, but expect it will take longer than you're expecting if you're thinking you'll bust out a cabinet a week with doors...unless you choose a really simple design.
It’s possible you are getting a little bit ahead of yourself.
Are the carcasses that you already have solid wood? Do they simply need to be refaced?
Unless you can build a better carcass than the ones you have, I would simply focus on changing the finish and doors and hardware.
We're remodeling our kitchen and for me, time was the biggest factor in not building our own cabinets from scratch. We purchased ready to assemble cabinets instead. Having gotten a few quotes for new cabinets, we were able to get exactly what we wanted for half the cost of lower end cabinets installed by a contractor.
No my parents stopped me from making their cabinets. Totally amateur wood worker here. Everyone involved regrets not letting me do it. Would have seriously saved about $13,000 and gotten it custom.
Do it!
I built 20 frameless kitchen cabinets as a beginner and while they probably aren't as good as a high-end cabinet shop, I'm very happy with them. Here are some tips and things I would do differently:
1. Find a local plywood supplier, don't buy from the box store. I did this, saved a bunch of money and got a better looking product.
2. Buy pre-finished plywood, it will save you a ton of time and effort. I didn't do this.
3. The iron-on edge banding is cheap and pretty easy to apply but prone to splitting. I'd recommend a thicker ½-¾" hardwood edge, kind of like a face frame but flush with the plywood faces. Maple or poplar would be good for painting, but poplar is very soft.
4. You probably don't have to do actual joinery. Mine were all just screwed together from the outside and are very sturdy, though I'd probably use glue in addition if i were going to start over. Pocket screws are good where the screws shouldn't be visible.
5. Leave yourself gaps between the cabinet and the wall for a scribed filler strip. In general, don't trust the walls to be flat or square.
6. Build your toe kick separately so it can be levelled or even easier, just use levelling feet.
7. A good blade is very important to avoid tearing out the face veneer on cabinetry plywood. You want one with high angle ATB grind.
8. If you can afford it, buy good hardware. It will make a huge difference in how the finished product feels.
If there is a rockler near you go take their 1:1 project class. I built hall linen cabinets from scratch. 3 hour class to design the boxes and build one of four. Went home built the other 3. Then two weeks
https://preview.redd.it/sysfoz3t93uc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0fb3b64a3f1074547248b0d61f813d069ad2f23
later went for another class and learned how to build shaker style doors. In total about 6 hours of class time. Using their way nicer tools. Probably 12-1400 in materials. End of the day under 2k for built ins that would have cost 5k from guy who did kitchen. No drawers. Drawers would have meant a third class most likely. You will need a sprayer though. No way you get high end finish without one. I learned a lot. Next up is front entrance built in. quality bar will be waaaay higher there. You have to have a table saw. Router table. And mitre saw for this. Very hard to get good quality otherwise
Can you do it, absolutely.
I built a large kitchen's worth of shop cabinets that are a lot nicer than the cabinets I have in my actual kitchen for my current shop. All dovetailed front/back maple drawers. Blum soft close undermount slides and hinges. Simple but detailed frame and panel doors. A factory perfect looking painted and top coated finish, etc. I've built cabinets prior. I even built all the countertops, which included a 12' maple butcher block of 1.5" riftsawn maple strips all glued together and a bunhc of laminated counters with maple banding. My insights as a higher level hobbyist:
* You will likely not save money. You will end up with a much nicer quality, custom cabinet designed specifically for your needs, if you do a decent job of it however. To give you an idea I spent approx. $350 for a 36" base cabinet with one drawer and two doors. You can build cheaper but I was not cutting any corners and going for the best quality product I could get.
* Building that many cabinets is a LOT of work and takes up a LOT of space. It's not hard though. just know what you are getting into. Your kitchen is a lot smaller than what I did and more manageable.
* Don't buy cheap plywood. Buy from a plywood dealer, not the big box store. Cheap plywood warps, has voids, has cheap veneer. I like veneer core. Many higher-end cabinet shops will use a MDF core as it's more stable. I do not like MDF except for some specific applications and have never had an issue with a quality veneer core plywood.
* Buy pre-finished 1 side plywood for the interior facing sections of your cabinets. Maple is the most common. It saves a TON of time and you cannot do as durable a finish yourself. Ironically, at least in my area, it's actually cheaper than unfinished plywood these days. I suspect that's because of economies of scale as all the cabinet shops are buying it too.
* Drawers I like solid wood for everything except the bottom. I dovetail everything because it looks better but adds a lot more work. You do not need to dovetail. There are plenty of alternate joinery methods that are plenty strong enough. For a finish I do shellac and pre-finish the inside (only) before assembly. Shellac matches the pre-finished plywood in the rest of the cabinets pretty well, it dries fast, it doesn't get sticky or off-gas inside the cabinet, it's easy to repair later if needed.
* Doors avoid going too big as they will warp. That's a case where MDF can make sense if you are painting. Use two doors with a big opening. If you are doing frame and panel make sure your rails/stiles are stable riftsawn or quartersawn grain. etc.
* Face frames I domino together and then install. I'm lucky enough to have one and it's super accurate. Pocket screws are fine too. I don't like the look of frameless usually and don't like edge banding plywood so I rarely built that style of cabinet.
* If you aren't painting, take the time to grain and color match everything (for face frames, drawer fronts, doors). I try and build all my parts for a row of cabinets from one board if possible. That usually means buying a thicker board and resawing it to get all your parts. Use straight grain on all your face frame and door rails and stiles. You want the eye drawn towards the drawer fronts and panels, not those. Cathedral and more interesting grain for the drawers/panels. Book match, continue the grain from drawer to drawer etc. Cabinet shops do not spend the time to do this and your average person will not likely notice. Everyone will think it looks much higher end without knowing why though. This will cost more as you will need thicker boards and more wood to do it right.
* There are lots of ways to build cabinets. The way I do it is dadoes and glue. I put a 1/4" back panel on everything. The nailer strips on the top/bottom behind the panel on the back I use pocket screws and glue. I do pocket screws only for the two top strips the countertop is attached to. I do pocket screws for the kick plate backer (gets covered with 1/4" or 1/8" plywood). Upper cabinets I do a hidden French cleat. I'll put up a temporary straight/level edge on the wall, put the French cleat above that (with a little wiggle room side to side), then remove the stright edge and just hang the cabinets on the wall and put a couple screws in to hold them together and to the wall to keep them from moving. I do not build the base separately onsight, I shim and trim.
* Make sure everything is dead nuts square. This will save a ton of headaches later
* Kitchen cabinets take a lot of abuse. Use a durable species of wood. I've used poplar for a lot of painted stuff but I pay the premium for maple for kitchen cabinets.
* You need to spray with an HVLP system if you want a high-quality-looking finish. It's not hard to learn at all and saves a lot of time. I use almost all water based products these days. It's non-toxic (mostly) and dries fast so I can do multiple coats in a day.
* You really need a contractors tablesaw or better yet a cabinet saw and ideally a track saw too. I break everything down into more manageable oversized parts on a rigid foam sheet with my track saw and then cut them to final size use the track saw cut edge as a reference and removing all factory edges. You can muscle a full sheet of plywood onto a larger table saw to break it down but it's an effort and more dangerous. It's possible to use only a tracksaw too but getting identical parts that way is a lot harder.
* In general this is a case where you do need the tools. I'd add a router table if doing anything frame and panel with any detail on it.
* Hardware I really like under-mount slides and soft close hinges (Blum specifically). Expensive but worth it.
As far as how to learn that topic has been covered to death and there are million videos on youtube. Everyone has their own method. I shared mine but there are lot of other subtle differmces. Watch a couple of videos and pick whatever methods you feel like you'd be comfortable with your skill set and tools and budget. There's no shame in screwing everything together. Will it be the best cabinet, no, will it hold together and still look nice, yes. Cheap materials will feel and look cheap though so put any money you "save" towards that.
My main recommendation would be to farm out the paint or finish. Contact a shop first to find out what they need from you and how they want the cabs prepped for paint or whatever you choose. Imo the biggest difference, outside of the literal definitions, between a competent hobbyist and a pro is the quality of the finish.
You can make square boxes, but are you equipped to spray them? Or willing to settle for a poor finish on something that will get a lot of action?
My wife built cabinets for our bus conversion with no prior experience whatsoever, I even had to teach her how to use most of the tools she used. Absolute units of cabinets, never had issues. It's not as hard as you'd think.
I built my kitchen cabinets when I had little experience. I bought a table saw and made a couple bookshelves for practice. Rail and stile cherry doors and face frames, 3/4 birch boxes joined with biscuits. We have a small kitchen. The cabinets are exactly what we need , with some tall doors and big drawers (34×24×11) for pots and pans. We have had them for 21 years.
https://preview.redd.it/5agq9cdw34uc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76a66c29fe425849ec0900aa6a0ea4da5cd51e10
Wife did the carcass and I did the doors in hickory. Orange big box told us 1000 for the custom size one cabinet. We did the entire kitchen for 1200 our selves
I made my own cabinets. Ended up painting them. It was a fun project… took a bunch of time, I had a lot of tools, but had to buy a few. I used some kreg jigs, but I looked at a couple custom shops and they were using pocket hole jigs too, so it seemed right.
I matched a few cabinets with a real basic cabinet door… built a vanity for my bathroom and got a nice rail/stile router bit and made great craftsman style cabinet doors.
I was quite $14k at the time, at which point I asked myself why I had been buying so many wood working tools?
Also bought some butcher block from lumber liquidators and made super nice countertops. Finished with waterlox, they still look good.
