“We Stopped Bleeding Time.” — North Ridge Cabinetry
I’m Mia, owner of North Ridge Cabinetry. We build custom kitchens and built-ins for
homeowners and small builders. Until last year, most days felt like controlled chaos. Quotes
lived in a graveyard of spreadsheets, cutlists were printed and scribbled on, and if a client
asked, “Can we shift the island three inches?” I’d mentally calculate what that meant for
door sizes, drawer boxes, and—inevitably—waste.
The worst part? Install days. My crew would show up ready to go, and I’d get that call:
“We’re missing two finished panels and the toe-kick is short.” Not because we didn’t plan—
because our plans were scattered. I could feel money evaporating every time a truck rolled
twice.
The breaking point
A builder sent a change order on a Thursday night. By Friday morning, I’d re-quoted in
Excel, updated the cutlist in another file, texted the shop about material pulls, and forgot to
tell accounting to bump the progress invoice. We did the work perfectly—and didn’t bill the
extra for three weeks. That’s when I knew we needed a system, not more sticky notes.
Finding Woodshop Master
We onboarded with Woodshop Master over one rough weekend. I loaded our standard
cabinet library, set up quoting templates, and connected inventory. The “aha” moment came
fast: I adjusted a pantry height for a client and watched every dependent part, hinge count,
and edging requirement update automatically. The quote, the BOM, the cutlist—everything
moved in sync.
What changed (and how it felt)
Quoting went from hours to minutes. Templates + saved options mean I’m not reinventing pricing every project. My estimator now spends time asking better questions, not doing math.
Live cutlists killed duplicate effort. When design changes, the cutlist regenerates. No more “old version on the printer” errors.
Inventory reservations stopped surprises. Sheet goods and hardware get reserved the moment a job is green-lit. If something drops below our threshold, I get a nudge before it becomes a fire drill.
Install punch-lists live on our phones. Field notes, photos, and sign-offs sync to the job. If a filler needs a tweak, it’s captured and scheduled—no cryptic whiteboard messages.
Progress billing happens on time. Milestones trigger invoices automatically. Cash flow stopped feeling like a coin toss.
The numbers that made me a believer
I didn’t expect the metrics to move this quickly:
Estimate time down ~60%
Sheet waste from ~18% to ~9% (the optimizer finally made our layouts honest)
Average lead time down ~22%
On-time installs up to ~96%
Fewer callbacks, and when they happen, they’re cleanly documented and billed
The human side
My installers used to keep a running joke: “What’s today’s mystery part?” It’s gone. Our
shop lead stopped coming in on Sundays to “catch up.” And I’m back to visiting job sites to
look at design details instead of putting out fires. Clients feel that calm—they notice when a
team is steady.
If you’re where I was
You can be excellent at cabinets and still drown in admin. Woodshop Master didn’t change our craft; it organized it.
The payoff wasn’t just better margins—it was getting our evenings back.