I got quotes/estimates from 3 different places. Home Depot wanted $7500 for stock cabinets (for both rooms) and basically just hoped they'd be able to figure out a way to make the floating shelves with the materials they could get their hands on. Another local cabinetry store wanted $6k, again for stock cabinets for both rooms.
Looking online, I found a local cabinet maker whose day job is custom cabinetry for celebrities' private planes. Assuming he'd be completely out of our price range, I didn't contact him for a while. Then someone convinced me to at least call and ask, and I am SO glad I did! We ended up with fully custom, gorgeous cabinets, complete with full-extension drawers and pull-out shelving (and, most importantly, the floating shelves I'd been envisioning for two years) for just over $4k.
First, the Living Room - Before:
Luckily, modifications to the original house plan included the small wall on the right to anchor the built-ins. I've long had a vision for exactly what I wanted here (thick floating shelves above base cabinets with doors and possibly drawers), but no one seemed to understand what I was trying to describe/draw/model for them.
We had to wait a couple of extra weeks on the countertops, but it was worth it!
Aaaaand, the Dining Room - Before:
Then we had to have a soffit built (I'm still very anti-space-above-the-cabinets.)
And finally, the cabinets went in, a little bit at a time.
I decided I couldn't live with the natural finish in the glass-doored cabinet, and the cabinetmaker was kind enough to redo it. We got our wine and wine glass racks in, too!
Still waiting on the countertop - a nice remnant of Ghibli granite.
Update: The granite finally arrived on December 17!
