What costs what in a custom kitchen

Custom kitchens are an exercise in spending money correctly. There is no version where the budget disappears into one cabinet — the cost is spread across many small decisions, and the right ones to spend on are not always the obvious ones. Here is the line-by-line on where the money in a typical ProLine kitchen actually goes.

Cabinetry is the single largest item — usually around half of the total. Of that, the door fronts are the most expensive part of the cabinet itself. Solid rift-cut white-oak doors are dramatically more than a quality painted MDF shaker; we use whichever serves the project. Solid wood gets the budget where the grain shows; painted MDF holds paint better and stays flatter on the painted-shaker doors that look almost identical from across the room. The carcasses behind the doors are plywood. Plywood is a small fraction of the cabinet cost compared to the doors.

Counters are the next item. A full-thickness honed marble counter (Calacatta, Statuario, Carrara) is several times the price of a thinner engineered slab. The honed finish (matte) is a small premium over polished and ages much better — etches from lemon and red wine read as patina rather than damage. Quartzite is a strong middle ground; engineered quartz is the value choice and works beautifully in many kitchens. We walk you through real slabs before we cut anything.

Hardware is small money but disproportionate effect. Unlacquered brass and oil-rubbed bronze pulls cost meaningfully more than chrome alternatives, but you literally hold the kitchen in your hand at every drawer. This is one of the easiest places to value-engineer or to invest, depending on how you spend your money.

Appliances are the wild card. We do not mark up appliances; we will quote a kitchen with a placeholder budget and let you choose. The difference between a fully-integrated package and a freestanding equivalent shows up in the elevations, not in the cooking.

Stone backsplashes, plumbing, lighting, and electrical typically together run a meaningful slice of the total. These are the items that get under-budgeted by builders who are not used to fully integrated kitchens.

Design and build labour is the rest. This is what you are paying for when a kitchen is hand-built versus assembled from prefabricated cabinets. It is a real number on the invoice; we are happy to walk you through what it covers.

There is no part of this list that is fixed. We will share rough numbers in the first conversation so you can decide whether to keep talking. Our goal is to make quality custom millwork accessible — we want to fit the budget you have, not push you toward the most expensive version of every line.