Does Menards Have Wedding Registry?

I rarely jump in with comments to articles but, as a business owner, this idea is a very common debate businesses have. It pains me to say this, but the people talking about this being an ad for Menards or thinking this is about cabinet-making or finding a cheap fridge are missing the BIG PICTURE. This topic is just an example to get you thinking about where your time and money are going. The decision making framework is way different than for a DIY hobbyist when you are diverting hourly paid staff (including possibly yourself) to stop doing work for customers and do something internal to the business. What’s missing in the thought process is how profit margin created the project budget. Assuming a 20% after taxes profit margin, it really takes $7500 of sales to make $1500 to buy the cheap cabinets. The question for the business owner becomes – “Is the shop-built solution worth it to divert resources from paying sales to the shop built project?” As other have commented, for the DIY hobbyist, there is often no point in assigning an hourly wage unless you are literally missing hours at a paying job instead of building the project. The comparisons are almost never apples to apples and if your business is busy working OT you have no resources to divert. Cost, speed, build quality, hardware quality, aesthetics, functionality, custom features vs. generic, and durability are all factors that have different weighting for different things at different times.

Really appreciate and enjoy how often you are forward with real dollar sign figures. Especially since you’re in the minority of YouTubers who focus on that. Cost is unavailable and as much as imagination and passion would be a great ceiling, budget winds up be one of the biggest determining factors on what projects I tackle and when.

I also found these Menards cabinets to help a client cut down costs in a kitchen remodel. They wanted a clean Euro look in white. By adding custom elements in white melamine, I was able to make the entire installed kitchen look very architecturally integrated at very economical price. I highly doubt that the difference in case quality compared to what it would have cost to build the same kitchen in our shop will translate into any loss of longevity. Great way to go on a limited budget.

The one thing that might hamstring the purchase is that the cabinets are not close to being as durable as the ones you would have built out of the materials listed. In a work environment things tend to be treated a little rougher, so the lifespan might break down that ROI a bit if they don’t last very long. Hopefully they do but going from experience of working in a big box store that redid the breakroom with stock cabinets we sold on the shelf, you may be replacing them sooner than later.

I’m with you on that! When I needed to outfit my new garage I ended up ordering three sets of the Husky welded steel cabinets during one of the sales events. Each set came with a 76 inch tall cabinet, two regular ones and a wall unit, so a total of 4 pieces. The total cost for all 12 pieces was $1500 and there was no assembly required. Because when I ran the numbers for how much it would cost me to build the same thing from scratch using high quality materials it came out to just a few hundred dollars less. It also required me to be tied up for many days for no reason other than making storage for my tools when I could be using that time for making opportunities.

I grew up in a cabinet/ countertop shop. Built custom cabinets, sold premade cabinets, and so on. I have no issue with particle board, but there are big differences in what we used and what you get in a premade cabinet from a big box store. our sheets were dense and heavy, stay flat. What you get in big box store is light and full of voids, but they bring a premium price for the quality. Not a fan but they do have their place, and sometimes buying instead of building when running a business is the smart thing to do.

For DIY activities, I always consider a few things. How much is my time worth, how fast do I need it done, and how long does it need to last. When considering how much my time is worth, you have to consider what type of work you normally do. Can you just pick up more hours and then be paid more, or are your hours set. For my job, it doesn’t matter how many extra hours I work, I get paid for the 40 per week. That means that in my free time, I earn nothing. It doesn’t matter if I am perusal TV or building cabinets, my time is free, so I shouldn’t factor that in. My brother in law is a patent lawyer. He can easily pick up another case in any free time he has. That means that his free time has a price on it. It is most definitely cheaper for him to just pick up another case to pay for anything extra he wants. For how fast I need it, sometimes we need it done right now, and sometimes it can wait. Hiring someone to do it might be faster, and sometimes it is slower, depends on what it is. For how long does it need to last, those cabinets will not last as long as DIY ones made from plywood. You might have to replace those 2 or 3 times before DIY ones break.

The build vs buy debate is one I’ve been having with myself a lot recently. I moved a couple years ago into a much bigger living space and decided that I was going to buy decent quality furniture and I was willing to pay good money for it. I simply dont have the time to build a lot of things for myself. Less than 2 years later and I’m having a host of issues with stuff falling apart, particularly annoyed about the bed frame that costs over 1000 dollars being little more than a few mdf boards and is now a rickety mess.

I’ve done a kitchen with professional cherry cabinets and one with Ikea prefabs. Both are great. If you assemble the prefab with glue plus the nails they provide you get sturdy cabinets that will last. Prefab assembly was one whole day, and no sawdust, building would have been at least a week and constant dust. I could build the new kitchen I’m working on from scratch, or pro, or prefab. Maybe glued prefab boxes and drawers and custom faceframes and doors?

