Kitchen Cabinets

After five years in our Highlands home my wife and I are finally ready to undertake a kitchen remodel. We are gutting the existing kitchen, bumping it out and opening it up to the adjacent room. I have read that most people spend 50% of their budget on kitchen cabinets (and after sitting down with a kitchen designer at Lowes, I'd say those people are right). We'd like to get some quotes from local cabinet makers as well but don't know where to start. If anyone has any suggestions or experiences they could share, we'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Scot-
Last year we purchased an existing home with Schmidt Cabinets. We are very pleased with their quality. The company, factory and showroom are located in New Salisbury, IN (Harrison County) on SR 64. They had a booth at a recent Louisville Home Show, so I'm sure they do business in Kentucky as well as Indiana.

http://www.schmidt-cabinets.com/index.php

Call Kitchen Kompact, ask for RB in maintenance.

Phone: 812-282-6681

He will buy cabinets with his employee discount and resell them.

http://www.kitchenkompact.com/

This may not be your style, but if you're willing to do a little extra work, IKEA sells some nice looking cabinets. You can customize them as much as you want and they even have designers that will work with you and make sure they fit your space, etc.

I used Mike's Cabinets. While the shop is in Bardstown, they have a showroom on Shelbyville Rd. south of the new Wal-Mart. They did both my kichens and bathooms. The designer is amazing! I wouldn't change a thing about any of my cabinets.

Thanks for the reply's everyone. We're mostly interested in custom. I would be fine with the IKEA approach if the construction of their boxes was all plywood (their boxes are mostly particle board). I've read numerous times of people actually paying less for custom cabs from a local maker than they would have for semi custom at Lowes/HD. Were off to see "Old Colony Cabinets" tomorrow with "Schmidt" and "Mikes Cabinets" soon to follow. Any more suggestions/advice are, of course, welcome.

We gutted and remodeled our Highlands kitchen 5 years ago and used Barber Cabinet Company. We were very pleased with the results.

http://www.barbercabinetco.com/site/

Do NOT use Lowe's whatever you do. We made that mistake last year. The cabinets themselves (Diamond brand) were okay, but the installation was a nightmare. Also, several of the cabinets were damaged in shipping and had to be reordered. Many callbacks to get things right and some things are still not right, but I gave up. The whole process took several MONTHS !