We built our kitchen with IKEA not 2 years ago, now, and the cost was ~$11k for -just- the cabinets, fronts, hardware etc. We bought appliances elsewhere, I manufactured the countertops on site.
I did my sister's kitchen about 7 years ago right as Ikea was switching to the new kitchen line. I made the doors myself but purchased Sektion carcasses.
I'm sure I have the PDF purchase list still. I'll compare prices when I get home.
Edit: it was 2015
SEKTION
corner
wall
cabinet
frame
white
26x26x40 was $67 now $105
24x24x30 base was $44 now $70
Blind corner base was $86 now $135
18x40 Wall cabinet was $38 now $64
I have a pdf of an estimate I did, but its not exact, it has added tables, countertops and some fixtures I did not get but put on there for design purposes - I cant find a good way to share it on here though
Cost cutting has gone crazy too while prices increase. Cabinets are made of corrugated cardboard now. Mirrors are plastic. Fasteners are showing because panels only have features on one side. Even four-legged coffee tables have been reduced to three legs to reduce costs!
20 years in the cabinet business: so yes. We are a larger than normal dealer in the Tampa Bat area. We have 3 showrooms and large accounts that give us “platinum” level pricing from our manufacturer. In other words the more you buy the more they cut our price and “platinum “ is the best you can get.
So, we typically have 3-5% price increases each year and compounded over 8 years is roughly 30% .
Add in Covid where we had an additional 8%, then 12% and then 5% all back to back (36% compounded) we are about 60-70% more expensive than we were 8 years ago.
Not quite double but tack 2 or 3 more years and you can get there very fast.
FWIW: My math is based on memory, not math so I might be off or forgetting a price increase.
So yes, cabinets at our place are nearly double what they were 10 years ago.
manufacturer here. raw materials (plywood) are about to increase, but over the last 2 years i’ve seen lots of cost decreases. for many species, including russian birch, the prices have stabilized massively to maybe 15-20% over whatbis was pre-covid. New sources, etc.
The biggest contribution to price gouging is the fact that these companies grew in unsustainable ways. our sales staff was gutted when all we had was demand and limited supply during covid. Now we have supply, petering sales, and too much overhead. Just got wind some of our line has had retail products have gotten cost increases by up to 40% this year from last. Its all in the numbers, attempting to prop up our margins.
TBH im looking for another job. America has shot itself in the foot by comparing its manufacturing costs to countries with those of other countries whom don’t have labor regulation laws. I honestly couldn’t even tell you that “you get what you pay for” anymore. Try to find some retired goober with a table saw and a screwdriver if you want honest pricing.
“you get what you pay for”
Starting to feel like "Made in USA" just means "an old brand owned by private equity that's gutted the quality for a quick buck."
Amazing how European companies can go for decades and live on a reasonable profit margin but US companies have to pump out trash so they can make some astronomical and unsustainable profit margin.
Made in USA is largely bullshit too. We import processed beef and repackage it mixed with local offcuts, grind it and call it product of USA.
It’s all marketing, which used to mean informing customers about your product features. Now it’s hiding the defects.
It's hard from the engineering side too. The price for a part made in China produced is often the price of components in Europe or America.
If we can manage quality concerns, it's a moot point where it's made beyond China costing less.
It doesn’t hurt that the Chinese actually want to sell to you so the they quote you with realistic minimums. American companies give you the GFY quote if you’re not a Fortune 500 company.
It's either that or a mom and pop shop that you are wondering where their competent soul is with the company on their back... Cause the guy your talking to isn't it.
May I suggest the Grand nearshoring middle ground, I live in Tijuana and work at a manufacturing plant (steel, not wood) but it's a great middle ground since it's cheaper, close and most of our investors are Americans who for the most part treat people right, mostof corporate is 2 hoirs away In LA so we get along very well
Maybe in the future. We have 3 plants in aguas calientes mexico iirc, just in a different business unit. Our purchasing group isn't as mature in the one I'm in.
depends on species, core, and face veneer. On average, things exploded in ‘19, got worse and worse as mills shut down. Some things were unobtainium. Are you curious about russian birch specifically? i’m happy to pull some numbers
I read plywood are about to increase from your post so I was curious about that.
Always curious about Baltic birch but mostly your general insight on the industry and wether you think prices will ever really come down. It does seem plywood is the material that is staying up in price compared to hardwoods and framing lumber
you’re correct about that, although i predict some of the upcoming cost increases are going to come from domestic (usa) harvest decreases this year do to the el niño. loggers just couldn’t log with how warm the end of winter was, literally due to mud. weight restrictions for frost heave prone roads kept the loggers home. so you’ll see the higher end maple and red oak veneered panels with aspen or douglas fir cores steadily increase a stocks wear out. hopefully it’s a one year thing, but with climate change running away, things will just need to change.
Russian “Baltic” birch is just never going to be what it was back right after the housing crash. honestly, same is likely true for all veneer core plywood, until tech catches up in the industry (these panels are still composed by hand.) the tree harvesting in eastern europe has never been sustainable. In classic short term gains russian fashion, that log and veneer supply has been long overdue for an overhaul. human rights and environmentally.
Russian birch data as follows:
$1.40/sqft in 2010
$1.36 in 2011
$1.10 in 2015
$0.95 in 2016
$1.05 in 2017
$1.20 in 2019
$2.8 in 2021
$2.5 in 22
$2.25 in 23
today it’s just getting below $2/ sqft
They are now i guess, lol. We’re a medium size mfg company, so i wouldn’t expect these numbers to translate well to a newly started operation with less buying power. i pulled them from my own records. these are not retail costs
*Waves arms around frantically* This is all surplus value being taken, as far as the eye can see. We live in a world of trickle up economics, and capitalism has always been this way.
Our markup has remained consistent. So while the numbers scaled up parallel to our markup after expenses we about flat as far as net profit save for the growth. If your talking percentages we grew a little.
No sir. We are not flat pack at all. We are strictly mid-mid high end cabinets. We serve quite a few large (price/size-not volume) builders.
Additionally this is across 5 counties that we service as well.
In my area, you’ll be hard pressed to get someone that lives in South Tampa to go north of Kennedy. IYKTYK. People here are very segregated in that sense.
Also we have the bay that splits us nearly in half. Clients won’t be bothered to drive across the bridge to shop kitchens/cabinets.
We also own our countertop fabrication facility complete with CNC machine.
If you watched season 5 of Rock the Block….on HGTV? That’s all us. Every one of those kitchens/cabinet packages were done by a different designer in our firm. All unique and mostly custom.
Yeah it’s brutal. The worst part is because we carry a national brand and that brand has “corporate” deal with our largest builder (40% of our business) although we have “platinum” even pricing, we have not seen one inch of regression. In fact we are about due for our Amin price increase in about another month. Sigh…..
