Self Installation of Cabinets
Another area where you can save money with your kitchen cabinets is installation. When you go to a full service kitchen cabinet company, they are going to roll all the costs together, and you will never know the true cost of installation.You have two options here. First, you can buy the cabinets only and have them delivered to your house. Then, search for a local contractor--in fact, you don't even need to find a contractor, just a handy man or two, because this is a very simple work--and have him put up the cabinets. No matter what the cabinet company claims, no matter what the cabinet manufacturer claims, installing kitchen cabinets is not rocket science. You can do it.
The main issue with self installation is that cabinets are very heavy and unwieldy. That is why at the very least you must have two people, and preferably three people, helping with the cabinet installation.
A second issue with self installation is that it is a very exacting process. If you cannot stand the thought of working with levels and stud-finders, and dealing with measurements down to an eighth of an inch, then do not even attempt to install your own cabinets. Because any kitchen floor, no matter how level it looks, is not perfectly level and you will need to adjust the base of your cabinets to level them out.
And the third issue with self installation is that, no matter how hard you try to do it all yourself, there is one area that is difficult for the do-it-yourselfer: countertops. If you are looking to have a custom, seamless countertop, such as Corian or Silestone, or slab granite, you will need to have a company come in to do that. But the good news is that you can isolate just that one process and have a counter company do that part only.
