Vendor Spotlight: Miller’s Custom Cabinets!
Since 1987, Hearthside Homes has been building beautiful and long-lasting homes for homeowners in the Kansas City and surrounding areas. We are fortunate to work with so many talented local vendors. This week on the blog, we’re interviewing Danny Miller. Danny is the proud owner of Miller’s Custom Cabinets. Their team plays an instrumental role in the quality and appearance of our homes! We hope you enjoy learning a little bit about their business!
The Story Behind Miller’s Custom Cabinets
Every great business usually has a fun startup story. Miller’s Custom Cabinets is no exception! This family-owned and operated business started from the ground up. Now, with over 34 years under their belt, Miller’s Custom Cabinets has become a leading supplier of cabinets for builders in the Kansas City and surrounding areas. Their company has flourished to a team of 85, and they love getting to help homeowners live in beautiful, high quality, homes.
Danny Says: “I have an older brother, Dean, that moved to California and worked with a cousin of ours back in the mid 80’s at a cabinet shop that my cousin owned. In 1986, between my Junior and Senior year of high school, he offered to fly me out to visit him. I ended up staying the entire summer and worked at the cabinet shop also. When I had to come home to finish school, my brother decided he was homesick and we loaded everything he had in a U-haul trailer and moved him back to Missouri. We started Miller’s Cabinets in September of 1986 in an empty church building we purchased for $20,000.00. Dean lived in the basement and we built cabinets in the main level. We relocated to Excelsior Springs around 1990, and built the original building of our current facility in 1993. My wife, Michelle, and my younger brother Kenny both came on fairly early in the process. My older brother Dean worked in the company for about 15 years and then we eventually bought him out. In 2001 we started Signature Solid Surface. Both companies have continued to grow over the years and we now supply cabinets and tops to many of the top builders in Kansas City including Hearthside Homes.”
What Is Your Mission Statement?
Danny Says: “To be the very best at everything we do.”
What Sets You Apart From Your Competition?
We love working with Miller’s Custom Cabinets because of the quality of their work and their timeliness. The staff is friendly to work with, and we know that we can count on them to produce a top-notch final product.
Danny Says: “Our attention to detail, drive to constantly improve our product and processes, our attention to scheduling and making sure we are always on time, and our focus on service after the sale and taking care or any issues quickly and professionally are what separate us from our competition in my mind.”
What Does Your Design Process Look Like?
Whether you’re buying a home from a builder, like Hearthside Homes, or you’re wanting to remodel a component of your home, Miller’s Custom Cabinets is proud to serve you!
Danny Says: “We work with new home builders, homeowners building or remodeling their homes, remodeling contractors, and even do some small commercial projects. New home builders are our primary customers and the biggest percentage of our work.”
What Does Your Design Process Look Like?
Danny Says: “Our design process is somewhat flexible from builder to builder and is sometimes modified by the size and scope of the job. On large custom jobs, we sometimes have preliminary meetings once the plans are done, and often before work has even begun, to begin the process of design drawings and setting a budget. On more normal-sized jobs, especially where the basic layout is already worked out, we will have a design meeting with the customers during the foundation or framing stage where we can customize the layout and designs to match the customer’s needs and tastes. At this meeting, customers will have the opportunity to pick out every aspect of their cabinets. We are also in the process of finishing a new website that will allow customers to do as much of this as they want online. Customers will be able to shorten or avoid the in-showroom meetings, if they choose, by using our “Online Design Tool”. We will then measure and finish the layout at the house as soon as the roof goes on the home, in a new construction situation. Some customers choose to be involved in this meeting at the house, but many do not. We then make any needed adjustments, to work with the home, wrap up any loose ends with the homeowners, and the cabinets go into production about the time they are sheetrocking the home. We install cabinets just after sheetrock and typically come back to install hardware and do final adjustments right after the painters are done. We are a very custom shop, and typically have a lot of customer influence in the process and the finished product.”
How Do You Manage Each Project & Stay Organized?
Danny Says: “We keep the design, construction, and installation process all flowing by having a very detailed process that keeps each part of the team in the loop as to when their jobs need to be done. We have a great computer program that keeps everyone up to date on their projects with deadlines that adjust as the construction process of the house changes. We have weekly meetings with the entire office staff, shop managers, installers, and hardware people, where we discuss the previous week’s jobs, any loose ends that need to be handled, design trends we are seeing, and plans for the current week. We also track the amount of work added to our schedule on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis so that we can adjust production ahead of time to handle both light or heavy workloads. After that, the guys in the shop, our installers, and hardware guys take over and use their years of experience to take the information provided to them and turn it into functional works of art that look beautiful and function in ways that make the lives of our customers easier and more enjoyable.”
What Are Some Trends You’re Noticing?
Danny Says: “Painted cabinets still rule the day right now, but we have been seeing some light-colored woods working their way into the design. We are seeing a fair amount of Rift Sawn White Oak worked in as accents on otherwise Painted Kitchens. Soft-close everything is very popular. Drawers, Doors, Trash Pullouts, Mixer Lifts, almost everything is now available in a soft close version. Wooden Hoods, Floating Shelves, Floating Cabinets, with straight simple lines also seem to be very popular. I feel the general look has gotten a little more contemporary in the past few years. As always though, people all have different tastes. That’s the cool part about what we do, we can customize our product to fit each customer’s idea of what they want to look at every day.”
What Does Your Warranty Look Like?
Danny Says: “Our products are warranted to be free of defects for the life of the original purchaser. In short, if you have a problem with a Miller’s product we will make it right.”
What’s New At Miller’s Custom Cabinets?
Danny Says: “In my opinion, the two biggest things going on at Miller’s Cabinets right now are the new website that I mentioned earlier and the new facility that we are building to keep up with our customers and make our company an even better place for our employees to work. The new website, once we get all the bugs worked out, has the potential to change the way our customers pick out their cabinets and give them the ability to do it when it is convenient for them. The new facility is going to more than double the size of our office, showroom, and shop space. It will be a top-notch facility for both customers and employees.”
Trust Hearthside Homes & Miller’s Custom Cabinets With Your New Build
Thank you so much to Danny Miller, from Miller’s Custom Cabinets, for answering a few of our questions! We hope you enjoyed learning about their team! If you’re thinking about building a home in the Kansas City, Liberty, Parkville, or Kearney areas, Hearthside Homes would be proud to serve you! Start by checking out some of our awesome floor plans and family-friendly communities. If you have any questions, fill out the form on our website or give us a call at (816) 781-0234. Don’t forget to follow all the fun on Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest!
Recent Comments