This May Help You Decide What Kind Of Cabinets To Use In Your Home
Stock, semi-custom, and custom cabinets are different in many ways. Mostly, it comes down to how many style and design options you have to choose from.
Find out more of the differences below.
Can You Spot The Difference?
“I don’t want to play this game again,” complains Michelle.
John laughs a bit. “Okay, okay, but we still need to choose our cabinets. It looks like we can choose between stock, semi-custom, and custom. Also between painting or staining.”
Michelle rubs her chin. “I know the general difference between them, but I don’t know everything. What are stock cabinets? What are semi-custom cabinets? And-” “What are custom cabinets,” finishes John.
“Exactly,” says Michelle with a smile. John pulls out his phone. “I like how you want to make sure we have all the info before we choose. Let’s see what Google has to say.”
Here’s what the couple discovers:
What Are Stock Cabinets
Stock cabinets are either made with particleboard or plywood. They are limited in colors, door styles, and sizes. The colors and door styles change with what’s trending. Typically, the doors are Shaker style and colors are white, gray, and a few stains. Size increments are 3 inches.
Our favorite stock cabinet line is Fabuwood. They can ship within 7-10 days, have a great price point, are high quality, and carry a ton of SKUs for a stock cabinet line. A major plus is they’ll also paint the stock cabinets any Sherwin-Williams color, which is almost unheard of in a stock cabinet line.
We have 6 kitchen cabinet brands and manufacturers we trust.
*We only offer plywood cabinets because clients don’t usually like the cheapness of particleboard
What Are Semi-Custom Cabinets
Semi-custom cabinets tend to have many door styles and colors to choose from. They’re great when you’re looking for something specific, whether it’s a custom color, a certain door style, or an odd-sized cabinet. Some semi-custom lines offer custom colors.
Pricing is typically 30% to 40% more than stock cabinets.
Lead times are also longer for semi-custom cabinets than with stock. Typically, semi-custom cabinets take 4 to 6 weeks (right now we have many with 8 week lead times due to pandemic-related supply chain issues).
Siteline is a great example of a semi-custom line. They’ll make cabinets any width, without an upcharge. They’ll also change the height of the cabinets if needed without an upcharge.
What Are Custom Cabinets
Custom cabinets are fully customizable to your style. Many custom lines have “standard” cabinets in their line. This means that they have tons of door styles and colors to choose from. The sky is the limit from there. Custom lines also offer different types of cabinetry like inset and European.
If you want a specific cabinet that isn’t in our spec book it’s no problem. We can supply the makers with a drawing and, as long as it’s possible to be made, they’ll make it.
Custom cabinetry is made to order, so lead times are generally much longer, typically 8-10 weeks for production right now. They also come with a custom price. They’re also made with the best kitchen cabinet material.
Greenfield is our custom cabinetry go-to.
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“Now this is what I wanted!” says Michelle happily. “It’s certainly more than I thought,” says John. “Let’s see what else we might need to know about cabinets.”