What GCs Should Know About Working With a Local Cabinet Shop

If you're a builder in the West Kootenay and this is your first custom kitchen with a small shop instead of a big-box supplier, here's the short version: we're not slower because we're small, we're slower because everything is made to your actual walls instead of a catalog size. That trade-off is worth it if you plan around it. Here's what we tell every GC who calls us for the first time.

Lead Time Is the Real Constraint, Not the Woodwork

Cutting and assembling a kitchen doesn't take eight weeks. Getting to a locked, buildable design does. Between a first site visit and a crew showing up to install, most jobs run 8–14 weeks, and almost all of that time sits in decisions, not machinery: appliance models confirmed, sink chosen, finish samples approved, shop drawings signed off. A custom shop in Nelson doesn't carry a back-stock of pre-built boxes the way a national supplier might, so once your drawings are approved, you're in our production queue behind everyone else who approved theirs first.

The mistake we see most: a GC pencils in cabinet install two weeks after framing is done, because that's roughly when the old kitchen supplier used to show up. With a custom shop, you need to call at framing — or earlier, for a busy spring or fall season — not after drywall.

Field Measure Timing Matters More Than People Think

We won't cut a single panel off drawings that were measured before drywall and paint. Framing shifts, drywall adds a consistent but not always identical thickness, and floors settle slightly once HVAC is running. We field-measure after drywall is up and primed, ideally after flooring is in or at least confirmed to final height, and before trim goes on. Measuring too early means we're guessing at final dimensions; measuring too late means we're holding up your finish trades.

If your schedule has drywall, flooring, and cabinet install stacked close together, tell us the sequence up front. We'd rather build a half-day site visit into the plan than find out on install day that the floor guy is still there.

What We Need From You Before We Can Draw Anything

• Appliance model numbers, not just "36-inch fridge." Panel-ready fridges, slide-in ranges, and drawer microwaves all eat different amounts of cabinet space, and the difference between two similar-looking ranges can be an inch that throws off an entire run.
• Sink and faucet selection, since undermount cutouts and apron-front openings are built into the box, not cut on site.
• Countertop material, even a rough direction. Quartz, laminate, and butcher block all have different overhang, support, and seam requirements that change how we build the base cabinets underneath. We've written more on that trade-off here if it's useful for a client conversation.
• Final paint or stain colour for any painted cabinetry, ideally before we spray, not after.

None of this needs to be locked at the first meeting. It needs to be locked before we release drawings to the shop floor, because a change after that point isn't a phone call, it's a re-cut.

Change Orders Cost More Than the Line Item Suggests

A homeowner adding a spice pull-out after cabinets are cut sounds minor. In practice it can mean re-sequencing a whole bank of drawers, reordering hardware, and pushing your install date because that one box now has to go back through the shop. We're not trying to upsell change orders — we'd genuinely rather get it right the first time — but we do flag, in writing, what a late change will do to the schedule so it's not a surprise for either of us.

The fix on our end is the same fix good GCs already use for framing changes: get the client's decisions locked before the point of no return, and treat "I think we're done deciding" as a real milestone with a signature on it, not a verbal go-ahead.

Install Day Coordination

Cabinet install goes faster and cleaner when the site is actually ready for it: flooring down and protected, walls painted (or at least primed, if the final coat comes after), and a clear path from the truck to the kitchen. We'd rather show up once than twice. If your countertop fabricator needs final cabinet install to template stone, build that lag into the schedule too — usually 5–10 business days between cabinet install and stone template, then another week or two to fabrication and install, depending on the shop.

For jobs out toward Castlegar, Trail, Rossland, Creston, Salmo, or up the lake toward Kaslo, add a little slack for weather and highway conditions in winter and shoulder season. We build the drive time into our own scheduling, but a GC who assumes we're "an hour away, no big deal" every single week can end up disappointed the one week a pass closes.

Working With Us vs. a Box-Store Kitchen Program

We're not going to pretend a custom shop is the right call on every job. If a client's budget and timeline point at a stock or semi-custom kitchen program, that can be the better answer, and we'll say so. Where we earn our keep is odd layouts, full-height pantry walls, built-ins that have to match existing trim, or a design that genuinely won't work off a standard modular grid. If you're not sure which side of that line a project falls on, send us the plans before you quote it either way — that conversation costs nothing and saves both of us a bad fit later. You can see the range of what we typically build under services, or look at how we handled boxes and materials on a recent job in our post on plywood vs. melamine cabinet construction.

FAQ

How far out should I bring you in on a new build? As soon as the kitchen layout is roughed in on the plans, even before framing starts. That gives us time to flag anything that'll cause trouble later, like a bulkhead that's too shallow for uppers or a window sized without cabinet clearance in mind.

Can you work off allowances if the client hasn't chosen finishes yet? Yes, for budgeting and quoting. But we can't release drawings to production on an allowance — we need actual selections locked before we cut.

Do you field-measure every job, even a simple reno? Every job, no exceptions. Nelson-area houses have enough age and settling in them that we don't build off architectural drawings alone.

What happens if my schedule slips and cabinets are ready before the site is? We can hold finished cabinets in our shop for a short stretch, but a long delay affects other jobs in our queue — talk to us early if your timeline is uncertain rather than after cabinets are built.

Do you charge more for coordinating with other trades? No. Coordination is part of the job. What costs money is late changes after drawings are approved, not the coordination itself.

If you're scoping a job and want a straight answer on timeline before you commit to a client, get in touch and we'll walk through it with you.