7 Things You Didn’t Know About Custom Cabinet Shops

There’s a very big reason why you wouldn’t contact a baker who only specializes in baking cupcakes to craft you a breathtaking wedding cake.

They might know how, but chances are you probably wouldn’t request a bar cook to fashion you a high-class meal.

Well, the same goes for quality cabinetry and custom woodworking. You don’t contact a kitchen cabinet dealer or god forbid—a local lumber yard—for highly creative, more complex cabinetry and woodworking projects.

The problem you might be facing right now as a homeowner or an industry professional is that your current kitchen cabinet dealer or stock company doesn’t produce anything outside of their wheelhouse, such as:

Custom built-ins
Entertainment units
Banquette Seating
Bedroom Furniture
Floating vanities
Walk-in closets
Wet or dry bars

Does that sound familiar?

This is risky business not getting your entire project completed and what you need is an experienced custom cabinet shop that can complete the entire order for you, including the kitchen, just to ensure quality and longevity.

Read on to discover 7 things you didn’t know about custom cabinet shops:

1. Woodworkers & Cabinetmakers Are The Original Artisans

Any textbook or Google search will tell you that back in the Colonial days of America and earlier, woodworkers and cabinetmakers were the ones you contacted if you wanted cabinets, ornate furniture and even musical instruments fabricated. They did all of the designing, engineering, drafting and of course, all of the intense sweat-of-the-brow-labor for these products.

In the year 2020, we of course have all of the various disciplines and the masters of specific areas of study such as architecture and interior design.

However, the point being here is that, if you’re speaking with a custom cabinetmaker, traditionally speaking, there’s a pretty good chance they’re an artist and have all of the skills necessary to design and build what you need. Or, they’re just highly skilled at building exactly what you want per the supplied plans & specifications.

Therefore, with custom cabinet shops, you can contact one person (or one shop) and they’ll likely be able to handle your project turnkey style, aka “soup to nuts”.

2. Working With Us Can Be More Personable

There’s plenty of big box stores and corporations out there. From what we know, the experience is generally not very personable and trying to contact customer service departments for these larger companies is difficult. We’ve heard from people over the years that it takes a few weeks just to get a part or a cabinet replaced. And cabinets can often be delivered with broken pieces.

Working with a family operation or small to mid sized company, you are in direct communication with the owners and/or a handful of craftsmen and their assistants. I’m willing to bet that the customer service from shop to shop is more interactive and welcoming versus being completely shut out by automated machines or answering services, designed to handle traffic instead of help it.

3. We Specialize in Abstract and Unfamiliar Concepts

Most woodworking or cabinetry related products are crafted in our shops.

Creative Concepts of NJ has been solving other people’s problems since the 1970’s, quite literally. Not just any problems, though. We’ve been solving custom cabinetry, woodworking and millwork problems.

This includes all of the issues and engineering confusions that could possibly come about as a result of completely new and unfamiliar design concepts which might be well-grounded in a two dimensional world, but working it out in a three dimensional space is an entirely different animal.

Solving unique and difficult custom cabinetry, woodworking or millwork problems are our daily bread.

4. We Already Have Experience Building What You Want

It’s not to boast, but considering the latter point, many homeowners, builders, designers and contracting companies have come to us with well-imagined designs and concepts and it’s been our job to figure out how to build them, make them practical and actually fabricate the item or an entire proposal worth of top quality goods on time, and with excellent consistency.

As original as some ideas have been, it’s incredible how a lot of ideas are very similar to each other however every idea or project has its own inherent set of problems to figure out. Chances are, there isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.

And if there is something we haven’t encountered before, we’re very competent in our resolve.

5. We Don’t Think Kitchen Projects Are That Complicated

Again, not to boast but compared to more complex, involved cabinetry and millwork projects, building and installing custom kitchen cabinets really aren’t that difficult or complicated.

Although each kitchen is different in many ways, the principles of designing, building and installing them have many similarities.

Stock or RTA cabinet companies wouldn’t really know where to start, but we’ve done so many custom kitchen projects since our conception that they’re almost too easy compared to the more unusual or uncommon orders that we get contracted to design, build and install.

The complex, detail-oriented jobs are the ones that require all the skill, know-how and technical understanding behind woodworking that your average, garden variety kitchen cabinet dealer doesn’t have much or any familiarity with.

6. It’s Very Rare, but if Something Fails, We Take It Personally

We make our living building people’s visions or designs we create for them and this includes commercial projects or the really eccentric residential ones whenever they come up.

Regardless of variance, once all of the parts and components are processed for a job on our machinery, everything we do is done by hand to a greater or lesser degree. That includes finish sanding, primer, any staining, painting and clear coating.

Working with your hands heavily involves having to know a thing or two about what you are doing.

We have to understand several techniques and methods for accomplishing all kinds of results and that’s how we’re able to take on the more uncommon requests which are all of the highly custom orders that require technical know-how and understanding to produce.

As the heading of this subsection says, it’s a very rare occurrence but if something fails or doesn’t work as intended, we take it really personally simply because of all the time and effort that went into it.

When it comes to custom cabinetry and millwork, that level of care is unheard of in the industry of stock or even semi-custom cabinets.

7. You Get Higher Quality Products, Estimated to Meet Your Budget

And last but not least: pricing. What does custom cabinetry and millwork cost?

It’s a common misconception that custom work is unreachable and just way too expensive or generally unaffordable.

This is especially not true if the cabinet shop you contact has made an investment into a CNC machine. It’s no disrespect to anyone, but we can’t really comment on shops that have not upgraded.

The fact is, CNC machines greatly reduce the physical labor of workers. They are robotic cutting machines that come in all sizes which make use of different types of router bits and cutters.

Once a program is entered into its software and a sheet of material is loaded, at the push of a button, it auto-processes sheet good panels into parts, making the most efficient cuts that simultaneously reduce waste.

Long gone is the old tradition of having to heave a heavy ¾” thick 4ft x 8ft sheet of material onto a table saw and push it through a spinning blade against a straight edge fence with the perfect speed and technique.

With all of that being said, this machine allows a custom cabinet shop to price your work within your budget because the labor cost percentage is significantly lower.

We also make use of and have access to many other material and finish options that are both high-quality and more economically feasible. Your order may not classify as “high-end” due to material and finish choices but it will still be custom made, technically speaking.

So again, with all things combined here, we’re prepared to estimate your project with your budget in mind and we’ll ask you a fair exchange for it.

Wrapping It Up

Unfortunately, custom cabinet shops get buried beneath the weight of popular stock and semi-custom kitchen brands that choke them out of the marketplace.

The truth is, people can get much higher quality cabinetry and woodwork if they knew more about their options.

In today’s age, those getting shunned are custom shops . There’s a lot of commentary out there generally disfavoring custom work that makes it seem factually untouchable from a financial perspective.

Again, this is not the case. At Creative Concepts of NJ, we offer soup to nuts service. We can handle your design needs, the engineering and shop drawings, fabrication, delivery and installation.

We want to build, deliver and install high-quality custom cabinetry and millwork and have been doing so since 1976.

Whether you want high-end or something to meet your budget, as a CNC equipped shop, we’re confident we can help you with it.

Your Next Steps:

Have a project in mind?

Estimating@CreativeConceptsNJ.com