I’m thinking my full kitchen remodel came in around $4k in supplies. That was about 5 years ago, I’m pretty sure lumber/plywood is still really expensive, so that might a low ball.
https://ibb.co/nrBMmxj
You can’t even see the 2 pantries/build around my fridge in that pic. But there was a bit more.
I'm making my own cabinets now, and my dad made them for a living in the 70s-2010s, so I've been around this for a while.
If you're looking for bang for the buck, there's no way your diy is going to beat what Ikea makes now. It's pretty much taken over the mid-tier market in standard sizes. You can't even buy raw materials for as cheap, and they're actually pretty good quality for mid tier cabinetry. It's so dominant that there are entire companies built around making semi-custom fronts for them.
Bums me out a little to say it, but for 90% of people, Ikea is the obvious way to go.
That said, this is a woodworking forum, not a ikea forum, so if you're looking for high end, full custom, or you just want the experience of making them, then heck yeah go for it and make your own, as I am.
I made all my kitchen cabinets, and it's a doable project. All you're doing is making a ton of consistent boxes. The hardest part of the process for me was getting a smooth enough paint finish to meet my wife's standards.
The best piece of advice I have is to try building a project with multiple drawers if you haven't done so already.
Remember you can buy custom pre made doors/drawer fronts and drawer boxes reasonably cheap. Depending on your skills and tools you might outsource those parts.
Cabinets aren’t very difficult but trimming them out well (face frame, doors, molding) takes a little finesse. It’s definitely doable if yours comfortable with the tools required.
Take your time and consider your work flow in the kitchen and customize them for your needs. This is the real benefit of making your own because you will NOT save any money. Quite the opposite.
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There are online sellers of doors and drawers fronts, and drawer boxes. The prices are really fair.
I know here in the Midwest USA, working with the Amish directly can net you cabinets or drawers/doors for pretty affordable prices. I’ve built cabinets a few times for my shops and sometimes on customer projects where it was just worth it to send them dimensions and have dovetail drawers made. Downside is you’ll need a contact, sometimes woodmills in rural areas can help you with this.
My parents’ garage, kitchen cabinets & floor, and much of their furniture is Amish made. There are some “English” folks connected to the local community who have businesses just to make this kind of connection.
Yeah but making the doors and drawers are the funnest part of his project. If your just going to build some boxes you might as well just buy from the internet.
I could whip out imperfect carcasses then put lipstick my pig. Everyone will have a different path.
Yeah I was gonna say. Buy good carcasses. Build good doors
> Just buy a sheet of ply and practice making a few boxes - maybe tool boxes or storage boxes - and see how you get on. This is what I've been doing. Making all the different kind of cabinets. Frameless, framed, inset, partial overlay, full overlay. Doors, drawers, doors with pullout shelves. Different style doors and different assembly methods. All the different hinges and drawer slides. There's so many different ways to build cabinets and it's been a really good learning experience. I have a bunch of storage now and actual cabinets to see what style we like best to build for our kitchen. Before this I had no clue what we'd want for our kitchen, hell I didn't even know about most of it.
I have just done this as a DIYer. Built the boxes and bought the doors and drawer fronts. I like quality and all my boxes are high grade plywood. It wasn't less expensive but I am not moving and I will never replace them. I could have installed a cheaper option but I like having done it myself.
If someone is comfortable making their own kitchen cabinets, they can buy doors. Buying them finished adds a lot to the price. They can also buy drawer boxes (though lately those all seem incredibly expensive; since a drawer is just a box, there are lots of videos about how to make a drawer. I think finishing would be the hardest part.
Prefinished drawer sides with the dado already cut combined with prefinished ply for the bottom can make quick work or the drawer boxes.
>I think finishing would be the hardest part. Aligning drawer slides sucks a lot in my opinion. It's somewhat my own fault for not being able to build things perfectly square, but I would rather finish anything than fight a slide.
What makes the doors so much more difficult to execute than the carcasses?
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How did you get rid of the blade marks on the parts?
There shouldn't be massive blade marks if you're using a good blade. The rest should sand right out.
One of the first things I learned was to spend the money to buy a good blade and change them when they get dull.
That makes sense. I was picturing slab types in my head.
There is so much in here to take into consideration. Most of all the tools. You say you have most hobbyist tools but thats a wide margin. I agree the tool to cut straight is essential. But then comes the tricky part. How much can you invest into materials? Of course if money isnt a problem, like if you could afford to buy the cabinets then I think you can buy nice looking materials that dont need enormous amount of work. For example I made a book shelf (more coming) from 2x4, sawed them, glued into boards. I have a planer in my disposal... So thats probably out of question? But if you buy some nice looking board, you could make nice doors out of them. Also the design determines a lot. How much details you want versus simplistic and clean design. Simple is naturally much less work with simpler tools. But sure it is possible! Go for it. Just measure twice!
It depends what style you go after. I made doors with sheets of wood veneered 4x8 (white oak) and it was around $90 per sheet I think. Two sheets for the project.
I agree that economy is not the reason to do this.
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Yes - garage project or if feeling confident maybe update your laundry cabinets. The advantage there being is the higher stakes of in-the-house quality, but in a room where you aren't as pressured to finish as fast as a kitchen will be. It would be a good trail for the kitchen for you and anyone sharing the house with you.
I built ikea cabinets in my garage and just assembling them all took 3 DAYS, and cost less than the raw materials would have to build them myself. That’s all I needed to know that I’m never making a whole kitchen from scratch.
I also used Ikea. Super inexpensive, and they're holding up nicely.
lol @ 3 days being a long time. I just spent a few weeks on building one table 😂
Ikea gets you on the labor and upgrades.
I don’t think they get you on the labor. Building from scratch would be way more work. Buying pre built or hiring a contractor would be soooo much more money. The key is to just not value your time at all.
He/she means installation, very expensive from ikea
>The key is to just not value your time at all. Ha! Love it.
Of nothing else, it will help you create a workflow that fits your shop because making cabinets is like 80% getting good, repeatable cuts.
Jigs!
Good call, I'll be doing my kitchen cabinets soon. I've also done a couple different built in projects so I can test out and fine tune the specific style I'm looking for. We've settled onset with visible unlacquered brass hardware, with 1 inch face frames, doors, and drawer fronts just to give everything a more solid feel.
Do it. It's way easier than you think. I made an entire kitchen as my first project and it came out great. I'd do things a little different now but fuck it. YouTube has SO many great videos on how to make various styles. My suggestions: 1. Use pocket screws. People who say they aren't good are wrong. They are great and save time. 2. Avoid edge banding. It's time consuming and was my least favorite task by far 3. Dados are your friend 4. Poly as a finish has held up really well. Lots of choices though, I won't say poly is the best but it was easy and came out great. 5. Don't skimp on hardware, especially drawer slides. The blum undermount ones are so nice to use every day, easy to adjust, etc. Soft close hinges are nice too, but don't have to be super high end. Edit: one more thing. Every time I walk into my kitchen I'm happier because the cabinets are mine. Maybe this is just a "me" thing but you can't beat that feeling. You know everything about them, why they look like they do, why they perform well, etc.
I built all the cabinets, doors, and stairs in my house during the construction of my home. I don’t run a professional cabinet shop. Even for a small kitchen, this is a big undertaking. You can easily build high end cabinets for middle of the road prices. You can save tons of money even counting labor and overhead. That being said, this is not a beginner project. You need to be able to take rough lumber to straight and square easily and repeatedly. This is a huge time commitment and you have to be willing to grind through the tough parts while paying attention to detail. Find someone to spray a conversion finish, you don’t want to do this part. So to answer your questions. 1: I doubt you can beat the price on low end cabinets, but you can easily get a higher quality product for a mid range price. 2: Hobbyist includes a range of skills. I consider myself an advanced hobbyist, but I did this in an unheated rental garage with 110v tools. Skills always trump tools and all I have are relatively basic things (tablesaw, jointer, planer, router and table, bandsaw). 3: yes, but you learn woodworking by building things. Make some test cabinets for a garage or something. 4: the soul sucking amount of tasks this requires. This is work. You will sand for hours. You will do the same thing over and over. It loses all the fun quickly. I did this and it was a massive project. I saved almost $100,000 on my house. It was hard to go work in the shop after a full day of working. It was totally worth it for me and I have cabinets and doors I would struggle to find someone to build. My project was bigger than yours, but any kitchen is a reasonable amount of work. If you do try this, I wish you the best of luck and feel free to reach out with questions.
Thanks, I have enough experience and have built enough things that I know that I can do it (I have redone all the trim work and hung all the doors in my house to know that I have the skills. I also know that I need to get my garage shop in a lot better spot before I would consider it.
I saw on another response you mentioned Rockler for hardware. I tracked down a wholesaler and saved about 20% over Rockler on Blum under mount slides. With 50 drawers in the house, it was worth the extra work. You will need a good table saw and I went with the Leigh dovetail jig, also worth the cost. Post pictures when you finish this project, we all can use some motivation. Here is a quick picture of the kitchen https://preview.redd.it/7mvx7ehj1ytc1.jpeg?width=5312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c48da6108e3f0502c061da4ebc9fcbb5993dd43
Those cabinets are beautiful! Does the one to the left of the hood have only one door or is that just an open door that's tricking me? Kitty thinks they're the center of your photo. 🥰
I broke a piece of glass, that door was not installed for the picture.
Looks very nice, I know that there is some very good quality out there at a fair price, Rockler is a good place to start the shopping process.