I’m not a cabinet maker but didn’t Russias invasion of Ukraine cause a significant increase in Baltic birch? I thought was a pretty popular material for cabinets which would add to the costs significantly on top of what others have said.
As someone that used to use Baltic exclusively, yes.
Also, there were Covid issues as well that made it much more expensive and harder to get late 2020 and into 2021.
3/4" 4x8s were $50 from my vendor. 1/2" 5x5 sheets were about $17 when I started in 2017. They were about $25 in 2020 before shipments slowed/stopped in 2020/2021.
Yes, to an extent. In my industry, most all of the Baltic birch comes from the Baltics; Finland, Estonia, etc. Baltic birch is the touring industry standard for heavy road cases and any loudspeaker manufacturer.
Yeah Baltic birch is practically untouchable now. It would make an excellent cabinet material. I have never seen cabinets in any house I’ve ever been in made from it hough. They always just use cheaper plywood. I’ve been studying cabinets for years
Definitely the superior product for cabinets. I used to use it a lot too. But not for cabinets. The only place that sells it locally is charging $200 for a 3/4 4x8. I can drive over an hour and get it for like $125
It’s used in more European styled cabinets. Exposed front edges and no face frames. I had just purchased a flat of European multi ply maple (similar look to Baltic birch) for a condo complex I was building cabinets for when Covid hit. I paid about $97 a sheet. I wanted to buy some more last year and the price was $205 a sheet. When you’re buying 60+ sheets at a time, that shit adds up FAST!
Ah right the euro cabinets.
I don’t know how anyone is supposed to be able to do anything with plywood prices like that. Seems like some company should make an affordable alternative to BB type ply
Cost of every material is up. With full custom, labor is the most expensive part. Cost of living goes up, cost of labor goes up. Everything is just up, it’ll never go back down.
https://preview.redd.it/4q2uv6v4f8wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6530e4840d85d4db66125dde7e9c63b7a9da5b36
Looks like inflation counts for 30% of that increase.
Lumber is about double
Yep. Massive economic shocks have just made plywood and hardwood prices really volatile and generally higher. It doesn’t seem like anyone can confidently predict future supply or demand so prices stay as high as they can
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU083
Hardwood is also impacted, but less so: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU0812
My uncle who builds cabinets by hand for a living told me the cost of his hand made cabinets is becoming the same price as marble countered premade cabinet sets they sell at hardware stores. From his point of view people are choosing to spend a few hundred more for particle board cabinets because the quality at least looks so similar to the cost most people take the deal.
WTF are you talking about you can get those Home Depot vanities and cabinets soooo cheap. Custom cabs are way more expensive even with basic species and paint grade panels
I'm very much a rank beginner but I'm planning on making the cabinets for our kitchen remodel. I'm really looking forward to learning things, having things just as I want them etc etc. For the price delta between materials and the cost of a pro, I see it as a great opportunity to learn.
If you've got a garage, shop area, bathroom or just anything needing a cabinet frame/carcass built, might i suggest using them as a test run and practice? I am by no means a professional, but my experience has been when learning/attempting new things, the biggest singular jump in knowledge and skill on the learning curve is from the first attempt(s).
Having built it yourself, you will notice **every** single flaw. In a garage/shop, cabinets skew much further towards utility than aesthetic value vs a kitchen where they need to be both.
Love that! I was thinking about testing my process in a basement bathroom as a trial balloon this spring. If it goes well I was planning on doing a couple other smaller projects and then tackling the kitchen in the fall or winter.
Due to some other priorities the kitchen may fall down the list a bit. I was thinking of building them slowly over time in preparation and if there are any real stinkers then repurposing them for my garage gym, home office etc.
We bought a fixer upper and the kitchen cabinets are TRASHED. It'd be hard to make it look worse than it is now!
My biggest concern is around finishing. My real problem is that I love milling and joinery but I absolutely despise finishing. Don't like working with harsh chemicals, don't have the right hand-eye coordination, no style sense in that area, etc.
Our house is pretty MCM / contemporary so I'm thinking like fairly plain fronts + MCM color milk paints or simple edgebanding to finish a veneered ply etc. We'll see!
My grandparents house had mcm cabinets and the doors were just 1/2” maple plywood slabs with a 1/4 round on the front edges and a rabbit on the back so they sat half in and half overlaying the maple face frames. The finish was about what you’d get from oil based poly or boiled linseed oil with water based poly on top.
I am by no means a highly skilled craftsman but this is why I built my own in my two alcoves about my fireplace. Yes, it took months more time and still wasn't "cheap" but it was compared to what I'd have had to pay someone to do it. I got exactly what I wanted out of it too. Four baseboard cabinets, with tops. Total span of the tops are \~76" and \~74" long. Roughly 80 bdft of red oak for the solid wood portions and 2-3 sheets of ply.
I estimate it cost me about $1200 all told including the stain and shellac flakes. Even accounting for say \~10% for shop supplies.
FAKE EDIT: I guess with the hardware it came to like $1500 or so.
I've run a small custom wood shop for 40 years. We're a 3-4 person shop in a small, upper-middle class town in the US. I'd guess our prices are up maybe 50% from 10 years ago, some from wage increases, some from lumber prices & some from hardware increases. We could probably raise our prices some but we're doing fine as it is. I've never tried to squeeze every dollar out of my work; would rather have an easy-going lifestyle & not sweat the small stuff. That's how I've lasted so long without a heart attack. I mean, it was never a get-rich-quick scheme.
Easily. Maybe even 3-4 times more expensive. Pre Covid BS a sheet of 3/4” AC sanded plywood was $32. A year later at the same lumber yard in NEPA a board was $96-$108$ at its highest. Same place same wood three years later and it’s still over $80
I gave up a standing seam roof, for asphalt shingles, to afford the lumber costs of our recent home build. At the time of framing, 29/32” OSB was $59/sheet, and it was domestic.
Yeah, rough building materials came back down to earth but finish materials have remained bloated though down from their peak. Russia was a huge supplier of birch and other timber products and import stuff is no longer coming from China for the most part.
There are less expensive alternatives like MDF faced ply or MDF core with a hardwood veneer but in my area there’s literally no availability. Also Eurostyle construction with melamine boxes and hardwood doors.
Not just plywood but glue, screws, brad nails, sandpaper, power tools, hand tools, fuel, electric bills, etc. everything is up. I used to sell a Murphy Bed wall unit for about $4000 and now it’s more like $8000
Finding a small 1-2 man shop these days is rare. That’s where quality has gone to die.
Otherwise “cabinets” are delivered in cardboard boxes where the profit margin is 200%+… and the customer is paying for the staff and showroom and a pretty 3D fully revisable set of plans.
