Cabinets are the foundation to the working kitchen.

We wanted modern cabinets, but not something that would be dated soon. 

We wanted decent quality, but not too expensive. 

We wanted more usable storage space.

We spend 2 months desiding on cabinet front design.  We ended up with a Cape Cod style cabinet front.  It is clean, bright, simple, lasting and readily available from all vendors.

We then looked at the vendor and cabinet styles.  Really you have 2 choices, you build or pre built.  We talked with all the vendors, and most said the prebuild are much better quality.  That come with a price.  So, we tested the you build, was asked around about peoples experience.

It came down to price, if put together right, the you-build models are decent quality.  It takes more effort and time.

We then priced around based of a rough model of what we though we wanted.  This was really helpful, we got some great suggestions from vendors as to kitchen layout.  Great took-kits (online and instore) on layout options and suggestions.

In general, we found the estimates by lineir foot to be less useful. So we advanced onto designing the cabinet layouts.  We found Ikea's software the best free-be out there to help with this.  We then took this design to the vendors and asked for estimates with counter tops.

This is when the costs really showed it's.  We found we could get the cabinets and counter top for 30% will IKEA, maybe it was our design, maybe the cabinet front choice.  But they were best on price.

IKEA also helped with cabinet choice, and adjusted based upon our comments. 

They suggested and we agreed, we should have the kitchen measured and confirmed that everything would fit.  We have a challenging ceiling height change, and the one wall was tight.

This was a great load of comfort, and well worth the $50 costs.

One advnatage of the you build style is that when you have to store them for the 2 weeks before they are installed, and you will ! they take up less room (but still alot of room)