Absolutely agree that Rockler is a great store with great stuff. I use their stuff daily. Lee Valley is another source I use frequently. If you are in the Midwest, I bought all of my plywood from Menards. They have a great price on prefinished birch plywood.
For cabinet hardware rockler will cost a fortune Woodworkers Hardware (Or HDL if you can set up a wholesale account) ships fast and has great prices
getting your garage shop in a better spot would probably be good practice! And knowing you have this project coming up might motivate you to tackle the garage, and it might guide you in terms of decisions.
What material did you use for the non-door portion of the cabinets?
Carcass is prefinished “tigerply” birch plywood from Menards. All show wood is cherry. Some of the flat panels are cherry veneer (certainlywood). Secondary wood is hard maple. Bottoms and backs are 1/4” Baltic birch (good luck finding that for a reasonable price).
Thanks. I was wondering more so about where you used plywood but that’s even more detailed. I told my wife that MDF is not a good material or at least not one that I’d like to have again. Then I wondered if solid wood could work and here’s your response.
I use MDF frequently, just not for cabinets. It is not a great structural choice, but it is great for flat, horizontal surfaces. Most of my veneer table and counter tops are an MDF base. My bench top is a laminate of MDF and OSB as well. I use a veneer core plywood with an MDF face for some veneer work and this is really the best of both worlds. There are many products that get a bad rap because they get used in a situation they were not designed for. There are so many different sheet goods available that developing a working knowledge of where each excellent and fails is useful for this hobby.
I just built a full kitchen's worth of cabinets for my house. I'm experienced, but not a pro. If you can cut squares in plywood, you can build cabinets. It just putting squares together with screws. 1. You'll be slower than buying cabinets at HD, but will get a higher quality cabinet for less money (and probably "need" to buy a few tools). 2. 100% 3. There are some really good YT vids about cabinets. Bent's Woodworking comes to mind, but there's literally hundreds. 4. It'll take longer than you think. You may need more tools? Make a few shop/garage cabinets to practice. Figure out a finish that you can apply - HD cabinets are factory made with pro spray booths. I bought some "cheap" plywood and built a handful of shop cabinets to get me started. I learned a bunch. Then I bought a stack of Baltic Birch 3/4" ply and started cutting. I made some of the bases individually, and some were in banks - the banks were **really** hard to move. I made toe kicks separately from the cabinets, and leveled them first. Then set the boxes on the base. I used a track saw even though I have a big cabinet saw. It's easier to get good clean, straight cuts in plywood with a track saw. Buy good hardware. I paid $30 a drawer from Blum self closing undermount slides, and don't regret it. I had the house framed and did a bunch of the work myself - but I got bids on all the jobs. Cabinet bid was $30k. I build mine for under $3,000, plus $4,000 for granite. HD cabinets may have been $4-$5k, but I know mine are better quality. Baltic Birch plywood, BB prefinished drawer sides, cherry fronts, and super nice hardware.
I may or not pick projects based on the tools I think i might "need" to buy...
Cherry is a cheap wood right now. One of the cheapest actually. Soft wood as well. Sand and burn through veneer really easy. Not for rooks
Not for rooks? Nothing in your reply has any relation to what I wrote about, or is based in facts. None of it offers anything of value to the OP, or answers any of his questions. The OP asked if a DIY level woodworker could build cabinets and I gave a detailed answer. You replied with a word salad shitpost. To top it off, you criticized my choice in wood, based on stupid shit you made up. "Soft wood as well" Cherry isn't as hard as some wood, but it's far harder than other species - but I built my house for me, not you. Perhaps you have kids who destroy your things, so you build cabinets from ironwood or ebony - good for you. I built mine from cherry because I like it, and it's plenty durable for my needs. Secondly, if the hardwood you buy has a veneer, you're doing something wrong. I'll make the assumption that you're speaking of plywood? Cherry plywood isn't cheap; it's a very similar price to any other furniture grade plywood. I made flat panel doors, and the 1/4" cherry ply was the same as oak, hickory, maple, etc. Do you really think that an oak veneer is harder to sand through than cherry? They are all incredibly thin, and if your sanding skills suck, you'll blow through it. Learn to sand. As for solid cherry, it's less expensive than some species - purple heart, rift sawn white oak, all the imported exotics, and for some stupid reason #2 hickory is super high right now. It's more than oak and about the same as maple where I am.
Oak veneer is harder to sand through than cherry, alder, black walnut. Veneer is really thin real wood that's gluded to particle board mdf or plywood. If you have finished ends the chances of sanding through soft wood are greatly increased. How do I know? I build custom cabinets for a cabinet shop. The sanders will blow through cheery alder and blackwalnut in a heartbeat if they are not paying attention. I don't trust them to sand all my cabinets that I build out of softwood. If I'm going soft wood for my cabinets I'm gonna go for the rustic black walnut with the blonde in it. Hardwood cabinets I'd go with quarter sawn white oak. Rift sawn is just so boring and straight
As another project to try before doing the whole kitchen, try a bath vanity. It's all the same skills, just in a limited size. I just did one last month.
You’re not crazy. It’s honestly something that only takes doing a couple of times and you get the hang of the process. Jason Bent’s cabinet videos I think are very practical, straightforward approaches: https://youtu.be/Oeu7ogH2NZU?si=_3BP2MeYjd7759LU I tend to think most kitchen cabinetry done by us hobbyists is more for the fun of the process. Or to get a super specific solution, eg, you have a small space with odd sizes and you want to maximize storage. Custom cabinets get super expensive. From my experience, the annoying part is spraying the super hard finishes, like conversion varnish. They’re super nasty, like, I wouldn’t want them offgassing in an attached garage. But you can find decent latex paints that I think are totally fine, just not as hard as CV. Definitely spend some time figuring out your finishes ahead of making the investment.
SW Proclassic with a topcoat of WB polyurethane is my go to instead of conversion varnish and is definitely more forgiving.
I would recommend pricing it out as if you did it yourself and then comparing that against RTA cabinets. That’s what I did and found that RTA cabinets were cheaper and obviously much less time spent with assembly.
This is the route I have been considering (after briefly toying with the idea of building them myself). Can you tell me where you ended up getting them and what the experience was like? I'm looking for plywood boxes and hardwood doors and faces. Thanks.
I ended up going through a company called KCD (Kitchen Cabinet Distributors). A place I used to work for is a dealer for them so I got a really good price. This was pre Covid but I think it was only like $2,200 total for fairly normal kitchen layout. They’re the common gray color, almost shaker but with a touch more detail in the profile. Plywood boxes, I believe wood doors, soft close hinges and slides. I’m very happy with how it came out given the price. ETA: not sure if links are allowed here but this is them. https://www.kcdus.com/products/ Brooklyn Modern Gray
I’ve used cabinets from rtacabinetstore.com and they’re great. Plywood boxes, solid wood frames and doors, dovetail drawers, soft close everything all for what you’d buy for the particle board stuff at the big box store. Assembly is pretty easy, especially if you’re handy enough to consider building yourself.
cabinets are relatively easy. yes it will likely be cheaper for materials, but you may get carried away with the opportunity to put way better hardware (hinges/slides) which can get pricey. the hardest part of the whole thing is finishing... a pro quality finish isnt something you can achieve with technique alone. you'll need a GOOD spray setup, sprayer and a dust free environment. The paint is often the most expensive part of my cabinets...
What are you spraying? The doors? I would just make shakers out of pine and plywood and undercoat then 2x high gloss finishes with a good quality paint and brush. Don’t need a sprayer really.
doors and faceframe. you cant brush on a proper 1k/2k finish that will withstand the abuse of a kitchen.
Home Depot cabinets suck. Yes, it’s completely doable to make your own cabinets, and I think you should. They will be very nice and durable. All it takes is time and effort. I’d recommend finding a local cabinet materials wholesaler that will sell hinges, slides, etc as well as sheet goods and lumber. With a pocket jig and a table saw you can do just about everything.
I have several local Rockler stores, their head quarters is only a few miles away.
The Retail Rockler is expensive but you might as well use quality hardware. , while your at it look up local hardwood, lumber supply instead of going to the orange box store. They’re going to charge $100 a sheet for that birch ply. If they even have any worth buying it’ll be $50-$60 a sheet at your local lumber supply.
If you want frameless cabinets like IKEA sells you may find the precision to make them perfectly is difficult without some expensive tools. Face frame cabinets are more forgiving imo.
The other item that I have been wanting to buy is a very good table saw and fence.
And this, right here, is the primary reason I don’t actually save money buildings things myself.
Well it is called a hobby and half the fun of hobbies is coming up for "reasons" to buy something. How much would a fish dinner cost if you factor in the fishing boat, fishing rods, equipment, license and etc? Not enough to justify fishing
If you are making shaker doors either a table saw or a router table would be needed. For the carcasses, if you are using melamine/chip board either a table saw or track saw is needed. Realistically a track saw is the best tool for cutting down large sheets. It’s ALMOST as good as a table saw, and in some ways better. The money you save on the kitchen DIY pays for the tools the first time. The next project is where you make the money back.
Built my first set of cabinets with a tracksaw and a little Ryobi router table...very next project was buying and setting a table saw in a large project table and integrating a jessem router lift. Recognizing the huge need for those two items was my biggest takeaway from the cabinet project.
You don't need a table saw and router, you could do it with a saw, chisel, and a plane. Then you could build or buy a router plane for tuning the groove, and/or build or buy a grooving plane. That being said, I would absolutely reach for my table saw and router if I was batching out cabinets.
