Custom and Semi-Custom Cabinetry
in Port Orchard, WA

Semi-custom ordering makes sense when the room is a normal shape and the sizes work out. Manufactured lines come in a wide range of widths, styles and finishes, they arrive faster than anything built from scratch, and you are paying a factory to do repetitive work efficiently. For most kitchens, most of the run is semi-custom and that is the right call.

Building in house makes sense when the room fights back. An odd corner. A ceiling that is not level. A gap between the end of the run and the wall that no stock width fills. An old house where the window sits three inches off center and always has.

Ever seen a kitchen with a strip of filler panel four inches wide next to the fridge?

That is what happens when the only tool available is a catalog. We would rather build that one piece to fit than ask you to live with a filler.

Our honest view: mixing the two is usually the best value on the table. You get factory pricing across the bulk of the kitchen and a built piece exactly where the room needs one. Very few companies around here can offer both, and it is the main reason people call us back for the next room.

• Real cost control. You get the look of a custom kitchen without paying custom prices across every linear foot.
• Faster delivery. Semi-custom lines ship in a fraction of the time a fully custom order takes, which keeps the rest of your remodel on schedule.
  

• A fit that suits how you cook. Sizes and interior options are chosen around your habits, not around what happened to be in stock.
• Materials that hold up. We specify quality boxes and doors, because the cheap ones announce themselves within two years at the hinges.
  

If you are weighing door styles, we wrote up the trade-offs in how to choose semi-custom kitchen cabinets: white shaker, slab or inset.

Styles. Modern, traditional, rustic and transitional. Shaker still dominates around here, and for good reason, but flat slab doors have been showing up in more Kitsap kitchens over the last few years.

Finishes. Painted, stained, natural wood or distressed. One local note worth knowing: very dark painted finishes show dust and water spots more in a bright waterfront kitchen than they do in a showroom under even light. Ask to see a sample in your own room before you commit.

Hardware. Handles, knobs and hinges in a range of finishes. Hardware is the cheapest thing on the whole order and the thing your hand touches twenty times a day, so it is a strange place to economize.

• Pull-out shelves so the back of a deep base cabinet stops being a place things go to disappear
• Soft-close drawers and doors, which we now specify by default rather than as an upgrade
• Lazy Susans and corner solutions, covered in more depth in our piece on maximizing kitchen cabinet corners during a remodel

• Custom dividers for trays, lids, spices and the drawer everyone is embarrassed about
• Trash and recycling pull-outs, which are worth more than most decorative upgrades
  

Here is where we would spend the money if the budget is tight: interior function first, decorative detail second. Nobody has ever thanked us for corbels. Plenty of people have thanked us for the pull-out beside the range.

• Bathroom vanities, sized to the room rather than to the nearest stock width. Pairs naturally with our bathroom remodeling work.
• Built-ins for living rooms, hallways and window walls
• Closet systems that use the full height instead of one rod and one shelf
  

• Entertainment and media centers built around your equipment and the cable runs
• Bookcases and niches, often built in house because they almost never match a stock size
• Mudroom benches and lockers
  

If you are running several rooms at once, our interior remodeling page explains how we sequence the work so the house stays livable.

Step 1: Initial consultation.

We talk through what you need, what you like and what you want to spend. Your job is to tell us how you actually use the room. Our job is to listen and point you at the choices that fit.

Step 2: Design.

We lay out a plan around your style and your storage, including where the appliances land and how the doors and drawers will clear each other. This is the stage where problems are cheap to fix.

Step 3: Material selection.

Hardwoods, laminates, doors, finishes and hardware, chosen for how they look and how they hold up. We get samples in front of you before anything is ordered.

Step 4: Build, craftsmanship and installation.

Ordered boxes come in, built pieces get made, and our install crew sets everything level and true. We protect floors, run HEPA filtration and clean up daily, so most people stay in the house throughout.

Then we walk it with you. Anything that needs adjusting gets adjusted before we call it finished.

• How much of the run is built versus ordered. Built pieces cost more per unit. Used surgically, they often save money overall by removing filler and wasted space.
• Door style and finish. Inset doors cost more than overlay, every time, because the tolerances are tighter. Painted finishes cost more than stained in most lines.
• Box construction. Plywood boxes over particleboard is the upgrade we push hardest, particularly in a bathroom or a laundry.
  

• Interior hardware. Pull-outs, organizers and soft-close add up quickly across twenty openings.
• Condition of the room. Walls that are out of plumb, floors that slope, old plaster behind the old run. We find this on demo and we tell you the day we find it.
  

On timing: most full kitchen or bathroom remodels we run take two to five weeks on site, but cabinetry lead time sits ahead of that. Semi-custom orders have a manufacturing window, and built pieces need shop time. We give you real dates at the design stage rather than a vague range.



If spreading the cost helps, we can connect you with trusted local lenders who offer financing options.