Thanks Travis. Several thoughts to ponder. If you need it now, this is the way to go. If you are not in a hurry maybe, just maybe build it yourself. I am not the guy that has “scraps” laying around to build stuff with. I have to go to and “buy” my scraps. If you know what I mean. Over the years I have come to value your articles/advise.

Hey Travis, I think you made the right decision regarding the break area. Chances are you may move to yet a bigger building someday. If and when you do, you probably won’t be taking the cabinets with you. It’s easier to leave Menards cabinets vs the ones you poured hours into. See you in the next installment.

30 hours for 4 cabinets is a massive amount of time, outside of waiting for the paint to dry. A decent professional can easily put 4 cabinets together, including with drawers in under 1/2 a day. I agree though that most people when they think of DIY saving money don’t tend to include their time; to me it depends on what the work is and who it’s for as I’ll donate my time, so to speak, for myself and some family and friends, but outside of that buying could definitely be cheaper than me making them as I bill out my time at multiple times that $20/hr rate. While I include general war and tear on my tooling in my hourly rate, which is one reason it is what it is, as I have all the needed tooling and things naturally wear out, and an expense that should always be baked into projects. I built a custom built in for my mother with 10 cabinets each with doors and drawers along with a custom “L” limiter counter in 2 days; the counter was 3/4″ plywood with a piece of 5’x10’ laminate cut down and fit over the front and the top. A big miss on the buy vs. build is longevity as the plywood and hardwood cabinets I built and you would have will be stronger and last longer than the particle board cabinets you’d buy, which even when your time is taken to account could be cheaper long term as the bought cabinets need to be replaced more frequently in a business/commercial environment then ones build from plywood; or the custom cabinets built out of plywood would simply have cost more up front than the particle board ones, leading to a different value calculation.

Great article, That is something I struggle with myself. I just bought cabinets for a small kitchenette rather than making them myself. My only counter point would be if you had customers who would see that installation when were giving a tour or something. Then you would want your craftsmanship to really stand out. That might not be the case though.

Actually, I agree with this. I like to buy stock cabinets with oak fronts unfinished. That way it’s a better quality wood on the front of the cabinet that I can paint or stain or whatever I want to do. I recently bought some that HD was clearancing out for 30% off. Made it a no brainer for a project I was working on. By the time I bought the wood and the drawer slides, it would have cost about the same. I will be changing out the fronts though, I don’t like them. On another note, I think I would have picked something different for your top, the white and cream kinda clash, but OK for a shop kitchen I guess.

I bought those exact cabinets for my kitchen last year and they were horrible. First of all, Menards missed a lot of my order so I was always running back and forth to the store to pick up the parts of my order that they didn’t put on the pallet. On more than one occasion, I opened the box to find the wrong type/color of drawer or door front – back to Menards I went. My biggest gripe with these cabinets is the hinges. I couldn’t get the doors to line up to save my life. The cabinet boxes were perfectly level and plumb but the doors wouldn’t line up. The hinges are supposed to be adjustable but most of the hinges had screws that just wouldn’t turn no matter how hard I tried turning them. I managed to get the doors to look acceptable by re-drilling new screw holes to re-hang the hinges from but they still weren’t perfectly aligned and every time I went into the kitchen, it bugged me. Finally, the boxes aren’t the same color as the door/drawer fronts so I had to put that colored tape on the front of every single box and I had a big kitchen. That took forever and I could never get the tape to line up correctly. The cabinets looked and felt cheap. The sides of the drawers are sloped which felt like wasted space to me. I also didn’t like the linen color of the interiors. They might be fine cabinets for a garage or shop but not for a kitchen. Anyways, I sold that house and am about to start a kitchen reno in my new house. This time, I’m going with the RTA plywood cabinets from Home Depot.

Hiya Travis great article but change that Fridge and Water Dispenser the other way round so the Fridge is in the corner, the only way someone will see the water would be straight on as the fridge covers the view one side, while the corner wall covers the view the other side and plus it will look much better having the taller fridge in the corner. Stay Safe, Barry (ENG)

Good article showing the pro’s and cons on your project. For myself personally, I would have built them, reason being, investing in a miter saw, table saw, circular saw, drill/driver, etc. etc. to collect dust would have tripped the wife aggro button. She finds out I spent double on the cabinets when I have tools to make them, that’s less money for her shoe collection, not going to end well 😊😊

I can defintiely see the value in purchasing pre-fab in this situation. I feel though, that if you’re set on saving money for cabinets in your home, unless you;re spending the extra time on a side-hustle, or making extra money some other way, you’ll defintely save money in builidng your own in time that you’d otherwise spend on Netflix. I am looking at building my own kitchen cabinets in the not-to-distant future and I am doing it both becuase I’ll save nearly 2/3 the cost for the same quality in custom cabinets, but I’ll have avery strong sense of pride in having completed such a large project.