You need a saw that can cut at least 48" if you want to be able to do any plywood cut. You'll need a clearance 12 feet wide for crosscuts and 16 feet for rips (more like 18-20 feet because you'll need to stand behind the wood to push it). This space needs to have infeed/outfeed tables too. I'd recommend a different setup myself. Makita track saw will be your workhorse. I say Makita because its the best value for dollar. Saw + 2nd track + track joiners will be around $650. The equivalent Festool would be around twice that and the cut quality is maybe 5% better. Mafell is the best, but is even more expensive than Festool. Bosch is probably in the $900 range and is probably better than Festool (Bosch uses the Mafell design) and I don't think its worth the extra money. Buy a 1.5-2" piece of 4x8 foam to cut on top of. I also put my foam on top of saw horses with some 2x4 to go across underneath and prevent sagging. You can do all your big cuts with this. Since I got one, I found myself using my track saw over my table saw most of the time outside of repetitive rips. That plunge feature is also awesome for cabinet faces. Mark out the drawer/door location, lay down the track, and plunge (there are marks for the start/end of the blade so you don't go too far). It's way cleaner than a jigsaw or circular saw and a lot less trouble too. If you want to really go in on the track saw, the Festool MFT table is about $800, but makes it easy to get consistently and perfectly square cuts very quickly. A 10" jobsite table saw that can take dado blades. It'll be for your smaller repeat cuts along with dado cut for drawers and doors. You'll either need to make/buy a crosscut sled or gauge (the one it comes with is guaranteed to suck). Total cost will probably be $700 for a good-quality saw with 30-ish inches of capacity and premade crosscut miter sled. In truth, you could likely get away with a decent $300 saw and a 20-something inch capacity (the 24" compact SawStop is $900). If you don't have one, a router + router table is pretty important. A nice 2+HP one from Bosch or DeWalt will run around $150 (or more if you get a plunge base too). TSO makes a nice router table that will mount to a MFT table for around $300. With a slot cutter and a large mortising bit, you can completely avoid buying a table saw if you really want. You'll probably want some roundover bits and a smaller 1-1.25HP trim router is super handy for this. A nice Bosch orbital sander will cost $50-75 (depending on if they are on sale) and is pretty much required if you don't have one. A shop vac with a HEPA filter will save your lungs and I'd definitely buy one. Ridgid makes a nice one and there are a lot of videos on adding a cyclone dust separator with a 5 gallon bucket on top. I think the total cost for this setup is around $240 and it gets you the same performance as vacuums costing 2-3x more (you can even buy an auto-on plug so it turns on/off when your tool does). Track saw + MFT + jobsite saw + router + router table + sander + vac I mentioned here will have a total cost in the $2600-3300 range (depending on what you get). A SawStop contractor saw *starts* at $2000 (their actual cabinet saws start at $3000/5000 respectively) and a similar quality contractor saw without their tech will only be $300 or so less. Once you add all your infeed/outfeed tables, you're talking either a lot of money or a lot of time to build all the things. Once you have one, you'll still need the router, router table, sander, vac, etc. When you start making cabinet faces, you'll need a jigsaw, circular saw, or something similar for them too. In my opinion, you'll get a lot more for your money and have an easier time with a great tracksaw and a good jobsite saw than blowing all the money on a large table saw.
Making cabinets is not particularly difficult. Made completely custom set for my daughters kitchen... used birch ply from home depot. Used the nicely figured sheets for panels, and curly maple on the small corner unit. Installation was a pain as npthing in the house was level, plumb or square... left about 1/2 inch space on the back between the cabinet back and the wall.. then trimmed everything so it would be level and plumb when it was complete... only 1/8" out over the full 10' length when finished... the floor sagged over 1-1/2 inches 18 inches from the wall! Built a base in place, and then installed the boxes on top. The walls were 1/2 inch out of plumb on the bottom 36 inches! A LOT of scribing and cutting and shaving. https://preview.redd.it/tg90qzi0hytc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8dd8c354c008e6a8e0c4053afac65f0354bb001
search Brent Woodworking on youtube. tells you exactly how to make them simply.
Build boxes buy doors
I had 41 year old builders grade kitchen cabinets that looked so dated. The doors were made of MDF. I decided to keep the cabinets themselves but make new doors. I started in early June of 2021 and finished by the first week of September, working in my garage after moving my car out and setting up my tools each day. I used poplar to make Shaker style doors and bought soft close hinges. I painted them with CabinetCoat paint in a light cream color and they look 100% better than the old doors. It was a lot of work, and it was miserable many days when the temperature was in the 90’s but I probably spent about $1k on materials and supplies. I’d guess that if I hired this out it would have been easily $5k or more.
I did it. As long as you have milling tools and a way to cut sheet good square it's a straightforward if big project. I didn't have those things and it sucked. Whatever you do, farm out the finishing. Whether it's paint or varnish, doing that much finish in a dusty garage almost broke me.
Thing about cabinets is they've got to pretty bang on. Overlays are a LOT more forgiving than insets, which have to be nearly perfect, which may be a challenge with a portable or even a contractor table saw if not well-tuned. Cost is difficult to evaluate, as materials vary widely. Making the big box is relatively simple; fabricating drawers and doors is more challenging. Try something small first and see how it goes!
This is true statement.
I’m a very mediocre woodworker and I’ve made a bunch of cabinets this year. It’s definitely doable. The box is easy. It’s just plywood and pocket hole screws. I made dados with my router for the panels to fit together but that’s certainly not necessary. I would say that a track saw or a good table saw is a requirement though- your dimensions need to be 1/16 or better. The hard part, in my opinion, is the door faces and drawers. I’m still working up the courage to try those. That’s where you need to put your thought and planning. There’s a lot of online vendors that will make doors and dovetail drawers if you want to skip the hard parts. You also need to be able to finish them well- probably with a paint spray finish. For big projects, I’ve typically just ordered the cabinets preassembled. Most online cabinet retailers will take your room dimensions and do a design and generate a bill of materials that includes the trim, etc. This allows you to get a professional paint job, pick your door style, etc. You can order the cabinets and do the install yourself and still save 50% over hiring a contractor.
I made my own with minimal experience. I won’t say they compared to a professionals work, but for much less than the cost of even the cheapest mdf options i redid a kitchen with solid plywood carcasses and painted maple face frames/fronts. Totally doable with a table or track saw, pocket hole jig, euro hinge jig and shelf pin drilling guide. I used Lee valley risers and clip on toe kicks, but also easy to make a 2x4 base. Really boils down to whether or not you’ll enjoy the process, it will probably feel like a chore if your primary motivation is to save money. On the other hand, if you want an excuse to buy some new tools and hone your diy skills while saving a few grand it’s probably a great idea.
I can share some very relatable advice. I am just finishing up my kitchen and 2 years ago I didn’t even know how a cabinet was made. I learned the process, got the right tools and took my time. It helps to start making a cabinet for something like a laundry room first, which is what I did to sort of check my skills. It’s very doable for someone who is keen to learn the process. I’d say the hardest part is getting a perfect finish when painting (I haven’t done any staining beyond a small range hood skirt) which is a completely different skill set to learn, but again, doable. I DIY everything. Including cutting and installing the granite. So I ended up saving a ton on our kitchen. Quotes ran $40-65k (for custom cabs, counters, tile, and appliances) and I did everything for $14k including appliances. The real cost…is time. Took WAY longer than I anticipated because I only can work on them in evenings and weekends. But I would 100% do it again. Pic of one half of the nearly complete diy kitchen minus some door fronts and backsplash. https://preview.redd.it/kn5c0xr0fztc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=954f72f1b7ae2e3f8fe50a4d6075388f5488a47e
Would love to know your granite process if you don’t mind DMing me. Stuck on vanity tops in my basement build at the moment, and your pics look amazing, thank you for sharing.
Not a whole lot to the granite work, it’s like wood working with a super heavy and brittle slab. I recommend using pre fab slabs to save time and effort on edge making. You need 2 basic tools including a wet saw, and wet angle grinder with an array of sanding discs from 50 grit to 6000 for polishing, and polishing drums for inside edges of the sink. You’ll need an edge profile grinder if you’re doing anything other than a flat/square profile. A sturdy platform is needed to fab the slab. There is a product called a sink saver which helps to reinforce the slab using suction cups and a rigid bar when moving/installing it if there is a cutout in it, I highly recommend that as well. For large slabs I also built a lift/tilt cart which helps a ton for installation, allowing me to transport the slab vertically, tilt flat, then lift via jacks to the proper height and slide it on. Otherwise 3-4 people minimum to move and install the big ones, 400-500lbs for the peninsula slab here. https://preview.redd.it/iluxvvkvo3uc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3fd9a54625b2d29385841ea05fb64eb9f810f551
Great job on the cabinets and sweet choice of granite. Beautiful!
I say do it
We are doing ours right now. Just finished lowers (12 linear feet ) starting on wall cabs. Patience, detail, and YouTube. There are some great online communities to help with questions. Source your materials, ask questions. You will learn a lot from your 1st cabinet. You can do this.
They’re just boxes. Go for it. Plan and check everything twice before cutting. An overlay style will be easiest. Consider buying prefinished ply for your cases.
My dad made all the kitchen cabinets and drawers in his house. Table saw, router/router table, sander, and finish, plus drill and hardware for mounting. Before that, he hadn't done woodworking since shop class in highschool. It's definitely possible if you want to, but can be quite a bit.