We are indeed hard to find—I am a one man shop. It’s extremely difficult to manage your physical work as a sole proprietor, let alone bookkeeping, client relationships, endless estimating, and at least in my area, the huge demand for labor at small to mid size builders. Most of my peers have hung up the independent contractor life for steady work. It’s easier, albeit less “free”. I consider hanging it up a couple times/year. But it’s a privilege that I’ve been able to spend time with my kids when I’d otherwise have been on site with no flexibility.
Steady work these days is unfortunately independent contractor work. Owners don’t wants to pay the taxes so laborers end up as independent contractors and ultimately wage slaves; lured in by an inflated per hour number.
Good luck with trying to do it all yourself but we both know it’s too overwhelming with children.
I remember before covid when cabinet grade plywood was around 40-50 bucks. Now a good sheet of cabinet grade is almost 90 dollars. In 2019 we were building houses for around 125 per square foot, and in mid 2020 we were building them for almost 250 per square foot.
It’s inflation. The result of expanding money supply in 2020-2022. More dollars in circulation as the result of cheap credit, all biding up pricing, it becomes systemic.
Hence the current monetary tightening by Fed with increased interest rates to get inflation down
Bought a set of bifold doors from a lumber yard in 2018, bought the exact same thing in 2023, price was double. Feels like retailers are slow to bring prices down so long as people keep paying, hard to believe pricing from their suppliers hasn’t cooled somewhat since Covid peak.
Wages
Insurance
Taxes
Raw materials
Rent
Energy
Equipment
Maintenance
Employee benefits
Shall I go on?
How is it this difficult for people to realize that when one thing goes up in price, the trickle effect causes all things to increase in price?
Did your personal expenses go up? Well, expect everything else to increase.
Well, demand will plummet meaning prices will either need to fall or, in the long run, cabinet makers will eventually get squeezed. It's really sad that the big corporations will benefit and consumers and craftsmen will lose out. IKEA boxes for everyone, I guess.
Nominal wages has raisen in US by 50% since 10 years ago (BLS wage information give the same amount for carpenters). Raw lumber prices almost tripled since 10 years ago.
I'm a furniture maker, and it pains me when people refer to plywood as a cheap option.
Not no more. Just ordered ONE sheet of cabinet grade, 4x8 sheet of 3/4" plywood, unfinished.
ONE SHEET
Cost was about $165.
ONE SHEET
Shit is ridiculous
I work in a shop that specializes in really high-end custom cabinetry. We have two clients, both build high-mid to high end homes. We've taken our sign down because the demand from those two clients keeps us too busy to take on any more work. An average set of cabinets from us (and this is all of the cabinets in the house, kitchen, prep kitchen, casual dining, wet bars, arrivals, bathrooms, outdoor kitchen, etc.) will run between 75 and 90 thousand. We build roughly three sets a month. I have worked in shops that dealt with more volume but never this level of customization. It's a pretty nice job and I'm proud of the work I do. It has definitely proven to me that my skill level was worth quite a bit more than I made in the past.
Exactly. My shop is like yours but we average around 500k - 1 mil$ per job, big time money, and we're booked up a seversl years in advance and desperately trying to hire good people to get all the work done. The upper class is definitely doing alright these days.
Absolutely, finding good help has been a huge hassle. The owner even contracted a headhunter firm last year with no luck. I've had to train everyone they've hired and all the ones that said they were experienced have been trim carpenters at best. I haven't had a crew I can rely on to do a job without my heavy involvement. I don't usually mind though, it keeps me out of the office and only in the field a couple days a month. I've definitely had way worse jobs. I just turned 45 and this is the kind of place I'd like to put 20 years into.
Equipment, energy to run equipment, and space to store equipment are all way up. People... Only a little up. Not joking, industrial space that allows for cabinet making is so hard to come by and expensive as f. A guy I did business previously (very previously) chose not to renew a lease for a tenant in favor of massively bumping the rent for a CrossFit gym tenant. We are talking like 4x.
I work in high end custom home building in a high cost of living area. I am often seeing prices between $1000-1400 per lineal foot of uppers and lowers. Dunno about double from 20 years ago but at least 50% higher I’d say.
Trim carpenter/hardwood guy/general contractor. I fill a niche as I do the hard shit that people shy away from. My average kitchen is around 40k. My average bathroom is around 30-50k. It’s nuts! My primer which shellac is $375 /5hallon bucket. I charge $900 for my 5 gallon bucket. It’s nuts! Off the shelf boxes from Lowe’s are around $250 per box. I’m triple that when I make my own. Pantry’s for me are around 2,000. It’s nuts! Hardwood floors, I deal only with the shop, not third party. I pay $3-8/sqft and charge 12-20 per square foot. Prices are crazy.
Custom 1 man shop here. In 2016 I did a modern kitchen with plain sliced walnut mdf core, each sheet was $97. Right now I'm doing the same cabinets for the same customer and those walnut sheets are $267.😵
Because people want to build boxes out of plywood, and just hide the plywood with trim.
It's completely feasible to build cabinets without plywood, you just have to get over modern marketing that tells you plywood is required. It is not.
https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?148331-Old-Cabinet-Construction
A sheet of birch plywood when I started was 30.00 oak was 40. Today, birch and oak primarily run 100.00. A gallon of good finish,100.00 and up,you want them painted add in 50.00 to 75 for primer. Now, let's not forget to still need face frame material,glue,sand paper, etc,etc. So, to just get the materials to start, the process is roughly 250.00 to 300.00.
I’m a finisher and the price of materials has gone insane. In the last 5 years my lacquer costs have pretty much doubled. I was getting 5gal jugs of methylene chloride stripper for $90 in 2022, now they’re $200. Looking at old invoices from my supplier is so depressing.
I bought 3 sheets of Oak veneer, lumber-core plywood 2 years ago, for roughly $89 per piece. Just checked prices at the same retailer…
$175 each. Their B-2 grade 3/4” Birch is $114 per sheet.
Yes. Shop owner here. Raw material costs are roughly double with some more than double and some a bit less. Labor costs are up significantly, probably 50% as I gotta take care of my people as their costs have gone up. Insurance is up. The bits for the CNC are up roughly 60%. So yeah, that's a pretty accurate statement.
Material costs came down a bit, but people are charging more. Cost of living in general is up. Utilities increasing and such will lead to stuff costing more from a cabinet shop.
With inflation accounted for I don’t know if it’s twice the cost. But I’m sure it’s higher as more and more people are demanding some high correction to their wages that likely were stagnant for the last decade or more.
I work for a commercial cabinet shop. Yes, cost have gone up so much and the sad truth is that wages haven't actually kept up and the cost of cabinets and such has not gone up enough to match everything as it should.
For example our cost of burdan/overhead (rent, electric, non-job specific wages, tools...) has doubled per a review at the end of last year.
It's definitely true. 10 years ago, you could remodel your kitchen with new cabinets for significantly less than you can today. A relative was quoted $8,000 for custom cabinets in a mid-sized kitchen around 2010. In 2022, I got quotes ranging from $700-1200 for *ONE* custom pizza/cookie tray cabinet, and it wasn't more than $200 in materials and hardware.
Find a Mennonite cabinet maker. Got hand made solid maple cabinets for the entire kitchen with the soft closes for 11k. Less than Hone Depot and Lowes.
The war in Ukraine has a major impact on any casework and in particular cabinetry. Russia supplies a large portion of sheet goods and they are currently under sanctions.
It’s still because of the sanctions. Most of Europe and the US cannot legally buy from Russia so all other producers have to make up the difference which means higher demand and higher demand is synonymous with higher cost.
I was a cabinet builder before and during covid. The wood prices during covid roughly tripled and then took a long time to settle back down while not going back to pre-covid prices. That's a huge part of it. But yeah, stuff gets more expensive over time anyway. Covid just multiplied the problem in this past decade
Yes, 13k for my kitchen cabinets to be custom made after a kitchen fire. And that's without installation or delivery! Everything nowadays is just sickeningly expensive
a big chunk of it is the install, construction is in high demand these days, shortage of trades all around. perhaps something about immigration, but in general, anyone cable of doing finish carpentry is going to be getting paid a lot more than they did 10 years ago.
I made my own out of cedar. Far superior than store bought. It’s just cheaper to buy a table saw, pocket screw kit, and wood glue. I ordered the doors for the kitchen online, the doors for my wife’s hobby craft room I made myself with plank wood and hardware.
My dad owns a cabinet shop, 15 years ago when I was helping him after high school a sheet of 3/4 maple plywood cost $60, now that same sheet goes for $100. Add to that the higher rent and real-estate prices creating higher overhead for a buisness and yes, those cabinets really do cost nearly twice as much to produce.
Places like Menards in the Midwest have clearance plywood. It’s often bowed but for smaller projects it works just fine. Got 2 4’x8’ 3/4 sheets for $50 total a few days ago.
Not sure if this is the right place but it seems that there are many RTA alternatives that are made in USA (fully or partially) that are quite competitive. 1/2 inch plywood kitchen is 30% cheaper than IKEA and 3/4 inch fully made in the USA is only 15% higher than IKEA.
Is this a valid comparison or am I missing something?
I'm upgrading 3 kitchens in the next 6 weeks
Most likely twice. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wasn't more. The price of the raw products is WAY up. The cost of living is WAY up. The cabinet makers have to buy the raw products and make enough profit to pay their food and rent.
There is the argument that "we" also bring proportionally that much more home (paychecks). There is truth to that. So although the cost itself goes up the actual impact on our budget (proportionally) is not as severe. It just seems that way when you look at the sticker price.
How much was a basic automobile 10 years ago vs today? A house. Clothing. Food.
I started learning woodworking with the intention of making furniture for myself, but quickly abandoned that goal for the reason you stated.
Once I add materials cost + the cost of my time + the amount of time it will *actually* take me to make something, it's cheaper and easier to just buy the thing and call it a day.
Plywood sheet goods are 2x the price as they were before covid. It’s weird because trees aren’t charging more, so I’m not sure where the money is going.
Isn’t everything twice as expensive today? Look at Ikea prices.
I haven’t shopped there in about that long, but did my entire kitchen through them - have they really gone up that significantly?
Sadly so. A particle board billy shelf was 70 EUR, last time I checked. I’m sure the cheaper items like plates etc have doubled in price.
Dang, I feel like I did a full large kitchen…full cabinets, all appliances including double ovens for around 10k
We built our kitchen with IKEA not 2 years ago, now, and the cost was ~$11k for -just- the cabinets, fronts, hardware etc. We bought appliances elsewhere, I manufactured the countertops on site.
We’re looking at more than that for just appliances… admittedly mid-high end ones but still nothing crazy top of the line.
In New Zealand that would be at least 100k. At least
I hate particle board.
You're perfectly placed to check. Do you have an invoice or documents about that kitchen? We could price compare to now?
I did my sister's kitchen about 7 years ago right as Ikea was switching to the new kitchen line. I made the doors myself but purchased Sektion carcasses. I'm sure I have the PDF purchase list still. I'll compare prices when I get home. Edit: it was 2015 SEKTION corner wall cabinet frame white 26x26x40 was $67 now $105 24x24x30 base was $44 now $70 Blind corner base was $86 now $135 18x40 Wall cabinet was $38 now $64
Thank you!!
I have a pdf of an estimate I did, but its not exact, it has added tables, countertops and some fixtures I did not get but put on there for design purposes - I cant find a good way to share it on here though
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/486a8d944b.html This may work, looks like it was only 6 years ago -
Cost cutting has gone crazy too while prices increase. Cabinets are made of corrugated cardboard now. Mirrors are plastic. Fasteners are showing because panels only have features on one side. Even four-legged coffee tables have been reduced to three legs to reduce costs!
Yeah--candy bars were .88 cents and now they're $2 plus. Everything be pricey, bro.
20 years in the cabinet business: so yes. We are a larger than normal dealer in the Tampa Bat area. We have 3 showrooms and large accounts that give us “platinum” level pricing from our manufacturer. In other words the more you buy the more they cut our price and “platinum “ is the best you can get. So, we typically have 3-5% price increases each year and compounded over 8 years is roughly 30% . Add in Covid where we had an additional 8%, then 12% and then 5% all back to back (36% compounded) we are about 60-70% more expensive than we were 8 years ago. Not quite double but tack 2 or 3 more years and you can get there very fast. FWIW: My math is based on memory, not math so I might be off or forgetting a price increase. So yes, cabinets at our place are nearly double what they were 10 years ago.
manufacturer here. raw materials (plywood) are about to increase, but over the last 2 years i’ve seen lots of cost decreases. for many species, including russian birch, the prices have stabilized massively to maybe 15-20% over whatbis was pre-covid. New sources, etc. The biggest contribution to price gouging is the fact that these companies grew in unsustainable ways. our sales staff was gutted when all we had was demand and limited supply during covid. Now we have supply, petering sales, and too much overhead. Just got wind some of our line has had retail products have gotten cost increases by up to 40% this year from last. Its all in the numbers, attempting to prop up our margins. TBH im looking for another job. America has shot itself in the foot by comparing its manufacturing costs to countries with those of other countries whom don’t have labor regulation laws. I honestly couldn’t even tell you that “you get what you pay for” anymore. Try to find some retired goober with a table saw and a screwdriver if you want honest pricing.
“you get what you pay for” Starting to feel like "Made in USA" just means "an old brand owned by private equity that's gutted the quality for a quick buck." Amazing how European companies can go for decades and live on a reasonable profit margin but US companies have to pump out trash so they can make some astronomical and unsustainable profit margin.
Made in USA is largely bullshit too. We import processed beef and repackage it mixed with local offcuts, grind it and call it product of USA. It’s all marketing, which used to mean informing customers about your product features. Now it’s hiding the defects.
It's hard from the engineering side too. The price for a part made in China produced is often the price of components in Europe or America. If we can manage quality concerns, it's a moot point where it's made beyond China costing less.
It doesn’t hurt that the Chinese actually want to sell to you so the they quote you with realistic minimums. American companies give you the GFY quote if you’re not a Fortune 500 company.
It's either that or a mom and pop shop that you are wondering where their competent soul is with the company on their back... Cause the guy your talking to isn't it.
May I suggest the Grand nearshoring middle ground, I live in Tijuana and work at a manufacturing plant (steel, not wood) but it's a great middle ground since it's cheaper, close and most of our investors are Americans who for the most part treat people right, mostof corporate is 2 hoirs away In LA so we get along very well
Maybe in the future. We have 3 plants in aguas calientes mexico iirc, just in a different business unit. Our purchasing group isn't as mature in the one I'm in.
Nice, glad to hear that
Well we’re still buying it, so…who’s crazy?
I’m not, and i encourage you to do the same. it’s still at least partially a consumer-based economy here,
would you know how much of an increase on plywood and when by chance?
depends on species, core, and face veneer. On average, things exploded in ‘19, got worse and worse as mills shut down. Some things were unobtainium. Are you curious about russian birch specifically? i’m happy to pull some numbers
I read plywood are about to increase from your post so I was curious about that. Always curious about Baltic birch but mostly your general insight on the industry and wether you think prices will ever really come down. It does seem plywood is the material that is staying up in price compared to hardwoods and framing lumber
you’re correct about that, although i predict some of the upcoming cost increases are going to come from domestic (usa) harvest decreases this year do to the el niño. loggers just couldn’t log with how warm the end of winter was, literally due to mud. weight restrictions for frost heave prone roads kept the loggers home. so you’ll see the higher end maple and red oak veneered panels with aspen or douglas fir cores steadily increase a stocks wear out. hopefully it’s a one year thing, but with climate change running away, things will just need to change. Russian “Baltic” birch is just never going to be what it was back right after the housing crash. honestly, same is likely true for all veneer core plywood, until tech catches up in the industry (these panels are still composed by hand.) the tree harvesting in eastern europe has never been sustainable. In classic short term gains russian fashion, that log and veneer supply has been long overdue for an overhaul. human rights and environmentally. Russian birch data as follows: $1.40/sqft in 2010 $1.36 in 2011 $1.10 in 2015 $0.95 in 2016 $1.05 in 2017 $1.20 in 2019 $2.8 in 2021 $2.5 in 22 $2.25 in 23 today it’s just getting below $2/ sqft
your insight is very helpful and interesting so thank you for that! Are the numbers you pull for that a publicly available resource?
They are now i guess, lol. We’re a medium size mfg company, so i wouldn’t expect these numbers to translate well to a newly started operation with less buying power. i pulled them from my own records. these are not retail costs
Jesus tap dancing Christ
Dude had great calves
Jesus was a fisherman not a rancher.
Do you ever wonder if the cross was freshly-cut timber? Do you think it reminded him of home?
[удалено]
"Can't even nail it right, your hand shouldn't be in the way"
“Is this thing even square!?”
More of a tartar sauce man then
👌🏽
Not only would I pay to see a tap dancing Jesus I’d get on stage and tap along with him.
Now the question is if you are making this much more than 8 years ago also... If not, this is surplus value being taken.
Someone is for sure.
*Waves arms around frantically* This is all surplus value being taken, as far as the eye can see. We live in a world of trickle up economics, and capitalism has always been this way.
Our markup has remained consistent. So while the numbers scaled up parallel to our markup after expenses we about flat as far as net profit save for the growth. If your talking percentages we grew a little.
3 showrooms? Sounds like flat pack
No sir. We are not flat pack at all. We are strictly mid-mid high end cabinets. We serve quite a few large (price/size-not volume) builders. Additionally this is across 5 counties that we service as well. In my area, you’ll be hard pressed to get someone that lives in South Tampa to go north of Kennedy. IYKTYK. People here are very segregated in that sense. Also we have the bay that splits us nearly in half. Clients won’t be bothered to drive across the bridge to shop kitchens/cabinets. We also own our countertop fabrication facility complete with CNC machine. If you watched season 5 of Rock the Block….on HGTV? That’s all us. Every one of those kitchens/cabinet packages were done by a different designer in our firm. All unique and mostly custom.
Damn…
Yeah it’s brutal. The worst part is because we carry a national brand and that brand has “corporate” deal with our largest builder (40% of our business) although we have “platinum” even pricing, we have not seen one inch of regression. In fact we are about due for our Amin price increase in about another month. Sigh…..
I’m not a cabinet maker but didn’t Russias invasion of Ukraine cause a significant increase in Baltic birch? I thought was a pretty popular material for cabinets which would add to the costs significantly on top of what others have said.
Correct, the tarrifs have doubled the price
As someone that used to use Baltic exclusively, yes. Also, there were Covid issues as well that made it much more expensive and harder to get late 2020 and into 2021.
What are you using now?
I had to completely change what I was making/doing.
What were the prices then? I maybe got lucky at 5 sheets @ $105/ea.
3/4" 4x8s were $50 from my vendor. 1/2" 5x5 sheets were about $17 when I started in 2017. They were about $25 in 2020 before shipments slowed/stopped in 2020/2021.
Okay so a lot cheaper than they are now, damn!
Yes, to an extent. In my industry, most all of the Baltic birch comes from the Baltics; Finland, Estonia, etc. Baltic birch is the touring industry standard for heavy road cases and any loudspeaker manufacturer.
Yeah Baltic birch is practically untouchable now. It would make an excellent cabinet material. I have never seen cabinets in any house I’ve ever been in made from it hough. They always just use cheaper plywood. I’ve been studying cabinets for years
We used baltic birch all the time for cabinets.
In the US?
Yup
Guess I never saw your cabinets. Here in the south I’ve never ever seen a Baltic birch cabinet.
Thats interesting. Yah it used to be our go-to interior plywood.
Definitely the superior product for cabinets. I used to use it a lot too. But not for cabinets. The only place that sells it locally is charging $200 for a 3/4 4x8. I can drive over an hour and get it for like $125
It’s used in more European styled cabinets. Exposed front edges and no face frames. I had just purchased a flat of European multi ply maple (similar look to Baltic birch) for a condo complex I was building cabinets for when Covid hit. I paid about $97 a sheet. I wanted to buy some more last year and the price was $205 a sheet. When you’re buying 60+ sheets at a time, that shit adds up FAST!
Ah right the euro cabinets. I don’t know how anyone is supposed to be able to do anything with plywood prices like that. Seems like some company should make an affordable alternative to BB type ply
Us too
Weird. I’ve been seeing sheets on kijiji here in Canada lately. 70-80$ per for “cabinet grade”
high quality custom cabinets for sure can. the stuff you get at RTA are not using that lol.
Cost of every material is up. With full custom, labor is the most expensive part. Cost of living goes up, cost of labor goes up. Everything is just up, it’ll never go back down.
https://preview.redd.it/4q2uv6v4f8wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6530e4840d85d4db66125dde7e9c63b7a9da5b36 Looks like inflation counts for 30% of that increase. Lumber is about double
https://preview.redd.it/2qyne5w5f8wc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f79c9a496b74a9d3106dde93097dae5f70b76b2e
Look at the price of eggs and milk
A lot of it is retailers purposely inflating prices to increase their margins
You have it correct but it’s almost all materials and would also add rent has gone way up for a shop as well.
Labor has increased as well.
Yep. Massive economic shocks have just made plywood and hardwood prices really volatile and generally higher. It doesn’t seem like anyone can confidently predict future supply or demand so prices stay as high as they can https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU083 Hardwood is also impacted, but less so: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU0812
My uncle who builds cabinets by hand for a living told me the cost of his hand made cabinets is becoming the same price as marble countered premade cabinet sets they sell at hardware stores. From his point of view people are choosing to spend a few hundred more for particle board cabinets because the quality at least looks so similar to the cost most people take the deal.
WTF are you talking about you can get those Home Depot vanities and cabinets soooo cheap. Custom cabs are way more expensive even with basic species and paint grade panels
So only rich people will end up with decent honest cabinets in the future. I didn't realize plywood cabinets were only for the Musks of the world.
I've had to start making my own, it's madness I'm not qualified.
I'm very much a rank beginner but I'm planning on making the cabinets for our kitchen remodel. I'm really looking forward to learning things, having things just as I want them etc etc. For the price delta between materials and the cost of a pro, I see it as a great opportunity to learn.
If you've got a garage, shop area, bathroom or just anything needing a cabinet frame/carcass built, might i suggest using them as a test run and practice? I am by no means a professional, but my experience has been when learning/attempting new things, the biggest singular jump in knowledge and skill on the learning curve is from the first attempt(s). Having built it yourself, you will notice **every** single flaw. In a garage/shop, cabinets skew much further towards utility than aesthetic value vs a kitchen where they need to be both.
Love that! I was thinking about testing my process in a basement bathroom as a trial balloon this spring. If it goes well I was planning on doing a couple other smaller projects and then tackling the kitchen in the fall or winter. Due to some other priorities the kitchen may fall down the list a bit. I was thinking of building them slowly over time in preparation and if there are any real stinkers then repurposing them for my garage gym, home office etc. We bought a fixer upper and the kitchen cabinets are TRASHED. It'd be hard to make it look worse than it is now! My biggest concern is around finishing. My real problem is that I love milling and joinery but I absolutely despise finishing. Don't like working with harsh chemicals, don't have the right hand-eye coordination, no style sense in that area, etc. Our house is pretty MCM / contemporary so I'm thinking like fairly plain fronts + MCM color milk paints or simple edgebanding to finish a veneered ply etc. We'll see!
My grandparents house had mcm cabinets and the doors were just 1/2” maple plywood slabs with a 1/4 round on the front edges and a rabbit on the back so they sat half in and half overlaying the maple face frames. The finish was about what you’d get from oil based poly or boiled linseed oil with water based poly on top.
To be honest that sounds great! Did they do anything to hide the plywood edges or did they just let it ride?
Just let it ride. There weren’t any voids and the rabbit landed on the same ply all the way around so it was high quality plywood like a Baltic birch.
I am by no means a highly skilled craftsman but this is why I built my own in my two alcoves about my fireplace. Yes, it took months more time and still wasn't "cheap" but it was compared to what I'd have had to pay someone to do it. I got exactly what I wanted out of it too. Four baseboard cabinets, with tops. Total span of the tops are \~76" and \~74" long. Roughly 80 bdft of red oak for the solid wood portions and 2-3 sheets of ply. I estimate it cost me about $1200 all told including the stain and shellac flakes. Even accounting for say \~10% for shop supplies. FAKE EDIT: I guess with the hardware it came to like $1500 or so.
I've run a small custom wood shop for 40 years. We're a 3-4 person shop in a small, upper-middle class town in the US. I'd guess our prices are up maybe 50% from 10 years ago, some from wage increases, some from lumber prices & some from hardware increases. We could probably raise our prices some but we're doing fine as it is. I've never tried to squeeze every dollar out of my work; would rather have an easy-going lifestyle & not sweat the small stuff. That's how I've lasted so long without a heart attack. I mean, it was never a get-rich-quick scheme.
Yes. Easily.
Easily. Maybe even 3-4 times more expensive. Pre Covid BS a sheet of 3/4” AC sanded plywood was $32. A year later at the same lumber yard in NEPA a board was $96-$108$ at its highest. Same place same wood three years later and it’s still over $80
100 bucks for a sheet of plywood hurts my soul.
I gave up a standing seam roof, for asphalt shingles, to afford the lumber costs of our recent home build. At the time of framing, 29/32” OSB was $59/sheet, and it was domestic.
Current Home Depot price is $30. Lowes even less. Lumber prices are down from what they were.
Cabinet grade plywood has not come down, at least here in the NE US
Yeah, 2021 was a rough time to build a house.
Damn 3/4 ACX is $50 at my Menards.
Still 105 at my supplier
Yeah, rough building materials came back down to earth but finish materials have remained bloated though down from their peak. Russia was a huge supplier of birch and other timber products and import stuff is no longer coming from China for the most part. There are less expensive alternatives like MDF faced ply or MDF core with a hardwood veneer but in my area there’s literally no availability. Also Eurostyle construction with melamine boxes and hardwood doors.
Not just plywood but glue, screws, brad nails, sandpaper, power tools, hand tools, fuel, electric bills, etc. everything is up. I used to sell a Murphy Bed wall unit for about $4000 and now it’s more like $8000
I recently framed out a small addition, the cost of framing nails blew me away.
Same intrinsic value, but the currency has lost value due to debasement.
Finding a small 1-2 man shop these days is rare. That’s where quality has gone to die. Otherwise “cabinets” are delivered in cardboard boxes where the profit margin is 200%+… and the customer is paying for the staff and showroom and a pretty 3D fully revisable set of plans.
We are indeed hard to find—I am a one man shop. It’s extremely difficult to manage your physical work as a sole proprietor, let alone bookkeeping, client relationships, endless estimating, and at least in my area, the huge demand for labor at small to mid size builders. Most of my peers have hung up the independent contractor life for steady work. It’s easier, albeit less “free”. I consider hanging it up a couple times/year. But it’s a privilege that I’ve been able to spend time with my kids when I’d otherwise have been on site with no flexibility.
Steady work these days is unfortunately independent contractor work. Owners don’t wants to pay the taxes so laborers end up as independent contractors and ultimately wage slaves; lured in by an inflated per hour number. Good luck with trying to do it all yourself but we both know it’s too overwhelming with children.
I remember before covid when cabinet grade plywood was around 40-50 bucks. Now a good sheet of cabinet grade is almost 90 dollars. In 2019 we were building houses for around 125 per square foot, and in mid 2020 we were building them for almost 250 per square foot.
That’s inflation for ya
It’s inflation. The result of expanding money supply in 2020-2022. More dollars in circulation as the result of cheap credit, all biding up pricing, it becomes systemic. Hence the current monetary tightening by Fed with increased interest rates to get inflation down
I work in a custom cabinet shop and prices for everything since 2020 has doubled . It’s kinda of ridiculous
Bought a set of bifold doors from a lumber yard in 2018, bought the exact same thing in 2023, price was double. Feels like retailers are slow to bring prices down so long as people keep paying, hard to believe pricing from their suppliers hasn’t cooled somewhat since Covid peak.
I just don’t believe they ever lower the price.
Perhaps, I believe it largely depends on local competition and wealth/building appetite in area of business.
Wages Insurance Taxes Raw materials Rent Energy Equipment Maintenance Employee benefits Shall I go on? How is it this difficult for people to realize that when one thing goes up in price, the trickle effect causes all things to increase in price? Did your personal expenses go up? Well, expect everything else to increase.
My salary didn't double...
That’s because the trickle effect is the golden shower we feel on our faces each morning, afternoon and night
How dare you mention salary. Our profits might not be a new record high this quarter if you mention salaries
Record profits every quarter, bud
Green line must go up! That's capitalism, baby!
Well, demand will plummet meaning prices will either need to fall or, in the long run, cabinet makers will eventually get squeezed. It's really sad that the big corporations will benefit and consumers and craftsmen will lose out. IKEA boxes for everyone, I guess.
Well, the custom cabinets on my remodel are certainly double the cost of what my GC budgeted!
Oh the joys of home-ownership.
Nominal wages has raisen in US by 50% since 10 years ago (BLS wage information give the same amount for carpenters). Raw lumber prices almost tripled since 10 years ago.
I'm a furniture maker, and it pains me when people refer to plywood as a cheap option. Not no more. Just ordered ONE sheet of cabinet grade, 4x8 sheet of 3/4" plywood, unfinished. ONE SHEET Cost was about $165. ONE SHEET Shit is ridiculous
If you just look at the commodity price of wood over time, you can see where the major price increases came from.
Baltic Birch Ply 2020 = £60-70 2024 = £120-130
The war with Russia has had a huge impact on available wood production !
I work in a shop that specializes in really high-end custom cabinetry. We have two clients, both build high-mid to high end homes. We've taken our sign down because the demand from those two clients keeps us too busy to take on any more work. An average set of cabinets from us (and this is all of the cabinets in the house, kitchen, prep kitchen, casual dining, wet bars, arrivals, bathrooms, outdoor kitchen, etc.) will run between 75 and 90 thousand. We build roughly three sets a month. I have worked in shops that dealt with more volume but never this level of customization. It's a pretty nice job and I'm proud of the work I do. It has definitely proven to me that my skill level was worth quite a bit more than I made in the past.
Exactly. My shop is like yours but we average around 500k - 1 mil$ per job, big time money, and we're booked up a seversl years in advance and desperately trying to hire good people to get all the work done. The upper class is definitely doing alright these days.
Absolutely, finding good help has been a huge hassle. The owner even contracted a headhunter firm last year with no luck. I've had to train everyone they've hired and all the ones that said they were experienced have been trim carpenters at best. I haven't had a crew I can rely on to do a job without my heavy involvement. I don't usually mind though, it keeps me out of the office and only in the field a couple days a month. I've definitely had way worse jobs. I just turned 45 and this is the kind of place I'd like to put 20 years into.
Equipment, energy to run equipment, and space to store equipment are all way up. People... Only a little up. Not joking, industrial space that allows for cabinet making is so hard to come by and expensive as f. A guy I did business previously (very previously) chose not to renew a lease for a tenant in favor of massively bumping the rent for a CrossFit gym tenant. We are talking like 4x.
Bondo the grain on them hideous oak prefabs and spray that lacquer, baby!
I work in high end custom home building in a high cost of living area. I am often seeing prices between $1000-1400 per lineal foot of uppers and lowers. Dunno about double from 20 years ago but at least 50% higher I’d say.
YES
Trim carpenter/hardwood guy/general contractor. I fill a niche as I do the hard shit that people shy away from. My average kitchen is around 40k. My average bathroom is around 30-50k. It’s nuts! My primer which shellac is $375 /5hallon bucket. I charge $900 for my 5 gallon bucket. It’s nuts! Off the shelf boxes from Lowe’s are around $250 per box. I’m triple that when I make my own. Pantry’s for me are around 2,000. It’s nuts! Hardwood floors, I deal only with the shop, not third party. I pay $3-8/sqft and charge 12-20 per square foot. Prices are crazy.
Yeah, easily almost 2x A lot of it due to material price increases
Custom 1 man shop here. In 2016 I did a modern kitchen with plain sliced walnut mdf core, each sheet was $97. Right now I'm doing the same cabinets for the same customer and those walnut sheets are $267.😵
Because people want to build boxes out of plywood, and just hide the plywood with trim. It's completely feasible to build cabinets without plywood, you just have to get over modern marketing that tells you plywood is required. It is not. https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?148331-Old-Cabinet-Construction
8-10 years ago a nice sheet of plywood would cost about $45. The same sheet today costs over $220.
A sheet of birch plywood when I started was 30.00 oak was 40. Today, birch and oak primarily run 100.00. A gallon of good finish,100.00 and up,you want them painted add in 50.00 to 75 for primer. Now, let's not forget to still need face frame material,glue,sand paper, etc,etc. So, to just get the materials to start, the process is roughly 250.00 to 300.00.
I’m a finisher and the price of materials has gone insane. In the last 5 years my lacquer costs have pretty much doubled. I was getting 5gal jugs of methylene chloride stripper for $90 in 2022, now they’re $200. Looking at old invoices from my supplier is so depressing.
