When the layout is the problem, new doors cannot reach it. Custom cabinetry is for rooms with an awkward shape, a ceiling height that stock sizes waste, or a storage problem no catalogue box solves.
A plain rectangular kitchen with standard runs rarely needs custom cabinetry, and we will tell you when stock or semi-custom does the same job for less. Custom earns its money where the room is not plain: a chimney breast in the middle of a wall, a sloping ceiling, an alcove that is almost but not quite a standard width.
Ceiling height is the other common one. Stock wall units stop at a fixed height and leave a dust shelf above them, where a made run carries to the ceiling and turns that dead band into real storage.
So the survey measures the room before anyone discusses style: wall lengths, ceiling height, how far out of plumb things sit, and where the services already run. Those numbers decide what is possible, and style decides what happens inside them. See custom cabinets, what custom costs and built-ins.
Recent work
What to expect
A Sherwood Park Build, Step by Step
Measure the room and the people
Wall lengths, ceiling height, how far out of plumb things are, and who uses the room. Working heights are set from that rather than from a standard.
Drawings before anything is cut
You see the run drawn and agree it, including where the appliances land and how the corners are handled. Changes cost nothing at this stage and plenty later.
Built in the shop
Carcasses and fronts made while your kitchen stays in use. This is the long part of the programme and the reason custom is measured in weeks.
Fitted, scribed and levelled
Scribed to walls that are never quite straight, levelled, and only then are the worktops templated. A template taken earlier fits a kitchen that does not exist yet.
Islands first
An Island Needs Room Around It
The question is never whether an island fits on the floor plan. It is whether there is enough aisle on every side for one person to work at it while another gets past, and whether every door and drawer in the room can still open fully once it is there.
Squeezing one in makes a kitchen worse, and it is a costly thing to discover after it is built. Where the clearance is not there we say so, and often the better answer is a peninsula or a deeper run of base units.
Where it does fit, an island is usually the most useful thing in the room, because it turns a wall of worktop into a place two people can work at once without getting in each other's way. That is worth planning around properly. See kitchen islands, pantry cabinets and hood surrounds.
Planning
Custom work
Custom Cabinetry in Sherwood Park
Built to the room, the ceiling height and the storage problem you actually have.
When custom is worth it, how long it takes, and what decides the price.
When the room has an awkward shape, a ceiling height stock sizes waste, or a storage problem no catalogue box solves. In a plain rectangular kitchen, stock often does the same job.
Weeks rather than days, because everything is made rather than fitted. Drawings, production and installation together, and the shop stage is the part that cannot be rushed.
Only if the room can spare the aisle on every side, with all doors and drawers still opening fully. Where it cannot, a peninsula or deeper base run is usually the better answer.
Yes, measuring your actual appliances rather than catalogue figures. Depths and door swings vary, and a cabinet built to an average leaves an appliance standing proud.
Yes, and it is one of the clearest wins over stock. The dead band above standard wall units becomes real storage instead of a shelf that collects dust.
They rarely are. Cabinetry is scribed and packed to fit what is there, and where a wall is significantly out we tell you what that means for the finished look beforehand.
Usually, if the profile and finish are still available. Where they are not, a deliberate contrast reads better than a near-match that looks like a mistake.
