Building a Custom, Solid Wood Kitchen Cabinet

First let me state that this project is not what you would find on your typical home improvement website. But we're not typical, are we? Most home improvement warehouses and websites are going to push one of two things, pre-built new cabinets or refacing. I wanted to give you a third option. Build the cabinets yourself.

Now don't fool yourself into thinking that you're going to be building some junk cabinets. I'm a true woodworker at heart and an accomplished finish carpenter. I don't build junk. Still, building a cabinet is not your typical 'remodeler' type job. On the other hand, if you take a trip to your local home improvement store, you'll find some great reasons to build your own kitchen cabinets.

Why Build Your Own Cabinets

There are two main classes of cabinets. Knockdowns (or "Junk", for short) and pre-built/custom. Store bought, custom cabinets aren't really custom, because they come in standard sizes, but you can order whatever sizes they have and put it all together in your kitchen, that's the 'custom' part. The drawback to pre-built cabinets is that the better ones are pretty expensive. You'll pay about $250 per lineal foot of cabinet in your kitchen. 10 foot of cabinet equals $2,500. 20 foot of cabinet equals $5,000 (do you see a pattern here?).

Let the truth be known, these factory made cabinets are not usually the finest quality out there. They're still pretty cheaply built, but I can't honestly put them in the same category as knockdowns.

Knockdowns come in a flat box. All the major home improvement stores carry them. They are mostly made of particle board and thin veneer. The thing that really gets me about these cabinets is their price. I mean, if they were $40 or $50 then maybe you could throw them in a rental apartment you have and sleep good at night, but they're almost as expensive as the 'nicer' cabinets. $150 for a small wall mount cabinet (that would probably fall apart if you actually put dishes in it) is a little steep to me (ok, it probably wouldn't fall apart, but you get the idea).