I’m bidding my first total kitchen cabinet job. I’ve done plenty of things over the last 10 years but a kitchen of cabinets hasn’t been one of them. I was wondering what a ballpark price per foot for labor is for custom built kitchen cabinets. Definitely upper end design, having more of a furniture feel about them. They will have poplar face frames as they will be painted, doors will have beaded panels, and the cabinets will be made to fit versus standand sizes. I recently built a set for my own kitchen and I know about how long they’ll take, but I was hoping someone could give me an idea what a going rate for something like this might be to see if I’m in line with my estimating.
Thanks for any input.
Ottcarpentry
Replies
A lot.
and DUCK!
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Ditto what J said but add a little for profit, like a lot more.
Actually in all fairness to your question your going to get a myriad of answers for just as many good reasons. You have to figure this one out yourself by your own experience and mostly through good reading.
Jim Toplin has some good books about this very subject but for me after 30 years I'm getting better at it but still trying.
My range for cabinetry goes a little like this $125-$350 per running foot including uppers, build only, install extra. Defining factors, plywood doors verses raised or recessed, Paint grade birch ply doors verses walnut or oak plywood doors, paint grade poplar verses ash oak or cherry etc. recessed or raised doors.
And we haven't even begun on the carcasses much less the hardware...oh the hardware! And this is unfinished
Then to top it all off there's the psychological side of the bid. Do they expect the cabinets to cost a certain amount so they can talk to friends about their, high end kitchen. Are you selling them their dream and can you deliver.
Don't worry about it though because just when you finish days of design and crank tons of numbers then offer them a bid for the greatest set of cabinets since Greene and Greene they'll say they decided to go with the Thermofoil cabinets they saw at Lowe's the other night because the 20 something snot nose showed them how easy it would be for them to assemble themselves.
Actually, go to Lowe's, the snot nose kid's name is Billy. Tell him I sent you and just buy the cabinets from him and remove the labels just before you deliver them and add 30% over cost. Tell them how you labored late in the night skipping your son's game, they like that.
Good Luck
"Don't worry about it though because just when you finish days of design and crank tons of numbers then offer them a bid for the greatest set of cabinets since Greene and Greene they'll say they decided to go with the Thermofoil cabinets they saw at Lowe's the other night because the 20 something snot nose showed them how easy it would be for them to assemble themselves."YES YES YES! Been there, done that!
Sorry Ott
What you discribed would be more towards my higher end. While I might price it at first around $285 a foot I'd adjust the price up or down depending on specialty hardware final finish and the conversation with the client.
Basicly I'm just shooting for around $45 an hour for my time plus 10% over all cost. Some may say this is low and some high but here in Tulsa it's a good price for a single guy outfit trying to be legit.
Most of my clients call me because they have a friend who used me, no advertising. So in this way price is usually their second concern after knowing the job will be well done.
Jagwah,Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback. It sounds like I'm not far off from where you're sittin'. I figured @ $45 per hour based on how long my set of cabs took me, I'd be around $275 a foot labor cost. But, I am in Oregon so shouldn't I be charging $375. ; ) The cabinets will be birch ply carcasses and poplar face frames w/ a 1/4" beading around the openings. Flush set framed doors and drawers w/ beaded panels. European hinges and steel bearing sliders. Beadboard on the exposed sides and feet on the corners. They look great in my kitchen and I certianly enjoyed building them.I lived in Shawnee, OK for seven years when I was stationed at Tinker AFB, and restored an 1895 Victorian. It went back on the market and we're going to buy it back and have somewhere to dry out during the winter months.Thanks,Ott
Based on your description of the cabinet style, including finish and installation, I would charge $400 to $600 a running foot, but like the other guys said it's really based on YOUR numbers and not someone else's.
Ott,
If you hang out here long enough, you will see similar "going rate" threads come up from time to time. The standard answer seems to be $99,500, or some variant thereof.
What most people here will tell you is that there is no "going rate" for anything. What I can build in an hour and you can build in an hour are most likely two very different things.
If I told you that my last job where I built the cabs was figured at roughly 40 hours to build and finish the 8 boxes. (I ordered the doors), does that mean you should figure 5 hours per box for yours?
Is your shop setup for production work, or will you have to build them on site? The quality of materials, choice of joinery, level of finish, and your ability in each of these fields plays a large roll in how much you can do in an hour, day or week. Basically, there are too many variables for people's advice to be very useful.
I think you have your best estimating tool in front of you. Use the numbers from constructing your own kitchen cabs and multiply that by the hourly rate you need to make to be in business. Add your material cost and markup. That is your selling price.
Forget about what the other guys are charging, you don't want to be known as the guy who installs cabs at the "going rate." Sell yourself and your skills, don't settle for what others charge, leave that for the BB stores.
