When you plan to renovate your house, especially the kitchen, you usually worry about one problem: Should I make building kitchen cabinets by myshelf or buying them pre-made?
What are the pros and cons of building kitchen cabinets vs buying them pre-made?
The pros are:
It’s fun if you like woodworking and own the tools.
The cost for just the cabinets may be less depending on what materials you choose.
You can build to a higher standard then you could commonly buy if you know what you’re doing.
The cons are:
To build anything like what you see in the big box stores (frame and panel doors with cope and stick joints, hardwood face frames, etc.) you will need a lot of tools. Jointer, planer, table saw (preferably with dado stack), a router table with a strong motor, at least $200 in router bits, drill, sander, pocket hole jigs to join the face frames before gluing, clamps, layout tools, finishing tools, etc. Do you need a kitchen, or a kitchen and a wood shop?
It’s quite time consuming to build well-finished cabinets from rough lumber and uncut plywood. Count up every door, drawer, shelf, etc. in your kitchen. You have to measure, cut, and do the finish work on every bit.
There are lots of little tricks (like under sizing the boxes so the face frames fit tightly side by side) that you might not even know you don’t know.
Did I mention it will take you forever?
You can’t build a cabinet on your own for the retail cost of the cheapest adequate cabinets available. You would actually spend more on DIY- even excluding tool costs.