When we first purchased our home, we thought the original cabinets would probably be reusable with a coat of paint. Upon further inspection however, they were in pretty bad shape. PS – did you know they make plastic drawers to look like “real” wood? Ha! We priced out the cheapest of the cheap for ordering new cabinets, but at a minimum of 5 grand just for the kitchen, they were still over our budget. So like many many other things in our home, I turned to Craigslist!

I found these two sets of Cabinets in two different listings, totaling under $500… the top set is Bertch and in great condition. My goal was to use the dark set for the perimeter of the kitchen, and the light set for an island. To make the layout work, I still needed to find a single, small upper cabinet (which I wasn’t too concerned with.) One of our family friends told me about an Omega outlet dealer not to far from where we live, that opens up once a week to sell their “defective” cabinetry for cheap. So I went there looking for a single upper, but instead found these gorgeous cabinets:

Look at that detail! The little box in between the cabinets contained an “appliance cupboard” as we found out later, oh and all the crown molding AND base molding was also included! On a later trip I also found a gorgeous range hood with the same style of doors.

Game changer. At first I didn’t even pay attention to these, because I didn’t think there was any way they’d work for us, but my mom kept asking if they might work. I started to think about it, and I came up with a pretty sweet way (in my humble opinion) to buy these and still make all the other cabinets I bought work too! For the cabinets pictured above, plus a upper corner not pictured, the retail would have been a good $10,000. I paid $1300. Add that to my craigslist cabinets, plus another $200 for a vanity for the kids bathroom (pictured below) and I paid just under $2,000 for all the cabinets in our house! I don’t think I can easily explain how all the cabinets were distributed, but here’s how my original purchase ended up:

I truly think God was watching out for us on this one, because all the measurements ended up being so exact to what we needed! To get our assortment of cabinetry to the house, we collected them in my dad’s moving truck, until we were ready to start working on them (which was pretty quick after we bought them all!) Hayden definitely enjoyed helping papa with the truck:

We stored the finished ones in the back of the garage, covered & on a tarp to keep them protected. The full row of lower cabinets is what we used for our island.  Two “glass” uppers went in the kitchen, and one went into our Master Bath.

We found the cabinet on the left for kids’ bathroom vanity. Not that visually appealing, but nothing a coat of paint can’t fix! I also would have preferred a double vanity, but this route is much more affordable for us right now. The cabinet on the right (from Craigslist) is a prime example of how perfectly everything came together. This was originally a sink base, but it ended up being the exact right size (33″, not common!) for an extra microwave oven my parents had lying around in storage (new in box of course.) Not to mention the drawer on the bottom. Oh and since we purchased a range hood, the microwave needed a lower cabinet – amazing how that just worked out!

I went back the next week, just in case they had any other awesome finds and I snagged a spice rack & a pull out pantry! Oh and did I mention this dealer also sells cabinet doors? I went each week for months, slowly finding all the matching doors and drawer fronts so everything in the kitchen would match. I actually eventually found everything but the lower corner cabinet! (They have a weird angle, and I’m sure would have to be custom… o well!) Next step: painting everything to match!