I am posting this because this was a harder lesson for me to learn. Thanks to good advice I got here, I have quit pricing my work based on the "going rate". And I will tell you that it works. I have just closed two jobs, one a window replacement and the other a basement finish, not on what the market will bear or what others will do it for, but on what it will cost me to do the job right.
good luck
Amen to that
Ever notice a reg. size coffee at 7-11 is more $$$ than some of your local mom & pops' ? Why ?
Charge based on what you need to make, and stay away from these feelings of self-doubt.
Nice answer!
As I read it, I thought, "how else could anyone really do it if he is just starting out?". There is just no way in a deal like the one describe to figure out what the other guy bidding the job is looking at. Full shop, week-end warrior job, Long running reputation up the Y-ZOO, etc. Which price is right and comparible to what you are doing and offerring?
Figure out what you need to make to make it worth your well. If it is way low, then your reputation will grow and you will ahve more business than you can handle. Then raise your price and drive a little business away, but stay busy, and more profitible. It all works out.
Here are some pics of my kitchen that is the style I will be building. I've included a couple of before pics. The one with the door is where the archway is now, and the one with the closet and window is a picture of the kitchen (formerly bedroom) where the fridge is now. So far I've fiqured how long it took me to build these, established a labor fiqure and divided by the footage. I will check this figure with what I think it will take to do a kitchen about twice the size and see if it comes close to being about the same. If it does, I'm one step closer to ballparking a kitchen job the next time one shows up. I really appreciate everyone's input. Sometimes when you've been working on your own long enough it's tough to have an objective view of your talents and abilities, and deciding what they're worth.(The cabinets only have a coat of primer on them except for the drawer fronts, and I haven't installed any hardware yet, but you can get an idea.)Thanks,Ott
Edited 4/20/2007 5:24 pm ET by ottcarpentry
I don't see the pics, I'll try loading them again.Ott
View Image
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
Edited 4/20/2007 11:40 pm ET by rez
Thanks Rez,For some reason, the program I'm using for photos will only allow me to adjust the "quality" of the pics, not the size. I lower the quality as much as I can, but I can't seem to get the pics much below about 90 - 100 kb.Ott
Actually your KB totals weren't too bad considering the size of the pics. I probably would not have shrank them except the needing to scroll around to see the total picture, which is pretty nice if looking at detail but can detract from seeing the total view.
What program are you using to size the pics?
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
Rez,I have a Mac, and I'm just using something called Preview. It seems to be a general photoviewing program, but it allows me to save pics at a lower quality. I haven't had the time to figure out if IPhoto has a similiar feature.Say, wha' happened, I posted pics and haven't heard from anyone since?Ott
Nice looking cabinets Ott.
I got into building custom kitchens a couple years ago, after spending a few years before that building the odd cabinet here & there, plus some refacing & custom cabinet door work.
I used to do a pretty detailed breakdown of the time needed for each part of the job. I still do a rough breakdown, mostly to allow for items that take extra time, such as beaded openings, appliance garages, pantry pullouts, etc., but I know what it takes for me to build the basic box, drawers & doors. Always meant to figure out a price/ft, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
The last kitchen I bid, I figured out my price & since I already had three others to do, I added another 15% to the price. Met with the customers and they seemed a bit shocked at the price, but called me back a few days later saying 'when can you start?' I know I kinda pushed the upper end of what they wanted to spend, but they had seen my work before, so that helped a bit too I'm sure.
Anyways, good luck with your project. Looking at your photos, I don't think you'll have any problems.
Mike
Wish I could get those low KB totals for the quaility and size of the pics you posted.
Maybe Macs do rule.
Nice cabs by the way.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
Edited 4/22/2007 10:29 am ET by rez
Rez, you use Irfanview right? If you resize the picture, then "save as" a .jpg, then adjust the quality to 50% or so, you can really get the KB's pretty low.
Maybe that's how you already do it that way, in which case you can disregard this message....
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Well ya, that work's pretty good! Haven't messed with the percentages thing in a long time, ever since I first had a system down that worked and got the job done.
Nothing like a little fine tuning to better a situation. Thanks.
Well, then again it's about the same just shrinking to 640/480. But I'm learning. Cheers
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
Edited 4/22/2007 11:25 am ET by rez
Edited 4/22/2007 11:34 am ET by rez
View Image
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
View Image
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Parolee # 53804
You have to be absolutely honest with yourself about what you reckon the time to build and install will be. Do not think AT ALL about going rate or anything else or you'll end up screwing yourself.
Mike
As well as your overhead, keep in mind that it is also your skill, expertise and experience that your selling! Plumbers ( no offense )charge $65/hr yet they don't need 20k of tools to do their jobs either and if you really ARE good at what you do than "what the going rate is" is mute. Cheers! And no offense but your not in the business of selling materials either, so any discounts you get you should use as a tool for repeat business but if you know this is a one shot deal than in your pocket with discounts and bonus for you cause you won't get paid for the headaches.!
Edited 4/19/2007 8:51 pm ET by timestamps
I've made 11 kitchens and each one was a different price per foot. $150-$500 per lineal foot.