In cases like yours, where you are NOT an exclusive cabinet maker with specific cabinet making machinery and setups and supplies, and where you have a a limited amount of time for things like shop stuff, house stuff, wife stuff, maybe some kid stuff (who knows but maybe the kid can get some dad time lol). In all that, you’d now have to find time to plan, purchase supplies, and building…its just a whole lot of wasted time that you should be spending on your family and print farm.

It just comes down to a simple question. What do you have more of, time or money? I get that time is money … but it’s only money if the time spent would equate to money lost, instead of more time to waste (as alluded to in the Netflix comment lol). Just think, you could have made a longer article or even made a series if you built them yourself … glad you didn’t take this route with your outdoor “shed”. lol

i’d definately move those feet so they actually support the boxes and not just the bottom that’s sandwiched. Also I think comparing cheap chipboard boxes with painted plywood is unreliable. If I were to compare it, then I’d order precut and edgebanded laminate chipboards + similar hardware. Unless you just don’t have a place to order it like so and plywood is the only option available. The thing is – you could do it few hundred bucks cheaper if you used the same material. Anyway, enjoyed perusal as always. Cheers

Today on how I pursue shop greatness, I put together ikea cabinets because my time is better spent literally making a article of me using a screwgun while giving a cursory lesson on opportunity costs with guitar power cord sounds in the background, cuz I know I’ll make more money from sponsors and views no matter what content I put out. Dollars and hours saved are dollars and hours earned!! You go pursue “shop greatness”.

Not disagreeing with basic arguement and can and should be used in so many other industries. But.. ( always but when someone starts praising you ) first have not added time to put system together . Next and probably most important is as you say time- if you have spare time slots that would not be used for other more productive activities then its more cost effective to take on as a side project ( unless need to be done within time frame). So in short lots of things to think about but a great article that most self employed people should watch no matter what industry they are in

Another thing to consider, some folks have more time than they do money. So even if they value their time high enough where the ‘buy’ option is actually better, they may not have the cash but have the time. Or put another way, all else being equal, you can convert your time into dollars spent on a fun tool instead

Another factor imo is whether it is your job to be a woodworker or its a hobby. For me its a hobby so the cost savings in materials far outweighs the time saved because im not making/losing money from the job. Building my home shop up is just part of the fun. If it were my full time job then yes I would factor in time spent because im not making money doing projects for clients.

I used to have the urge to build everything myself until I realized time was my limiting factor. I only build things myself if I want them aesthetically certain way or if a custom fit is desired to maximize space utilization. Or if I just feel like it. I think professional workers are less likely to DIY shop projects because time is money. Whereas a hobbyist can go at their own pace.

Did you look at using lower tool cabinets instead of kitchen cabinets? There are a lot of tool cabinets out there; some with all drawers – some with drawers and doors. The tool cabinets would last longer and take more abuse than kitchen cabinets. The cost could not be much different for tool vs kitchen cabinets (depends on the cabinets that you choose – not talking tool truck cabinets here).

It’s good to point out that the quality of the bought ones does not equal the quality of the made ones. I didn’t see the cost/time factor for assembly of the purchased cabinets and the trip to the store for the oops I forgot something cabinet. 🙂 Plus if you were comparing apples to apples, then the pre-purchased cabinets would need to be of much better quality.

I don’t know where you’re getting your materials but your cost is far higher than what I would be able to get it at, probably $250 total material cost and maybe 1 day in the shop cutting and building, and a couple hours extra for paint drying time. (leftover lacquer paint from previous jobs so free paint)

Buy or DIY is purely a matter of personal preference. That’s why factoring in your own hours at an hourly rate just doesn’t make sense. The only time that would matter is when you’re taking time off work, or skipping out on important stuff. If you’re doing it in your free time and enjoying it, you’re making (well, saving) money by doing something you like. Plus it’s a great excuse to buy new toys. I mean tools. If you don’t have the skill, time or just don’t want to do it: buy. If you don’t have/want to spend the money, want something custom or just enjoy doing it, DIY.

At Home Depot I could buy a similar set of per-assembled plywood cabinets for $1645.00 and $199.00 for the counter top. Installation would take less than an hour. You’re right that $20.00/hour is way under priced. When I was an independent contractor in the early nineties, specializing in remodel I always bid my time at $25.00/hour. These day I’d have to say that $30.00/hour could be even a little low. I haven’t talked to anyone in the business for 20 years,

I agree that though labor costs should be considered, sometimes you physically have time, and don’t have money. If you are taking time away from Netflix to build then it may be worth it. Now, if time you spent building would have been time spent making money then you can argue the value of the time comes into play. As always though, good article

Opportunity cost is often overlooked. The time you saved NOT building your own cabinets you can invest back into your business. You have to figure in not just what your value your time at for the actual project, but also the time lost performing income generating tasks in your business. ie… the revenue opportunities you gave up to perform non-revenue generating tasks instead.

