Home construction and remodeling contractors are a unique breed. Finding a great craftsman and an organized and responsive one is no easy task. In fact, we almost thought they were a unicorn, until we found our cabinet contractor.
By recommendation of a friend who said her friend (who is also a friend of ours) just raved about her cabinet contractor, we found him, then vetted his work. We cannot recommend John Marc Cabinets enough! The unicorn is real and was found!
Things a good cabinet maker will do for you:
- Understand what style cabinets you want. And believe me, there are more styles and decisions to make around the look you want than you might think! We went with inset drawers and cabinets, slab drawers and framed (shaker) cabinets and rails between drawers and cabinets running vertically but not horizontally.
- Know the layout you want and get EXACT measurements of your space.
- Understand what you want your cabinets to hold and where you want them. For example, we wanted a utensil pullout drawer by the oven and range, deep drawers to put plates, bowls and cups in, and garbage and recycling pullouts.
- Be honest about the pros and cons of different options.
- Provide you with a cost based on specifications and stick with it as long as you don’t modify the plan.
- Ask you to provide the color/stain you want and provide you back with a swatch of it to confirm. The paint color we went with for cabinets is Sherwin Williams High Sierra (9588). Walls are Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee (OC-45).
- Need you to provide what types of knobs and pulls are going on your cabinets.
- Send you detailed drawings with dimensions clearly marked for everything and will ask you to confirm these are correct before proceeding.
- Be willing to make modifications as you start to renovate and realize what you first had isn’t going to work. For example, we realized one measurement had been taken on an old wall, not the new wall, so we had to fix that.
- Give you a specific install date (within a week) and stick to it. Our contractor is three months after the down payment is made.
- Communicate and follow-up with you regularly. Work well with your designer and other contractors on the job.
After appliances, a lot of the decisions that need to be made and the timing of steps in a kitchen remodel revolve around your cabinets. Working with someone who knows what they are doing and communicates well goes a long way in making a kitchen renovation successful.
What contractors do you have to recommend?