If you have the huge shop, line boring machine, edge bander, sliding panel saw, spray booth and hinge boring machine then you can make 3 cabinets per hour. If you're working onsite or out of your garage, your going to take 2 days per cabinet.
My recommendation if you're stuck on making them: Order boxes from an online supplier with pre-finished edgebanding to match the pre-finished doors and trim that you should buy from Walzcraft. Order everything and make your money on the installation.
Knowing the going rate is only good for two things.
1. Qualifying your client to see if you're wasting your time by working up a bid for them because they can go to the cabinet maker across town and pay 2/3 what your price is for equal quality and specs.
2. Charging a good bit more than you need to in order to achieve very high profit margins. If you know that a kitchen will cost you $21,550 to build but the client is willing to pay $36,000 because that is the "going rate" than you're in good shape and have found a niche you should stick with.
It's a good idea to qualify your potential clients, but you may find it hard to compare what you can offer to the other options out there because of the custom nature of the project. Still, it is a good idea to qualify the lead as much as you can.
Charging more than you need to is a worthy goal, but the chance that you are able to hit that home run on your first custom kitchen for a customer is unlikely.
All this to say that the going rate can cause you to go bankrupt. You need to figure out how much you need to make an hour and how much to mark up your materials. It doesn't really matter which method you use to determine what you need to charge (capacity based, percentage based markup, etc.) as long as your method will provide you with enough money to stay in business.
Finding out how to market and sell your product at the price you need will likely be more of a challenge than wondering if the "going rate" would have allowed you to charge more than your price.
Jon Blakemore
RappahannockINC.com Fredericksburg, VA
Ah...ditto! very well put BTW.
Jon,I certianly agree with you. The main reason I posted the question was because I lost my last attempt at a kitchen to "billy" and the 10% off offer on a new lowe's card. (at least I installed them) This project is virtually guaranteed it's only a matter of deciding how extensive they want to be on the remodel. I always attempt to be honorable to both myself and the client and wanted to make sure that in getting what I needed out of the job, I wasn't totally out in left field.Ott
I've built a hell of a lot of cabinets and I've never charged by the foot. Yea, yea, I know that I could devide the price by the running foot but I've never done it in over 20 years, I just sorta make up a number and go with that!
Why dont you post pictures of the cabinets that you built for your house so we can get a good look at what your talking about cabinet-wise.
Doug
DougI'll try to post some tomorrow.Ott
value is one dollar more than you can screw somebody out of. if they was fine with paying 100 a foot then price it at 101i do live in Alabama, so my advice might be worthless
The "monetary value" of a thing is defined as, the price a willing seller and willing buyer agree upon.
So you figure out where you are a "comfortably happy, willing' seller", and make the offer. That leaves you some room during negotiation to still be a "willing seller".
As you can see from the huge range of unit prices people have responded with, it can be risky to bid a set of cabinets this way. As a professional estimator with nearly 40 years of experience, I would recommend that you sit down and detail each step in the process with man hours for each step. Once you've got a few jobs under your belt you can use unit prices to check yourself. There's no substitute for a nuts & bolts take-off.. Good luck.
Nail it! Half inch paint will cover.
rfneid,I've been doing restoration and remodeling with a fair amout finish work for a bit over 10 years. Every job is totally different so I try to stick to T&M whenever possible, but I have been able to set up some general guidlines for estimating the majority of things I come accross. Tear out, new flooring, tile, bathrooms, painting, sheetrocking, etc... I can come pretty close on most of these to actual time needed, but, like I said earlier, I don't have extensive experience w/ cabinetry. I know that it's said to be a difficult area to make a living in unless you're doing production. Any tips on how to make estimating easier? Or is it like everything else, hurt my brain for a few hours and hope I've thought of most everything add some more $ onto that, and then see how I did on the other side.Ott
Ottcarpentry -Sorry it took me so long to reply to you. Unfortunately, there is no easy way. If I could figure one out, I'd get rich & retire. My advice is to list each step on a sheet of paper. Include everything - 1. Make cut list. 2. cut out parts - etc. After each step is listed, then start adding man hours & material costs in two separate columns next to each work item. You'll be surprised at how rapidly it can go after you have organized the estimate. And the key to any good estimate is to organize it - from the take-off through calculating costs. Estimating techniques could be a good topic for discussion.Anybody else?
I have to agree...the more you plan and think about the processes on paper the better estimate you will produce and for an added bonus, if you are awarded the contract you're already very familiar with the job before you even start which can only help your bottom line. I spent 14 hrs on this job knowing i had an 80% chance of getting the contract. After all was said and done, i was about 3k ahead from what i had estimated. Good luck but looking at your pics, you just need to get those numbers close cause your work speaks for itself. ( OOps! that's 14hrs estimating not producing! )
Edited 4/25/2007 9:40 am ET by timestamps
I bid $99,500.
Does that include installation? ;-)LOL