Custom is the answer when the layout itself is the problem. New boxes let the sink move, a run widen for a new range, or an awkward corner finally become useful. Six pages here cover what that involves and what it costs.
If your kitchen looks dated but works, custom is the wrong spend. Refacing changes every surface you see for a fraction of the price and leaves the plumbing alone. We say that to people regularly, and it is usually the cheaper answer they were not expecting to hear.
Custom earns its money when the plan itself is what you dislike. Moving a sink to a different wall, widening a run for a range that does not fit, opening into the next room, or turning a dead corner into something reachable all mean new boxes. No door style fixes any of them.
The other case is a room that fights standard sizes. Sloping ceilings, chimney breasts and runs that land a few inches off a stock module are all solved with filler strips in a stock kitchen. Custom solves them by being the right size. See custom cabinets and the comparison page.
Recent work
How it works
How a Custom Kitchen Is Built
Survey the room, not the cabinets
Walls out of plumb, floors out of level and ceilings that slope all get measured. Custom only pays off if the boxes are made to what is actually there.
Plan before product
Where things go is settled first: sink, range, fridge, the paths between them. Door style and finish come after, because they cannot fix a plan that does not work.
Drawings you sign off
Elevations and a plan, with every cabinet dimensioned. Once that is signed the boxes go into production, and changes after that point cost real money.
Build, deliver, install
Six to twelve weeks to build, then installed against your walls with scribes rather than fillers. Doors are aligned and a return visit re-adjusts anything that settles.
Common questions
Custom Cabinetry Questions, Answered
Cost, lead time, and how custom differs from stock and semi-custom.
Installed, roughly $500 to $1,200 per linear foot, against $100 to $400 for stock and $150 to $700 for semi-custom. Solid hardwood with premium hardware runs higher again. Example ranges, not quotes.
Six to twelve weeks to fabricate, against one to three weeks for stock and four to eight for semi-custom. Installation is quick by comparison. Plan the whole project around the build window.
When the layout is the problem. Moving a sink, widening a run, opening a wall or fixing a dead corner all need new boxes. If you only dislike how it looks, refacing does that for far less.
Stock carcasses with more choice of size, finish and internal fittings than base stock allows, but still built to fixed increments. It suits rooms that are close to standard but not quite.
That is the point of them. Stock kitchens bridge gaps with filler strips. Custom boxes are made to the run, and where a wall is out of true they are scribed to it rather than packed out.
Yes, and it is common. One run of new boxes where a leak destroyed the old ones, with everything else refaced to match, is often the sensible answer rather than replacing a whole kitchen.
Material and complexity, in that order. Solid hardwood over veneered board, and internal fittings like pull-outs and corner units, move a quote further than the number of cabinets does.
Our ceiling slopes under the stairs and every stock quote wanted to stop short and fill the gap. They built to the slope instead and we gained a whole cupboard.
Elspeth R.
Edmonton
★★★★★
They asked what I disliked, decided it was the look rather than the plan, and quoted refacing. Half the price of what I came in expecting to spend.
Dev P.
st. Albert
★★★★★
One run had gone under a leak. New boxes there, everything else refaced to match, and I genuinely cannot see the join.
Carmen L.
Sherwood Park
★★★★
Excellent cabinetry. Ten weeks to build is a long time to look at an empty kitchen, but it was quoted as ten weeks from the start.
Alastair H.
Edmonton
From the blog
Edmonton cabinet guides
Planning a kitchen, working with awkward rooms, and where custom is worth it.
We survey the room, talk through what you would change about how it works, and quote by the linear foot. If refacing would do the job, we will tell you that instead.