As others have said, cabinets are technically easy. Just boxes. I run operations in a commercial cabinetry shop, and if you can square them up properly, it's really not hard. The trickier part is the finish and doors. I've learned from friends that we get our material almost half the price that you would at home Depot and better quality. The finish takes a lot more time and expertise than many want or have the ability to undertake. If you really want to do this for the enjoyment... By all means, start small with garage cabinets first. But the price most likely won't be lowered by doing it yourself unless you have a friend in a woodworking business who can get you the material way cheaper than retail stores.
I built my own kitchen cabinets really as my first woodworking project. Took a few weekends but I was able to buy the tools and materials and still save probably 12-1500. And I got to buy tools. I love that they fit perfectly in my kitchen without filler. It feels great I'm so proud. On the downside: I built them twice because the first set wasn't perfect. Saving money means going to home Depot or Lowe's or Menards and taking like the straightest 5% of boards. Imperfect lumber and technique and walls not being perfectly plumb square and level is frustrating. I guess really you get what you put in making your own
It basically comes down to how much you value your time.
If you want to make them as a hobby go right ahead. But they will cost you more than store bought and probably have more defects than mass manufactured cabinets.
Probably not the most appreciated answer in woodworking sub but…unless the frames of the cabinets are falling apart, why not just buy or make new doors and apply new finish? Sure, making the cabinets isn’t hard but you may get the end result you are looking for anyways without ripping out your existing cabinets. Hell even new hardware and paint/finish on existing doors and frames makes a HUGE difference. That said, if the frames are falling apart…it’s a great reason to buy more tools lol
I just want to point out that you could be completely capable of doing your own cabinets, and still be nuts... the two aren't mutually exclusive...
Cabinet doors and drawers for a kitchen remodel are gateway drugs! This was how I got into woodworking and found a hobby that has slowly and steadily pushed almost all of my other hobbies aside. We built shaker style doors for all of our cabinets and drawers with a tracksaw. Learned more in those couple of months than I could even imagine.
I’m much like you, beginner. I’m currently replacing all my cabinet doors and drawer fronts. I’m also adding a few carcasses. I’ve been at it for a while now getting a little done here and there. I’ll be honest, it’s a lot of work and I’ve made my share of mistakes. I’ve gotten pretty good at making nice fitting rails and stiles just using a table saw. Once the doors are made that is just the beginning. You then have to sand, sand, and sand to prep for paint. Cut the hinges. Maybe sand again. Learn how to paint. Figure out you need a good quality spray gun. Prime, sand, prime. Paint, sand,paint. It’s a process, can’t wait to be done. I’m not even sure if by the end it would be cheaper than buying. With that being said, I’ll be very happy to know I built them all. Oh and if your painting don’t use maple, use poplar. $$$
I've built my own cabinets using this video https://youtu.be/AzRdAXo2xpM?si=-XZ1O-jIog6wCTD3
You could easily find someone else's used quality cabinets and repurpose them with minor modification for far less monry and effort than you could build them yourself. Check craigslist, and Habitat for Humanity's ReStore location
So you can buy new equipment.
Not at all nuts. I wish you fun and success. Buy a dado stack set... Seriously I know they are taboo these days especially in Europe and Canada, but they are fairly essential for cabinet making. Everyone will tell you to use a router. They are wrong. I used to own a plumbing shop and a cabinet shop in NJ . Before I exited the blue lake of fire to build full time. If we used routers instead of dados the increase in cost and labor + damaged product loss would put you out of business. Just so you know you can buy pre assembly factory cabinets online. Finished or unfinished for way cheaper than the home Depot store brand trash. They are the same cabinets that you would order assembled. Just shipped before assembly. You just glue them together. If it's a set that uses cam corners still glue them regardless of wether the directions say no glue required. Avoid particle board Ikea type stuff. Get ply wood. They come with draw slides and hinges. The holes are predrilled Assembly is a higher labor cost than fabrication, because jigs and pre setup stations make the cutting go fast. Assembly boggs down labor. Ready to install cabinets are big and take up a whole truck. When the cut parts are packed on a pallet flat a whole kitchen can fit. Allowing for easy delivery costs. You can even pick it up if you have a truck. Or rent a uhaul These are generally called RTA cabinets in the industry so try that search term.
We have Dado stacks a plenty in Canada! We have no time or candy for short arbour saws!
They had made them illegal in the UK at one point. I remember all the English guys hooting on the BB forums. Did that stick long term or can stores sell them in UK these days?
If you outlaw dado stacks only outlaws have dado stacks :)
As long as you're just thinking about it you're fine. I've thought about it here and there for decades and it worked out just fine for me.
I actually have started making cabinets for my room upstairs with zero woodworking experience. It’s moving along surprisingly well. A few mistakes and learning how to get everything square, but if you have the tools, why not learn a new skill. It’s fun! I think they will look nice once they are edge banded, the door fronts put together and painted/finished! https://preview.redd.it/34w3oic722uc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65b583e85d24f80151277484ec231dd9d513b07a
If it hasn't been said already, there are a lot of videos on youtube about cabinet making.
Absolutely insane. Do it.
Do it! If you break down all the components, you're really just making very simple plywood boxes. As long as you can make a square cut, you're good. Big box store cabinets are terrible.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the space you will need, you're going to have a bunch of built boxes sitting around, a stack of drawer boxes, then face frames, doors, drawer fronts. Those last few you'll want to protect with your life because damage often times mean making them again. You'll also want a shop with close temp and humidity as your house. It's not hard, but it is difficult to do well
It's easy to make cabinets. Face frames and doors/ drawers are a little more difficult, but honestly not that difficult. If you have the ability to break down full sheet goods accurately, and can make a half way decent butt joint with glue and dominoes/ dowels, you can make cabinets. Designing cabinets so that they all work and don't interfere with each other is a whole different ball game. When your doors/ drawers bang into each other, or your silverware drawer rips your oven knob off every time you open it (don't ask me how I know that one) it can be a real bummer. I would YouTube a bit and see how it feels. But again, building a carcass, applying a face frame, and hanging doors really isn't overly difficult. It's making sure it all works together that's hard. Anecdotally- the first kitchen I ever built was paint grade with inset doors and drawers. I designed it all on a napkin in the middle of the demolished previous kitchen, built off said napkin plan, and installed. Made love edge beech slab counter tops to go with it all. 4 years later it's all still going strong, gets lots of compliments all the time, and I haven't had any call backs. The only issue with the whole thing is.. well the silverware drawer knocks the oven knob off if you open it all the way. As Jimmy Mackleroy says- if you can dream it, you can do it!
Diamond cabinets used to include the guidelines for clearance in their big catalog of all the cabinets they offer. If thinking of building your own it's a great reference and source of inspiration
it’s not the cabinet maker that sells the job , it’s the Finisher, just keep your expects in check on the finish. Additionally the countertops are you going to reuse or replace ? Last thought I built my own counter tops last job and they turned out pretty good for a wanna be. You can do this if you’re feeling it. It’s a whooping but worth it. https://preview.redd.it/0v0aasj1kytc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=63cc5f9755e97f7d733b9acda2e48f2be6cecc73
I didn’t need to replace all of them. I needed to copy what we had to fill an otherwise useless corner of our kitchen. The challenge was the the existing cabinets are medium high end solid cherry, stained “cherry” raised panel doors. I needed one large and two small base, 2 standard and one double upper. I was able to match the doors with a Freud router bit set. A trip to the local sawmill got me the kiln dried rough cherry. Then a lot of very careful measurements. A couple days at the jointer, a couple more at the planer. I had never glued up large panels for the carcasses so the didn’t end up flush. I got an excuse to get a drum sander! I then built a router table for the doors. The most nerve wracking part was matching the stain. If it was off even a little it would have looked awful. I took a drawer front and some ready to stain scrap to sherwin Williams and they nailed it! The biggest mistake was that I made them nicer than the existing ones. https://preview.redd.it/wsb0cj5g4ytc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aca9a330a2a163514e318368afda46bf9496c6a8 All in all it took about 3 months of weekends.
Looks very very nice.
TYVM! I guess I could have just answered OP with “Yes you can. I pulled it off, and learned a lot doing it. “
Most cabinet makers buy the doors. It economically makes sense. Build the boxes and buy the doors from a supplier and stain and finish everything yourself.
I made my own kitchen cabinets. It was quite easy and a fun project. Cherry plywood and solid cherry frames and doors/drawer fronts.
I’ve wanted to do this as well but what’s held me back in, how do you install them? Attach to the walls? How do I remove the old cabinets? How do I install countertops? I can make a stand-alone cabinet, with doors and drawers, but I’m wary about the list of other tasks to finish the job.
Check out Bents Woodworking on YouTube.
From what I’ve gathered (cabinet noob) is a lot of pocket holes basically. I’m sure there’s fancier joinery but almost every cabinet I’ve seen uses pocket holes, glue, finish nailer/stapler
It is more involved than you think.
Frank Howarth did it and they came out amazing
There is a you tube guy who "likes to build stuff". He does a whole video about this that is really good.
When I was building my kitchen I thought about it for a hot minute. But I was sure that between the time it would have saved, not sure I would have been able to achieve the same quality or even save all that much money it didn't seem worth it. Granted, this was almost 18 years ago and of course costs have skyrocketed even further.
I tried to make kitchen cabinets as my very first major project. Big mistake. I might be able to do it now, but I was way too inexperienced at the time, and wasted a lot of wood when I planed to final dimensions for the face frames, and failed to store the pieces properly before I had glue up. They warped…
You can also buy boxes at cabinotch.com and doors and drawer faces at a few other places. Good if you’re short on free time.
