Ordering Barker Cabinets – part 2

If you don’t know, I am finishing up a never ending kitchen remodel and I am finally getting around to sharing all the details with you lovely people.  After designing my kitchen (post HERE) and debating over where to buy cabinets from, I decided to go with Barker Cabinets because they are fully customizable — down to .25″ increments.  It took one whole post to show you the specifics about ordering one Barker cabinet, but now that you’re an expert, we’ll move a little faster on these next 5 cabinets.

This order will complete only the first section of cabinets in my kitchen — the lower cabinets only.  The other section I ordered from Barker Cabinets was the pantry wall, and you can find all those specifics HERE.

Ordering a Corner Base Cabinet

As you’ll see, each cabinet has its own set of options, some are more complex than others.  Corner base cabinets are a little tricky.

There are 15 choices on the corner cabinet page.  Considering the look of the corner cabinet, the choices are either a 45°, 90°, or a blind corner cabinet.  But there are several interior options as well.  Most people think of using a lazy susan in their corner cabinet.  I am not a fan.  I figured I would get significantly more storage space out of the corner cabinet if I just had a shelf instead of a lazy susan.  And you know what???  I am so happy with that choice.  My corner cabinet holds all my pots and pans, even the weird ones like my Ebleskiver pan and Whirley-Pop, as well as my blender and ice cream maker.  Score!

Anyway, I went with the 90° cabinet with interior shelf.

The tricky part is the measurements, because there are more of them.  These are the default standard measurements.

And we all know I am not a default standard kind of gal, so I took a few inches off of each side.  No, it was really because I only had 33″ left over after I put a dishwasher and 3 foot sink cabinet along that wall.  33″ is also the minimum Barker will let you go, which makes sense.  The opening to my cavernous cabinet is pretty small.  If I were you, I’d try not to go under 34″.

The other main decision to make is whether you want the door to open to the left or the right.  I wanted mine to open to the left, so it opened away from the stove.  Figure out whatever will work best for your, but just so you know, the materials they send you can be assembled either way.  You would only have to drill a few screws on the inside of the cabinet box.

All the other corner cabinet options are the same as I selected on the first cabinet: Shaker inset, upgrade to maple, raw/unfinished, standard toe kick.

Ordering a Pull Out Spice Cabinet

This is the easiest one to order because there are very few options!  The spice pull out is found under standard base cabinets.  It says version 2, but there is no version 1.  I thought about ordering a plane empty cabinet and getting a Rev-a-Shelf spice rack pullout, but this was easier.  If I needed any other size than 10″ though, then Rev-a-Shelf would have been my only option.  Maybe not the only option, but the only one I was considering.

Click around on the pictures on left of the screen to get a better look at the cabinet.  I ended up using only 1 of the adjustable shelves and the clearance is still short, so I’m not really sure what they think you’re going to put in there.

This is what the above cabinets looked like at the beginning of my install.

Ordering a 4 Drawer Base Cabinet

You need to shift your focus away from doors now and start thinking drawers.  Do you want your drawers to match your doors?  Sticking with my order, that would mean choosing shaker inset drawer fronts.  Or should the drawers be flat?  Or do you want only the top drawer to be flat and the lower drawers to be paneled?  Which isn’t as weird as it sounds — if you have cabinets with a drawer on top and door below, often the drawer is flat and the door is a raised panel.  It would make sense to have the all drawer cabinets match, flat drawer on top and paneled doors below.  But I don’t have any drawer on top of door cabinets, so it would be weird for me.  I went with all flat.  With 4 drawers I think all that paneling would look super busy anyway.

The only thing I don’t understand is that flat panels cost more than shaker on the lower 3 drawers, but less than shaker on the top drawer.  Weird.  For the record, I was really disappointed with the slab/flat drawer fronts and have no idea why they would cost more than the beautiful shaker inset panels.  The slab drawers are made out of plywood with edgebanding.  Why would that cost more?!

The one thing I would change about my Barker Cabinet order, if I could go back in time, is to order upgraded drawers.  I went with the standard plywood without much thought and I was really unhappy when they arrived.  You can see the plywood edges!  I will say that it works out okay in my kitchen because it’s kind of industrial and rustic.  But the plywood edges would look terrible in most kitchens. Even going back on the Barker website now, I think it is misleading.  You cannot magnify the pictures of the drawer boxes and it’s impossible to see the detailed edge.

