Crown Point Cabinetry Quote

Okay got our 'final' Crown Point Cabinetry Quote for our 'Dream Kitchen'.
I say 'final' in quotes because this is as good as we're going to get from them without paying them their design fee.
In my opinion the following information is not really enough to fairly judge Crown Point against their competitors but I have to try as this is the best I'm going to get right now.

Quality Details
First I want to talk about Crown Points Quality.
In response to my questions about their exact joinery methods and materials they sent me this same pdf twice.

Then a bunch of back and forth with more questions.
My questions are in black their answers in blue and my thoughts on their answers in red.
Yay colors!

Most of our joinery methods are mortise and tenon joinery. Our drawers are fully dovetailed and have ½” bottoms and full extension, softclose slides.

How thick is the face frame and what joinery technique is used? ( I believe it is 1” solid wood with long mortise and tenon joinery)

That is correct. Please see this link to a You Tube shop tour we prepared. It gives you additional information. http://youtu.be/vpDnGI5ENU4

What are the materials and thickness of wood used in the drawer boxes? What is the joinery technique for drawer sides?How thick is the drawer bottom and how is it attached to the drawers.

We use 5/8” rock maple for sides, dovetail joinery and ½” maple plywood bottoms let into the four sides of the box.

What is the grade and thickness of the plywood used for the cabinet carcasses?

We use 7 ply maple plywood, ½” thick for carcasses. It has a UV coating.

What is the joinery technique used for the carcasses?

The sides of our cabinet are let into the face frame. We use glue.

Finally, where do you source your wood from?

Many different sources.
Weak, when I company won't tell you exactly where their stuff comes from doesn't that always mean that they are 'not proud' of it?

Is it sustainably sourced?

I’m not sure how closely we track this. I know that we will not sell Honduras mahogany because of depletion issues. Also, our source of alder was diminishing so we dropped alder altogether.

At this price point this should be a well known thing I think.

Seems like they hit all the high quality cabinet marks. I am convinced that these folks make an excellent product, at least from the specs.

What's In The Quote
Not as easy to answer as I'd hoped.

Wow, $32 or $34k depending on when we order.
Their quote came back with this description.

We prepared your quote using 1” beaded inset construction. The door style is Cambridge and the drawer style is Windsor (photos attached). The wood is sapele with a stain and a baked on top coat and sealer. There is hardware included in the quote. We do not send the hardware loose. It arrives attached to the cabinetry. The hardware I included in your quote is antique brass bin pulls, knobs and hinges. Other features in your quote include two piece crown over the cabinetry, cutlery dividers, double trash pullout, two super susan bases, finished ends and decorative toes on two of the cabinets. Your quote total also includes blanket wrapped delivery to, Alameda, CA.

That's it! but with two pretty pictures of the doors.

I responded with something like, Wow, you hit the nail on the head with stain, wood and door style we love it...but we don't think this is enough info to be able to compare.
This was their response.

I understand. I think it is difficult to make an exact comparison without drawings. I’ll share as much as possible with you concerning your layout but as you know I cannot give you the floor plan or elevations.

·        Most of the wall cabinets are 44” high.

·        The 6” gap from the top of the cabinets to the ceiling is to be covered by two pieces of crown. I have attached a diagram showing the two pieces combined. The diagram shows an overall height of 6” but in reality yours would be 6 ½” high because the bottom piece has to overlap the top rail of the wall & tall cabinetry by ½”.

·        The wall cabinet over the sink has a nice arch built into the bottom rail.

·        The sink cabinet is a “combination cabinet”. It is a sink cabinet with double doors on the left. On the right it has a drawer with a silverware divider and below that a pullout door with a single trash receptacle.  It also has a Victorian decorative toe. There is a super susan on the far right and a raised panel (for the side of the dishwasher) on the far left.  There wall cabinets on the sink wall include 3 butt door cabinets and a 90 degree corner cabinet.

·        The range wall has roomy wall cabinets. There is also a shorter wall cabinet over the hood. There is a 3 drawer base cabinet on either side of the range. One of them has a utensil divider in the top drawer.

·        In the fridge area, we have “buried” the fridge into the little closet area. We’ve included sturdy tall return panels for both sides of the fridge. There is also a wall cabinet over the fridge. There is a good sized wall cabinet and a base with a super susan to the right of the fridge.

·        The pass through wall has a large 2 door/2 drawer base with Victorian decorative toes and two full extension roll outs behind the doors. To the right of that is a shallow base with butt doors and a full extension drawer.

I hope this helps with your research.
Now this is better and helps me build a mental picture of what I'm getting but still...geez a floor plan and a couple of elevations would be really helpful...
She did send a couple of pictures of the crown detail....

Conclusion
We don't have enough info on all three quotes yet to make 'The Decision' but...
I believe that these folks do make a super high quality cabinet that you have to pay more for.
I wish that they would release more info at this stage their estimated design fee is $560 and for that I'd get the full blown fancy done up plan I guess. When you're talking about $30k+ in cabinets it seems a little penny wise pound foolish to me for them to quibble over some details that would really truly help us make an informed decision for ~$500.

This quote is twice the Kraftmaid quote....which means we're going to have to figure out a way to fairly compare the different levels of quality/prices to make 'The Choice'.