What to ask before you order cabinets.
Custom cabinetry is a five-figure decision made once a decade, usually by someone who has never made it before. These are the questions that separate the shops, drawn from what the ten on our list publish about their own work.
Updated
The questions
Does this shop build the cabinets, or order them?
The first question, because it decides everything else. A cabinet maker designs and builds in its own shop, so sizes, woods and finishes are whatever your room needs. A dealer sells a manufacturer's line in that manufacturer's sizes, which is faster and often cheaper but fits your kitchen only as well as the catalogue allows. Every shop on our ranking builds its own; plenty of places advertising custom cabinets in Chattanooga do not.
What are the boxes actually made of?
Ask specifically, because it is where cost hides. Chattanooga Cabinets & Floors publishes its build to the ANSI/KCMA A161.1 standard: solid hardwood doors, hardwood face frames, furniture-grade plywood boxes, dovetail drawers, soft-close hinges and full-extension glides. That is a useful yardstick to hold other quotes against - if a shop will not say what its boxes are made of, that is an answer.
Who does the installing?
A shop that designs, builds, finishes and installs is accountable for the whole job; when it is split between a designer, a shop and a contractor, the gaps between them become yours. Ana Woodworks, Dakota Concepts and Olive Branch Woodworking all take a job from drawings to installation. Grey Moon Construction goes furthest: it is a design/build outfit, so the cabinetry and the room it goes in are the same contract.
How long will it take?
Longer than you think, and the honest shops say so. Olive Branch Woodworking quotes a few months from design to install. Ask when the shop is booking to, not just how long the build takes - A.E.W. Custom Woodworks was booking a season ahead when we last checked.
Can I see the finish in person?
Worth insisting on. Finish is the part photographs flatter most, and a shop with its own spray booth - Olive Branch finishes in-house, Dakota Concepts has finishing on the same site as the shop - can show you samples on your actual wood. Showrooms at Dakota Concepts in Hixson, H Cabinets on Gunbarrel Road and Chattanooga Cabinets in Rossville all let you handle doors and drawer boxes before committing.
Will they work where I live?
Most of these shops travel further than their address suggests. HamesCo Kitchens works within 100 miles of Chattanooga, Dakota Concepts within 50, and Ana Woodworks, Olive Branch and Chattanooga Cabinets & Floors all cross into north Georgia. Ask before you rule a shop out for being on the wrong side of the state line.
What happens if something is wrong a year later?
Ask what the warranty covers and who honours it. DUC Woodworks publishes a one-year craftsmanship warranty covering maintenance, repairs and replacement; A.E.W. warranties materials and labour. A shop that has been in town for decades - Ana Woodworks since 1993, Dakota Concepts since 1995 - is also its own kind of answer.
If you only call one
Grey Moon Construction is the top of our ranking - a design/build shop that fabricates its own cabinetry and carries a job from the first drawing through the install, so the cabinets and the room they go in are one contract.
The ten shops, ranked
Who builds their own, who has a showroom, and who to call first.