On the other hand, which is also weird, there is no drawer box upgrade option for pantry roll outs.  You have to go with unfinished edge plywood.  So had I upgrade my drawers they would not match the pantry pullouts anyway.  So I guess it’s good I didn’t.  Who knows??  This 20″ cabinet costs more than $550 unpainted, so I was expecting more from the drawers, that’s all.

It’s good to note that the $49 upgrade is for the whole cabinet, not each drawer.  That’s about $12.50/drawer if it makes you feel any better.

Ordering a 3 Drawer Base Cabinet

Are we finished yet!?!  Almost!

Under standard base cabinet, select 3 drawer base cabinet.

There is one big difference between the 3-drawer and 4-drawer cabinets, and that is that you can select the drawer heights on the 3-drawer cabinets.  Which of course is very cool.  Having all three drawers the same height would definitely be visually appealing.  I went with function though, and chose the standard configuration with a smaller drawer on top and two larger matching drawers below.  The small drawer is perfect for silverware and placemats.

I ordered two of these 34″ wide cabinets, but of course there were tons of options I could have gone with instead.  I could have easily broke the space up into 3 cabinets and had doors on the side and drawers in the middle.  I loved the idea of giant spacious drawers, so that’s what I went with.

Ordering End Panels

Let’s be clear — you have to have end panels.  Otherwise you would see the screws holding the side of the cabinet boxes together.  Yuck!

Under base cabinets there is an option for finished end panels.

There are 4 choices, but the only one I would consider is the SLAB WIDE STILE, which is the only option wider than 3/4″.

End panels, in my opinion, should be the depth of the cabinet + the door.  In most cases that is 24″ + .75″.  Barker says 24 5/8″ which is fine.  To order an end panel for next to my dishwasher, it would have cost $99.95.  Not ridiculous, but not cheap either considering Barker is using 4 pieces of plywood and NOT mitering the corners, but instead using edge banding.

I completely lost it when I went to order an end panel for the side of my peninsula, where two sets of cabinets back up to one another.  The cabinets facing the kitchen are the standard 24″ deep, while the ones on the dining room side are slightly smaller, at 21″.  Add on the depth of the drawers and that comes to 46.5″.  The longest Barker makes is 47″, so that’s lucky.  But look at the price!!!

Yup!  Obviously I didn’t need to spend that kind of money on plywood… so instead I bought myself a spiffy new compound sliding miter saw and made my own end panels.

I didn’t need a new miter saw to make them, but I felt justified nonetheless!  One of these days I will write a post about the end panels, but here’s a shot taken today as a little sneak peek.  (Today I installed the toe skins.)

Which brings me to the last thing I needed to order…

Ordering Toe Skins

Dude, the name is pretty gross.  But toes skins are just thin pieces of wood that cover the unsightly toe kick area.  Most people paint them to match the cabinet.  And… because I’m not most people… I stained mine so they would blend in with the wood floors and make my cabinets appear more furniture like.

Under Millwork, select Base Cabinet Millwork.

Then choose toe skins.

This was the easiest order I place… absolutely nothing to change.  If you needed to you could make them taller, which honestly would have been a good idea.  If your cabinets are shimmed at all the 4″ toe skin will not cover the entire toe kick area.  It seems like my cabinets are shimmed an inch in some places, so it would have been better to trim 5″ down, but oh well.  No one will ever notice unless they are laying on my kitchen floor looking under the cabinets.  Feel free to check next time you come over.

We’ve only discussed the smaller section of cabinets I ordered.   I will cover the pantry wall in the next kitchen post, because oh my God this post is long enough already!

The total for my only my lower Barker Cabinets: $2,778.43

This includes the 5% discount for orders over $7,500.

My total cabinet order was $7,732.70 – 5% discount = $7,346.07 (this includes the pantry wall, found in here)

There is no tax or shipping fee, so this is the total cost of cabinets.  But remember I still have to build side panels, build an island, paint the doors and buy lumber for modifications.

 

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Check out these posts for more about my kitchen renovations: