Amish Cabinetmakers in Eastern Indiana

The shops on this page build to measure, which is a different thing from selling you a catalog of stock sizes and filling the leftover inches with a strip of trim. Cabinets are made to the wall you actually have. That is worth the most in an old farmhouse, where nothing is plumb, nothing is square, and a stock run will show a tapering gap by the time it reaches the corner. It also means lead time: a built to measure kitchen is a shop project with a queue in front of it, typically six to twelve weeks from the time you sign off on a drawing.

Ask what the box is made of, not just the door. A face frame cabinet with a plywood box and a solid hardwood frame will outlast a particleboard carcass by decades, and it is the difference you feel when a drawer is loaded. Ask whether doors and drawer boxes are made in the shop or bought in, since plenty of shops order doors and there is nothing wrong with it as long as you know. Dovetailed drawer boxes and full extension undermount slides are the normal upgrade worth paying for.

On wood and finish: oak is the traditional and least expensive hardwood here, hickory has wild grain and hides wear, cherry darkens over years into the color people are actually buying it for, and maple takes paint better than any of them. If you want painted cabinets, say so early, because a shop will build the doors differently for paint than for stain. Expect a small stack of finished samples rather than a printed chart, and expect the shop to want to come measure the room before quoting.