Had to choose between dovetails or pocket screws for a big kitchen job

Last month I got a 12 cabinet kitchen order and had to pick between hand cut dovetails for the drawers or just using pocket screws. Dovetails look way better but take me about 45 minutes per drawer box. Pocket screws take 10 minutes but feel cheap to me. I ended up splitting the difference and did dovetails on the visible drawers and pocket screws on the utility ones. Customer never even asked about it, but it saved me like 6 hours total. Has anyone else done a mix like that and regretted it later?

2 comments

2 Comments

aaron_wilson179h ago

Man, I had a buddy who tried that exact split on a big job. He did dovetails on all the kitchen drawers but used pocket screws for a set of utility drawers in the laundry room. Figured no one would ever look at those. Fast forward a year and the homeowner decided to turn that laundry room into a little craft space for their kid. So now those cheap pocket screw drawers are front and center every day. He said they held up fine but it bugged him every time he saw them. Said next time he'd just eat the extra time or charge more.

willow2449h agoTop Commenter

Right or wrong, your buddy probably saved time and money that the homeowner wasn't paying for anyway. If the owner wanted premium everywhere they should have been specific from the start.