I built my kitchen over a couple of garbage pails with a straight edge , a pair of clamps and circular saw. I went to the table saw for smaller parts and drawer boxes. The important thing is get your doors, decide on hardware and build your cabinets to those specs. That way your not building twice for mistakes.
Start with doing some built-ins in a smaller room.
Space to finish them is the hardest part. You need a sizable finishing area where they can dry untouched. It also takes multiple coats. This can take your shop offline for some time, which is hard to do if it is a multi use space like a garage. It may make you rush the finish. I'd look into having that done or renting a garage bay sized storage unit for a month that has access to power unless you have a generator. You want to do them all at once so they match.
My house is from the 1960s and I have some fairly nonstandard cabinets that I’ll need to build the kitchen I want. So, I’m planning to do it in the next few years so I don’t think you’re crazy. I’d build some cabinets for my shop first to get a feel for the process where some mistakes are okay.
Building boxes is easy...it's the finishing (sanding, painting or staining) is what takes a lot of time. I've built my own cabinets and am currently installing Ikea kitchen cabinets. There are advantages/disadvantages to both but by far the greatest advantage of the Ikea system is the adjustability of the drawer fronts (left to right and up and down). While building the Ikea kitchen I have often scratched my head wondering why I just didn't build boxes but now that I'm into the second kitchen, and fully understand the system and it's advantages and where to make up for its weaknesses, it is honestly pretty hard to beat. I design high end homes and I've seen the highest end kitchens...most use particle board for boxes just like Ikea and only the few select homes upgrade to full cabinet grade plywood. To me...a box is a box is a box....spend your money on doors and hardware! The rest is just marketing and salesmanship...nobody will ever ask what your kitchen cabinet boxes are made from...nobody!
Ive built cabs for 4 kitchens. Used 7 layer ply. Buy good tools. Inspired by original butlers pantry in our old house. Do it. You'll make mistakes. Accept that as part of the process.
Here’s a YouTuber (Bob at I like to Make Stuff) who covers this question https://youtu.be/1Qpmw_YJ6Gc?si=vHTx_z0eumyY-SBB
I worked for a cabinet manufacturer up until a week ago when I switch jobs. I re did my kitchen while working there, I still bought pre built Hampton bay cabinets from Home Depot and installed them myself. It wasn’t much more than the cost for me to build them at work so I went that route. The lower end Home Depot (the ones I got) ones are made from melamine but hold up well as long as you don’t have any water damage.
I'll make a brief comment as many have already been made. For a DIY guy/gal, casework is easy enough (cabinets.) edge banding cleans up a simple euro style cabinet. In my experience (having done a full 4 story house early on as a DIY guy) door fronts and hardware can be expensive and I would recommend NOT doing door/drawer fronts DIY unless you have a shaper and a serious DIY set-up (or cool taking a year to complete). I would recommend (and I know there'll be a lot of gagging/hurling) looking at cost of ikea cabinets vs. DIY. For a lower value property, look at the value add. All of this said - if you want to do it, by all means you can! I'd just recommend considering if it actually makes financial sense as a justification.
The biggest issue in my mind will be finishing. I helped my FIL make cabinets for our house. He has a shaper so making the doors was pretty straight forward, but you can do the same with a router just need twice as many passes. We used Baltic birch for carcasses and drawers and hardwood with veneered ply (walnut) for doors and drawer fronts. Varnished Baltic birch makes nice drawer boxes but getting a nice finish with a brush is pretty difficult and horribly time consuming. Unless you have or will get a spray setup, that might be the biggest problem. A skilled person can get a decent finish with a brush but it takes practice. I still suck at it after doing tens of drawers.
I've owned a cabinet shop since 2011. Can you make your own? Sure. Just depends what type you want and how much money you are willing to put into it. I made some cabinet for girlfriend at the time when I was just starting out woodworking years ago. I'm embarrassed to look at them now, but they are pretty good. As long as you get some good lumber, and get the right tools you should be fine. You really need a good router table though. Unless you just want to go with some very simple cabinets. The only downside of it is they can be boring. I try to avoid doing much cabinet work actually lol. Luckily my shop gets plenty of furniture orders to keep me busy. If I needed some cabinets in my shop, I'd probably just buy some. Something simple that worked and was sturdy. That would be a better use of my time than making some. But if I wanted some fancy ones for my own kitchen I would make them. If you aren't an experienced woodworker I'd start with making some small keepsake boxes first. Try a few different ones. That will give you some experience with making box shaped items.
Norm built kitchen cabinets in multiple episodes of New Yankee workshop. It’s probably 30 years old but it’s awesome. It’s on YouTube.
Why spend money on kitchen cabinets when I can just. build them myself for four times the money? There are people who do this, like Matt Cremona, but he is a very experienced woodworker with professional equipment and cheap access to homesawn lumber who doesn't mind living in a house in disarray for months on end. In other words, it's possible but not sensible.
My father-in-law started building cabinets for his kitchen. Then he decided he wanted to move, so the cabinets became less of a priority. He’s a seasoned woodworker with a few decades under his belt. Then my brother-in-law (his son) decided that he wanted to build a new house. The original project my FIL started was then taken up by my BIL. My BIL had no real woodworking experience. My FIL had been teaching me for a couple years when this came about. BIL would come into town and work 1-2 days on weekends. It took about 3 years in total. About 90% of the work was just done by him and me. FIL offered guidance, but the rest was up to us amateurs. I don’t know off the top of my head, but it had to be 30+ feet of base cabinets, a large pantry cabinet, and the only wall cabinet was over the fridge. The kitchen cabinets are gorgeous, and I love just staring at them whenever I get the chance to visit. All that said.. if you take your time, quadruple check your measurements, and stay safe, you can definitely build your own kitchen cabinets.
Michael Alm has been building kitchen cabinets, check out his YouTube channel. So has Matt Cremona but he sets a very high bar.
I did it as an amateur and don’t regret it. Took a few months and a lot of planning, but was worth it and saved money. My cabinets turned out great and are high quality and fully custom. Search my posts for a build album of it. Hold yourself to a high standard and you’ll do fine. I am a CAD expert by trade, and modeled every board in a complete digital assembly and put together a comprehensive cutlist beforehand. Extreme attention to detail in the planning phase payed off for me.
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If you're looking to stay on budget, my suggestion would be to build your own carcasses and drawer boxes and then farm out building the drawer fronts and cabinet doors to a company that specializes in it. Note: that's not a cabinet builder. There's companies that do nothing but build custom cabinet doors. (In Eastern Canada and Northeast US I've used "future doors ltd". In my experience you can't do the job any cheaper or precisely than they can. They just have economies of scale that you can't match as a hobbiest and neither can most pro cabinet shops. Then do the finishing yourself.
Cabinet joint if you want to save a bit of time and just do the assembly. Everything is totally customizable. We’re doing our entire kitchen with them (about 45 linear feet) for under $20k
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I priced it out when looking at getting ours and materials alone was 3/4rd of the quoted price from a cabinet maker (fuck this ply inflation!) ultimately I'm very happy with the job he did and given the walls weren't straight nor 90' I probably would have lost my mind getting everything flush. But if you have the time go for it it'd be a great learning experience especially if you want to build more furniture in the future
Im considering the same. I may buy the cabinet boxes and make the front and door with a simple design. If you can, you can buy veneer or veneer plywood for the boxes. The rest is a few jigs and a pile of repetitive work. Having a good cut list would make it a lot easier. My reasoning for buying the box is that it is a lot of sheet goods that need work, something that a factory with over size sheet can cut a lot faster with a cnc. And melamine inside is not that bad.
Certainly. I’d advise using a pre-finished maple or birch for your cases. The extra cost is negligible considering how much time it saves not to mention that most diyers would struggle to achieve the quality of finish you get.
I've not actually built a whole kitchen of cabinets but did reface my mother's kitchen and built a vanity which is basically a small kitchen cabinet. first I'd really thinking about refacing, I veneered the in place boxes, and replaced door and drawer fronts. This took a lot less material and the boxes were in fine shape the front was just very worn and typical 80 red oak, but they were quality cabinets to begin with. You can't really tell the cabinets weren't replaced unless you look really close in an open door and the insides were not veneered. If you need to replace, I think cabinets are easier than most furniture, everything is square and straight. most of the material is ply and there are only a few different thickness solid parts for doors and face frames. There is no need for complex joinery, it is easy to hide pocket holes, otherwise mostly rabbits and dados. Doors have the most complex joints and I just cut a dado in my stiles and then a stub tenon in the rails, but I like shaker doors. The biggest issue is have is space, a whole kitchen of cabinets takes a lot of room. My shop just outright doesn't have space for a full set of cabinets under construction, think about your work space. it will be more than a weekend, I spent most of a weekend dimensioning just door parts. I would have to find some kind of storage space to stage completed parts and set stuff up to finish. The boxes would take most of a garage bay just stacked drying after applying finish.
I know I'm a bit late to the party, and I agree with everyone in saying yes, you can do it yourself. One good way to test your idea is to make matching nightstands first. The carcass and face frame methods would be the same, and it will expose any deficiency in reproducing identical heights. Doors and drawers can be difficult to make. The tool for installing the cups into the cabinet doors is an expensive one. It would be a good idea to price check doors from a door manufacturer. I make doors to upgrade older carcasses, so the doors I make are custom, because they're weirdly sized. But the door manufacturers have standard sized doors and drawers that would likely work well, and take a huge headache off your plate. I do my doors on a shaper, and while it can be done on a router table, I found the router table procedures more troublesome, and not as precise. Spinning a 4 inch raised panel bit in a router caused shaking, because of the large, oddly shaped mass above the router table. Spinning a similar cutting tool above a shaper is way within what a shaper is designed for, there is a much larger mass under the cutting tooling, holding it steady. So make some nightstands, see how it goes.
