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Quotes are usually expressed per square foot, but stone is bought by the slab, and that mismatch explains several surprises. If your kitchen needs 55 sq ft and slabs run 50 sq ft, you are buying two slabs and paying for the waste — sometimes a small layout tweak that fits one slab saves four figures. It also makes vein placement a real decision: ask to see your countertop outlines laid over the actual slab before cutting, so the dramatic vein lands on the island rather than under the dish rack.

They range from genuinely excellent to disposable, and the flat-pack part is not what decides it - box material and hardware are. Good RTA lines offer all-plywood boxes, dovetailed drawers, and soft-close hinges and slides at prices starting around 96 dollars per linear foot as of 2026, a fraction of semi-custom pricing. The trade-offs are real: someone has to assemble every cabinet, sizes come only in standard increments, shipping-damage claims are your problem, and after-sale support varies wildly by seller. RTA shines for standard layouts on tight budgets with a careful installer; skip it for odd angles, non-standard heights, or when nobody on the project wants to own the assembly and parts-chasing work.

You can get a good result, but almost never a factory-looking one, and the gap is not talent - it is equipment and product. Pros spray cabinet-grade coatings such as waterborne alkyds, urethane enamels, or shop-applied lacquers that level out and cure hard; DIY jobs done with wall paint and a brush tend to show brush marks and chip at the edges within a year or two. Budget a full week of evenings for degreasing, sanding, priming, and two topcoats, and use a bonding primer plus an enamel made for trim and cabinets, never ordinary wall latex. DIY makes the most sense on older cabinets you may replace anyway, or before a sale where the goal is fresh rather than flawless.