Its good to remember that a dollar saved is actually worth more than a dollar spent. Your marginal or effective tax rate more. So when comparing dollars per hour of the two options you’d be looking at the actual value of 24$/hour to account for a modest 20% income tax. That could be even higher if you’re in a greater tax bracket. Its partially how having one parent staying home can actually be more frugal than two parents working. The cost of childcare and an extra car can outpace the money made when accounting for income tax savings. All that said, I’d totally buy the cabinets too.

building it cheaper with prefab is ok but I hate press board in a wet environment and would want ply wood painted so Id rather pay more and get the level of build I want. Also I want to design it the way I want it so why I may try to stay to standard sizes so I could switch doors cheap. Id still want what I want

For your current use case, perhaps. But who would want those cabinets in their living space? Personally for most of us non-commercial woodworkers, we want to make things, so our time is hard to quantify. When I spend time in the shop, should I only do high value projects? Sometimes no. Personally I despise making cabinets and prefer to make furniture so I can lean in the direction of buy, but the cabinets I am happy with are far and away more expensive than your example.

I see your point in Labor cost…. But, you failed to do an honest comparison! My point is I’ve installed a lot of cabinets and the prefab modular cabs take time to install including hardware and tops. So your real savings is in construction of the box. Some guys just set up for that type of simple cabinet display and it’s more of a wash no matter how much one would charge for shop time.😉

Yeah but, you could also have considered hiring a decent carpenter to build them for you. Maybe they would have costed a little more than the prefab ones, had you paid halfway decent price for labor, but they would be something much more nice and better quality. For which you could be much more satisfied. Not to mention you would have helped out a local small(er) business.

So its another case of CNC machines and minimum wagers making tradesmen and skilled craftsmen redundant. I actually did this. Bought pre-made cabinets and made my own faces and draw fronts. Had my son(auto painter) paint them charcoal metallic. Because I had no tools or skill to build the cabinets. I now want to make the cabinets do justice to the painted surfaces and have the skill and tools. So seriously thinking of re building my kitchen.

I see your point. However the main reason for most DIYers is to avoid labor costs to get someone for less. Most DIYers/hobbists don’t care as much for time value. Also- there is also a “learning value” here for most DIYers- because there will more than likely be some new skills acquired. If you were a professional- this makes sense all day long. But for the above average DIYer I would opt for the self build.

OK, there is a big difference building something for yourself, something that will look better and be more durable (and I bet even low quality plywood waaay more durable than crappy particle boards, one of which you accidentally broke during assembly), and something that just need to be functional enough in your business place. How much the cabinets that you would put into your kitchen would cost you?

I don”t know about your analysis on this one. Could have built a large one piece, I guess really two piece out of melamine, forgone the legs and save time and money. At least you are getting the quality closer together for real apples to apples. Make good plans to minimize build time and I would cut your time in half and lower the material cost minumly. I just don”t like particleboard. I would go with something like Seville Classics UltraHD and the cost for something similar would be under $1000 but much better durability. I guess this would have screwed up your article though. 😀

You’re point is well made and imprecise. Inherently, you accounted for your bias. But consider counter possibilities. I live to photograph the world. Those are periods of time that I focus all my energy on. Why don’t I go out to eat every day? Because cooking a meal for $2.5 saves me $10/day or 300/month. Or 900/quarter…or about the rate at which I travel My weekends between my trips are 24 days for me to continue to support my passion. Why did I spend a day replacing my brakes myself? Because I saved $800 Between these 2 things (900 and 800), I saved enough for a ticket to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Hanoi. You $700 in labor is a week of hotel rooms to me. I actively set my labor costs aside to fund my hobby. I love building things. I love fixing things. But they pale in comparison with seeing a new temple or ziplining over a new forest. You are simply incurring an opportunity cost where you are valuing time at home. I value that money as a mechanism for time aboard.

People forget that their time is valuable. You can make your own ketchup for pennies on the dollar compared to buying it, but you’re probably going to need to buy some new things for your kitchen unless you’ve canned before, you’re going to make a ton of it because there’s zero sense in only making a little bit, you’ll spend a whole day on it, and in the end you can buy a bottle at the store for $2.

Hey man, similar to another comment – I don’t think this is the type of article that I have grown to enjoy. Just simple feedback for you. Seems like a long ad for buying cabinets at a store… Hope you continue to put out more actual builds from interesting designs that you create. That’s what brought me and probably most people to enjoy the website. Good luck!