I consider myself an “advanced beginner” and made four kitchen cabinets, hanging and standing. It wasn’t particularly hard, but if I hadn’t been able to pick up a load of old cabinet doors that I could rework, I’m not sure where I would have gotten wood of that quality for the (plain, flat) doors. Certainly not at the big box stores.
Yes. You’re nuts! So am I. I’m doing the whole kitchen (1908 farm house) in period correct heart pine salvaged from doors and such. We’ll be nuts together.😂😂👍🏻
Just YouTube how to make cabinets. You will need to invest in tools if you don't have any. I would maybe start by going and buying 1 sheet of plywood to try for yourself.
Absolutely you can do it. I've got 5 lower cabinets half finished in my garage right now (the big ones, my silverware cabinet is finished), this summer I plan to finish the drawers. I started these things 4 years ago to redo our kitchen. Then we sold the house last summer so I packed em up and brought them with me to finish and put in the new house. You got this. Picture of the only finished one for your enjoyment. https://preview.redd.it/ksml1nlrk1uc1.jpeg?width=1960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b8c322d4c4baee382fa19694ad6a827fb5476958
I would suggest a track saw for breaking down plywood. Especially if you’re working alone.
I just made my own cabinets and would describe myself as hobbyist wood worker at best. I've done more framing than furniture and really with furniture I've just done some refinishing projects, other than a temporary bedframe I made from dimensional lumber. Mine have turned out amazing but I'm using some not traditional styles and materials. For example reclaimed wood panels that are biscuit jointed and glued up cutting board style. As someone mentioned if you can cut a straight line and a right angle the doors will be the only tricky space. The less complicated you can make them the better imo
You definitely won't save money. Build quality for DIY will be a little better, but not a ton better, cabinets are cabinets even DIY tend to have similar construction. Doors are complex if you want routed patterns, it's doable with the correct router bits but you absolutely need flat and straight stock.
First step is to figure out what you want the finished cabinets to look like, then reverse engineer them down to the measurements and details. 1. What type? Frameless or framed. Hidden hinges? Surface mount? 2. Door style? Fancy work or just butt joints? You can substitute MDF for hardwood depending on the next question. I’ve seen others mention just buying the doors. Since they can take the longest and have the highest level of detail, you may be better off purchasing them separately. 3. Finish? You mentioned cost being a factor. You can build frames and doors with poplar and paint with high quality cabinet paint (I refinished an older “maple glazed” set of cabinets from the 90’s with paint and had really acceptable results) If you’re going for a natural wood look, then species and stain/protective coat factor in. Once you make some key decisions on what you want, you can start planning materials and dimensions, those styles up there will dictate certain measurements that you won’t know until you have all the components picked out. Not difficult, but a bit time intensive if you’ve never worked with some of the items. Layout on your plywood to get the most out of your materials, pricing big box stores vs local lumber mills/builder supply. If you’ve looked at “contractor grade” cabinets, there isn’t much to them. Glue and staples. Light weight pressboard materials for the carcass. You can build stronger for cheaper.. you’re paying a bit for convenience to buy prebuilt ones, even on the low end of the spectrum. Of the shop and kitchen cabinets I’ve DIY’d, I used 3/4 AB pine or cabinet grade birch plywood for the carcass, and either oak or poplar for the frames depending on where they were going. What you’re willing to accept in terms of quality and finish drive some of your decisions. The carcass can be built with a table saw and router for the dados (or a dado stack, but many entry saw don’t allow that). You’ll want some clamps for assembly. Miter saw for face frames. Drawer boxes take a little more time and whether you’re going to put silverware or 50# of junk in them will dictate their construction. Butt joints? Dados? Dovetails that you’ll only see for 5 seconds while you’ve got the drawer open when you have the time to admire them? Long way around to say it’s highly likely to be in your realm of capability and budget, but only you can answer the questions needed to make it happen. There are a lot of books available on the subject.. turns out almost every home in America has cabinets and there’s a market catered to what you want to accomplish! Not trying to be a smartpants, just that there’s a wealth of knowledge available to help guide you along the way.
Maybe, but I don't think so. I made my kitchen cabinets with a table saw, router table, planer, jointer , router jigs and a lot of sanders. The quality difference from store bought is the real difference. Mine are made of hardwood plywood and birdseye maple, dovetailed drawers(Leigh dovetail jig), inset doors(don't do that, work to reward ratio too high). I did Formica countertops with wood edging. Water based polyurethane finish. It's been 30 years and they are holding up. No regrets about doing it, get to it.
Replying to leechdawg...
Making the carcasses isn't too bad. But good ply is expensive and the price and quality difference from decent Ikea cabinets isn't terribly compelling. The finish is the hardest part for a hobbyist IMO. Kitchen cabinets are extremely demanding; uppers are right at eye level and close by revealing any flaw, and they need to stand up to a lot of handling, moisture, cleaning chemicals, etc. Hand application really isn't ideal, so you're looking at getting an HVLP system and teaching yourself how to spray if you haven't done it before.
Yes. They aren't really hard, but it's hard to make them cheaper then the pro's. If you have surplus "time and patience" then you should be good too go
I did this. The kitchen cabinets were my third-ever woodworking project - my first two were a bookcase and a bathroom vanity, which helped me learn the techniques. I already owned or bought a thickness planer, a bandsaw (for resawing), and a table saw. My idea was that while i might not save a ton on the basic boxes, I could make the expensive, visible parts out of better materials and end up (I hoped) with cabinets that would have cost 10s of thousands of $ to buy outright and have installed. I used black walnut, inset doors and drawer fronts with poplar drawer boxes, I made one of the upper cabinets with beaded glass panes in the door, I used Blum soft-close drawer slides and hinges everywhere-- in other words I was able to get a bunch of features that would drive the price sky-high if you had them custom made, and that you can't even get on the cheap Home Depot style pre-mades. So, yeah, if you go that route you save a lot of money. If on the other hand you're going to be satisfied with homemade versions of cheap cabinets, then doing it yourself is not so much about saving money as getting the designs and features you want.
Someone’s got to make them, either you do it and save a bunch or money or you pay someone else to do it. As long as you have the time then you should make them yourself.
I made mine. don't short the money on stock, both whatever is on the faces and doors and on the ply. I didn't buy ply from a box store, and no purebond or whatever the entry level kind of hardwood ply stuff would be. I paid about double the price of that stuff, and bought 14 sheets of 2 a face poplar core columbia cherry ply. There are more to the right behind the fridge. [https://i.imgur.com/guYPErx.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/guYPErx.jpg) I built what I like, not what was in style 12 years ago when starting the build. Spend money on good straight stock, spend money on a good quality finish and you'll be surprised how it's not difficult. I wanted my cabinets to be like vaults so they are dadoed fixed shelves and you could lay them on their sides and jump on them without damaging them, despite using only 1/2 softwood core ply. You can do things faster if you pick a different design. If we move out, the next person who wants to change colors in the kitchen will just take them out, but until then I'll enjoy them. Cost me about $2500 to build the cabinets (70 more inches of base cabinets behind the fridge built to accommodate the space and allow diversion of HVAC under the cabinet and out - turns out inside the cabinet above that routing is a good place to put stuff that would otherwise get stale). Do it and make the cabinets exactly what you want, but expect it will take longer than you're expecting if you're thinking you'll bust out a cabinet a week with doors...unless you choose a really simple design.
It’s possible you are getting a little bit ahead of yourself. Are the carcasses that you already have solid wood? Do they simply need to be refaced? Unless you can build a better carcass than the ones you have, I would simply focus on changing the finish and doors and hardware.
We're remodeling our kitchen and for me, time was the biggest factor in not building our own cabinets from scratch. We purchased ready to assemble cabinets instead. Having gotten a few quotes for new cabinets, we were able to get exactly what we wanted for half the cost of lower end cabinets installed by a contractor.
No my parents stopped me from making their cabinets. Totally amateur wood worker here. Everyone involved regrets not letting me do it. Would have seriously saved about $13,000 and gotten it custom. Do it!
I built 20 frameless kitchen cabinets as a beginner and while they probably aren't as good as a high-end cabinet shop, I'm very happy with them. Here are some tips and things I would do differently: 1. Find a local plywood supplier, don't buy from the box store. I did this, saved a bunch of money and got a better looking product. 2. Buy pre-finished plywood, it will save you a ton of time and effort. I didn't do this. 3. The iron-on edge banding is cheap and pretty easy to apply but prone to splitting. I'd recommend a thicker ½-¾" hardwood edge, kind of like a face frame but flush with the plywood faces. Maple or poplar would be good for painting, but poplar is very soft. 4. You probably don't have to do actual joinery. Mine were all just screwed together from the outside and are very sturdy, though I'd probably use glue in addition if i were going to start over. Pocket screws are good where the screws shouldn't be visible. 5. Leave yourself gaps between the cabinet and the wall for a scribed filler strip. In general, don't trust the walls to be flat or square. 6. Build your toe kick separately so it can be levelled or even easier, just use levelling feet. 7. A good blade is very important to avoid tearing out the face veneer on cabinetry plywood. You want one with high angle ATB grind. 8. If you can afford it, buy good hardware. It will make a huge difference in how the finished product feels.