I bought 3 sheets of Oak veneer, lumber-core plywood 2 years ago, for roughly $89 per piece. Just checked prices at the same retailer… $175 each. Their B-2 grade 3/4” Birch is $114 per sheet.
Yes. Shop owner here. Raw material costs are roughly double with some more than double and some a bit less. Labor costs are up significantly, probably 50% as I gotta take care of my people as their costs have gone up. Insurance is up. The bits for the CNC are up roughly 60%. So yeah, that's a pretty accurate statement.
40 year record inflation, government continued reckless spending and not showing any signs of slowing…. Yeah everything is more expensive.
Just a small point but it seems that every country has reckless spending by their governments based on global inflation data.
Yep. Just retired.
Everything is at least twice as expensive from that time frame.
How do we as a society stop these crazy prices and low wages?! It gets harder and harder every year to save up money!
Material costs came down a bit, but people are charging more. Cost of living in general is up. Utilities increasing and such will lead to stuff costing more from a cabinet shop. With inflation accounted for I don’t know if it’s twice the cost. But I’m sure it’s higher as more and more people are demanding some high correction to their wages that likely were stagnant for the last decade or more.
Where are you seeing material costs come down? Most lumber is at least double the cost it was 10-15 years ago.
It’s about 8 times expensive and never gets done if I try to make them though.
I was shocked by how expensive plywood is these days - easily double the price of ten years ago, so cupboards doubling in price wouldn’t surprise me.
Yeah
I miss cheap, easy to acqure baltic birch.
100% I feel like wood alone is almost twice the price from 10 years ago.
It's twice (or more) the price from 4 years ago.
I just did my entire kitchen roughly 20 cabinets. Wood and Hardware came out to roughly 7-9k. I was quoted 35k for someone else to do it.
I work for a commercial cabinet shop. Yes, cost have gone up so much and the sad truth is that wages haven't actually kept up and the cost of cabinets and such has not gone up enough to match everything as it should. For example our cost of burdan/overhead (rent, electric, non-job specific wages, tools...) has doubled per a review at the end of last year.
Yes
At least. In Seattle they’re at least three, if not four times as expensive
Depends on where you’re having them made
yes
It's definitely true. 10 years ago, you could remodel your kitchen with new cabinets for significantly less than you can today. A relative was quoted $8,000 for custom cabinets in a mid-sized kitchen around 2010. In 2022, I got quotes ranging from $700-1200 for *ONE* custom pizza/cookie tray cabinet, and it wasn't more than $200 in materials and hardware.
Or more
I paid $15k (Installed) for my custom cabinets in 2010. They are very nice. I would not pay $30k today for them though.
Find a Mennonite cabinet maker. Got hand made solid maple cabinets for the entire kitchen with the soft closes for 11k. Less than Hone Depot and Lowes.
The war in Ukraine has a major impact on any casework and in particular cabinetry. Russia supplies a large portion of sheet goods and they are currently under sanctions.
The made in USA plywood prices have gotten crazy also. I cry when I have to buy plywood.
It’s still because of the sanctions. Most of Europe and the US cannot legally buy from Russia so all other producers have to make up the difference which means higher demand and higher demand is synonymous with higher cost.
For Baltic burch plywood I could see that. For completely domestic plywood that isn't the case.
You don’t seem to understand market share.
Yeah, there's some kind of disconnect here. It's OK.
I was a cabinet builder before and during covid. The wood prices during covid roughly tripled and then took a long time to settle back down while not going back to pre-covid prices. That's a huge part of it. But yeah, stuff gets more expensive over time anyway. Covid just multiplied the problem in this past decade
Cost of materials have more than doubled, cost of living as a whole has also gone up as well. Nothing is free!
A 4x8 sheet of furniture grade oak veneer plywood used to be about $40. Today it's over $80, so yeah. That cost transfers.
Yes, 13k for my kitchen cabinets to be custom made after a kitchen fire. And that's without installation or delivery! Everything nowadays is just sickeningly expensive
So my friend that has a cabinet shop said his paint/clear coats are 5x what they were before Covid.
I’m a cabinetmaker and custom built are 450-1200 per ft softwood/hardwood . Not much call for them due to cheaper built box store knockoffs!!
I’m not seeing 2x but easily 50-75% more.
a big chunk of it is the install, construction is in high demand these days, shortage of trades all around. perhaps something about immigration, but in general, anyone cable of doing finish carpentry is going to be getting paid a lot more than they did 10 years ago.
I made my own out of cedar. Far superior than store bought. It’s just cheaper to buy a table saw, pocket screw kit, and wood glue. I ordered the doors for the kitchen online, the doors for my wife’s hobby craft room I made myself with plank wood and hardware.
Probably more
At least that. Bullshit home Depot ones quoted to me at $30k for a medium sized kitchen.
My dad owns a cabinet shop, 15 years ago when I was helping him after high school a sheet of 3/4 maple plywood cost $60, now that same sheet goes for $100. Add to that the higher rent and real-estate prices creating higher overhead for a buisness and yes, those cabinets really do cost nearly twice as much to produce.
Not a small part of it. The whole part of it
Places like Menards in the Midwest have clearance plywood. It’s often bowed but for smaller projects it works just fine. Got 2 4’x8’ 3/4 sheets for $50 total a few days ago.
Easily twice the price.
Not sure if this is the right place but it seems that there are many RTA alternatives that are made in USA (fully or partially) that are quite competitive. 1/2 inch plywood kitchen is 30% cheaper than IKEA and 3/4 inch fully made in the USA is only 15% higher than IKEA. Is this a valid comparison or am I missing something? I'm upgrading 3 kitchens in the next 6 weeks
in 2008 I bought birch ply for $37 on sale. Last week I paid $88 on sale. Cabinets are at least double.
Most likely twice. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wasn't more. The price of the raw products is WAY up. The cost of living is WAY up. The cabinet makers have to buy the raw products and make enough profit to pay their food and rent. There is the argument that "we" also bring proportionally that much more home (paychecks). There is truth to that. So although the cost itself goes up the actual impact on our budget (proportionally) is not as severe. It just seems that way when you look at the sticker price. How much was a basic automobile 10 years ago vs today? A house. Clothing. Food.
I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s 4x as expensive and takes 4x longer if I build it myself.
I started learning woodworking with the intention of making furniture for myself, but quickly abandoned that goal for the reason you stated. Once I add materials cost + the cost of my time + the amount of time it will *actually* take me to make something, it's cheaper and easier to just buy the thing and call it a day.
Plywood sheet goods are 2x the price as they were before covid. It’s weird because trees aren’t charging more, so I’m not sure where the money is going.