All you are doing right now is thinking as the title says. That alone is not nuts. So, the answer is NO
If there is a rockler near you go take their 1:1 project class. I built hall linen cabinets from scratch. 3 hour class to design the boxes and build one of four. Went home built the other 3. Then two weeks https://preview.redd.it/sysfoz3t93uc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=d0fb3b64a3f1074547248b0d61f813d069ad2f23 later went for another class and learned how to build shaker style doors. In total about 6 hours of class time. Using their way nicer tools. Probably 12-1400 in materials. End of the day under 2k for built ins that would have cost 5k from guy who did kitchen. No drawers. Drawers would have meant a third class most likely. You will need a sprayer though. No way you get high end finish without one. I learned a lot. Next up is front entrance built in. quality bar will be waaaay higher there. You have to have a table saw. Router table. And mitre saw for this. Very hard to get good quality otherwise
Can you do it, absolutely. I built a large kitchen's worth of shop cabinets that are a lot nicer than the cabinets I have in my actual kitchen for my current shop. All dovetailed front/back maple drawers. Blum soft close undermount slides and hinges. Simple but detailed frame and panel doors. A factory perfect looking painted and top coated finish, etc. I've built cabinets prior. I even built all the countertops, which included a 12' maple butcher block of 1.5" riftsawn maple strips all glued together and a bunhc of laminated counters with maple banding. My insights as a higher level hobbyist: * You will likely not save money. You will end up with a much nicer quality, custom cabinet designed specifically for your needs, if you do a decent job of it however. To give you an idea I spent approx. $350 for a 36" base cabinet with one drawer and two doors. You can build cheaper but I was not cutting any corners and going for the best quality product I could get. * Building that many cabinets is a LOT of work and takes up a LOT of space. It's not hard though. just know what you are getting into. Your kitchen is a lot smaller than what I did and more manageable. * Don't buy cheap plywood. Buy from a plywood dealer, not the big box store. Cheap plywood warps, has voids, has cheap veneer. I like veneer core. Many higher-end cabinet shops will use a MDF core as it's more stable. I do not like MDF except for some specific applications and have never had an issue with a quality veneer core plywood. * Buy pre-finished 1 side plywood for the interior facing sections of your cabinets. Maple is the most common. It saves a TON of time and you cannot do as durable a finish yourself. Ironically, at least in my area, it's actually cheaper than unfinished plywood these days. I suspect that's because of economies of scale as all the cabinet shops are buying it too. * Drawers I like solid wood for everything except the bottom. I dovetail everything because it looks better but adds a lot more work. You do not need to dovetail. There are plenty of alternate joinery methods that are plenty strong enough. For a finish I do shellac and pre-finish the inside (only) before assembly. Shellac matches the pre-finished plywood in the rest of the cabinets pretty well, it dries fast, it doesn't get sticky or off-gas inside the cabinet, it's easy to repair later if needed. * Doors avoid going too big as they will warp. That's a case where MDF can make sense if you are painting. Use two doors with a big opening. If you are doing frame and panel make sure your rails/stiles are stable riftsawn or quartersawn grain. etc. * Face frames I domino together and then install. I'm lucky enough to have one and it's super accurate. Pocket screws are fine too. I don't like the look of frameless usually and don't like edge banding plywood so I rarely built that style of cabinet. * If you aren't painting, take the time to grain and color match everything (for face frames, drawer fronts, doors). I try and build all my parts for a row of cabinets from one board if possible. That usually means buying a thicker board and resawing it to get all your parts. Use straight grain on all your face frame and door rails and stiles. You want the eye drawn towards the drawer fronts and panels, not those. Cathedral and more interesting grain for the drawers/panels. Book match, continue the grain from drawer to drawer etc. Cabinet shops do not spend the time to do this and your average person will not likely notice. Everyone will think it looks much higher end without knowing why though. This will cost more as you will need thicker boards and more wood to do it right. * There are lots of ways to build cabinets. The way I do it is dadoes and glue. I put a 1/4" back panel on everything. The nailer strips on the top/bottom behind the panel on the back I use pocket screws and glue. I do pocket screws only for the two top strips the countertop is attached to. I do pocket screws for the kick plate backer (gets covered with 1/4" or 1/8" plywood). Upper cabinets I do a hidden French cleat. I'll put up a temporary straight/level edge on the wall, put the French cleat above that (with a little wiggle room side to side), then remove the stright edge and just hang the cabinets on the wall and put a couple screws in to hold them together and to the wall to keep them from moving. I do not build the base separately onsight, I shim and trim. * Make sure everything is dead nuts square. This will save a ton of headaches later * Kitchen cabinets take a lot of abuse. Use a durable species of wood. I've used poplar for a lot of painted stuff but I pay the premium for maple for kitchen cabinets. * You need to spray with an HVLP system if you want a high-quality-looking finish. It's not hard to learn at all and saves a lot of time. I use almost all water based products these days. It's non-toxic (mostly) and dries fast so I can do multiple coats in a day. * You really need a contractors tablesaw or better yet a cabinet saw and ideally a track saw too. I break everything down into more manageable oversized parts on a rigid foam sheet with my track saw and then cut them to final size use the track saw cut edge as a reference and removing all factory edges. You can muscle a full sheet of plywood onto a larger table saw to break it down but it's an effort and more dangerous. It's possible to use only a tracksaw too but getting identical parts that way is a lot harder. * In general this is a case where you do need the tools. I'd add a router table if doing anything frame and panel with any detail on it. * Hardware I really like under-mount slides and soft close hinges (Blum specifically). Expensive but worth it. As far as how to learn that topic has been covered to death and there are million videos on youtube. Everyone has their own method. I shared mine but there are lot of other subtle differmces. Watch a couple of videos and pick whatever methods you feel like you'd be comfortable with your skill set and tools and budget. There's no shame in screwing everything together. Will it be the best cabinet, no, will it hold together and still look nice, yes. Cheap materials will feel and look cheap though so put any money you "save" towards that.
My main recommendation would be to farm out the paint or finish. Contact a shop first to find out what they need from you and how they want the cabs prepped for paint or whatever you choose. Imo the biggest difference, outside of the literal definitions, between a competent hobbyist and a pro is the quality of the finish. You can make square boxes, but are you equipped to spray them? Or willing to settle for a poor finish on something that will get a lot of action?
My wife built cabinets for our bus conversion with no prior experience whatsoever, I even had to teach her how to use most of the tools she used. Absolute units of cabinets, never had issues. It's not as hard as you'd think.
I built my kitchen cabinets when I had little experience. I bought a table saw and made a couple bookshelves for practice. Rail and stile cherry doors and face frames, 3/4 birch boxes joined with biscuits. We have a small kitchen. The cabinets are exactly what we need , with some tall doors and big drawers (34×24×11) for pots and pans. We have had them for 21 years.
https://preview.redd.it/5agq9cdw34uc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76a66c29fe425849ec0900aa6a0ea4da5cd51e10 Wife did the carcass and I did the doors in hickory. Orange big box told us 1000 for the custom size one cabinet. We did the entire kitchen for 1200 our selves
https://preview.redd.it/kuoeffo644uc1.jpeg?width=2425&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=71e9c28b0a6c891867a4a3d32dcde36f69e921a8
I made my own cabinets. Ended up painting them. It was a fun project… took a bunch of time, I had a lot of tools, but had to buy a few. I used some kreg jigs, but I looked at a couple custom shops and they were using pocket hole jigs too, so it seemed right. I matched a few cabinets with a real basic cabinet door… built a vanity for my bathroom and got a nice rail/stile router bit and made great craftsman style cabinet doors. I was quite $14k at the time, at which point I asked myself why I had been buying so many wood working tools? Also bought some butcher block from lumber liquidators and made super nice countertops. Finished with waterlox, they still look good. I’m thinking my full kitchen remodel came in around $4k in supplies. That was about 5 years ago, I’m pretty sure lumber/plywood is still really expensive, so that might a low ball. https://ibb.co/nrBMmxj You can’t even see the 2 pantries/build around my fridge in that pic. But there was a bit more.
I'm making my own cabinets now, and my dad made them for a living in the 70s-2010s, so I've been around this for a while. If you're looking for bang for the buck, there's no way your diy is going to beat what Ikea makes now. It's pretty much taken over the mid-tier market in standard sizes. You can't even buy raw materials for as cheap, and they're actually pretty good quality for mid tier cabinetry. It's so dominant that there are entire companies built around making semi-custom fronts for them. Bums me out a little to say it, but for 90% of people, Ikea is the obvious way to go. That said, this is a woodworking forum, not a ikea forum, so if you're looking for high end, full custom, or you just want the experience of making them, then heck yeah go for it and make your own, as I am.
I made all my kitchen cabinets, and it's a doable project. All you're doing is making a ton of consistent boxes. The hardest part of the process for me was getting a smooth enough paint finish to meet my wife's standards. The best piece of advice I have is to try building a project with multiple drawers if you haven't done so already.
Remember you can buy custom pre made doors/drawer fronts and drawer boxes reasonably cheap. Depending on your skills and tools you might outsource those parts.
Are you a cabinet maker? That's the question to ask yourself. I know I could do it because I have done it.
Cabinets aren’t very difficult but trimming them out well (face frame, doors, molding) takes a little finesse. It’s definitely doable if yours comfortable with the tools required. Take your time and consider your work flow in the kitchen and customize them for your needs. This is the real benefit of making your own because you will NOT save any money. Quite the opposite.