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According to Neal Smith, shop manager of RS Kitchen and Bath, customer service and product quality have set the Smiths’ cabinetry business apart from other cabinet shops and have kept the family-owned manufacturer in business for 50 years.

According to Neal Smith, shop manager of RS Kitchen and Bath, customer service and product quality have set the Smiths’ cabinetry business apart from other cabinet shops and have kept the family-owned manufacturer in business for 50 years. Be in the know the moment news happens Subscribe to Daily and Breaking News Alerts Email Address

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Grantville-based RS Kitchen and Bath was established as a small cabinet fabrication shop in 1972 after its founder, Raymond Smith, decided he was tired of driving to Atlanta and saw the benefit in manufacturing hand-built, custom cabinetry for his neighbors.

Since then, Raymond Smith has brought both his son and grandson into the business, and the three say they have been fortunate enough to work on thousands of homes in Coweta, Fayette, and Troup counties over the past 50 years.

In the early 1970s, after driving into Atlanta daily to work for a building supply store, Raymond Smith was involved in a tragic forklift accident and told he would never walk again.

According to Neal Smith, Raymond Smith’s son and shop manager for RS Kitchen and Bath, “Dad told Mom that, if he could get out of that bed, he wouldn’t work for anyone else anymore. He was going to make something of himself.”

Fortunately, Raymond fully recovered, and soon placed a small shop on a piece of family-owned land. He began hand-fashioning custom cabinetry for other Grantville families with an eye toward the future: “We believe in under-promising and over-delivering in every aspect of the business. We try to come in ahead of time and under budget with cabinetry that is designed to last for at least 100 years,” said Neal Smith.

The cabinets, hand-designed and fashioned by Raymond Smith himself, developed quite a reputation. “For our custom cabinetry, we over-engineer as much as we can. We use 3/4” - thick wood when the industry standard is only 1/2” thick, and we hand screw each piece into the facing so that everything is solid, and nothing moves. The kitchen is the heart of the home, and we want our cabinets to take the abuse they need to and still last for, hopefully, centuries,” explained Neal Smith.

Neal Smith, who began sweeping the shop as a 10-year-old and became shop manager in 1989, shared his father’s passion for quality craftsmanship from an early age. “I am a devout Christian, but when I was little, I thought church was terribly boring. I reckon I was about 9 years old when I told my mama I didn’t want to go to church one day so I could sneak out to the shop and watch what Dad was doing,” he said. “Daddy asked me if I wanted to use this tiny little saw to cut some wood, and was like ‘don’t tell your mama.’ I still have that little saw to this day.”

“I started learning the different steps in the fabrication process, and after a few years, Dad came in and said I was the new shop manager. I asked him what that meant, and he chuckled and said, you’ll figure it out. And he was right. I figured it out.”

Over the years, Neal Smith made a number of significant changes to the business that have helped it grow and adapt to changing trends and advancements in technology. “In 1998, I brought in a computer-aided design program because it helped our customers visualize what their new space would look like, and Dad didn’t understand it. But it’s cut down on hundreds of man-hours each month, and the time we spent on the design end with clients was cut drastically because they could see their design in their actual space,” he explains.

Neal Smith’s son, Neal Smith, Jr., has been assisting in the shop with age-appropriate tasks for as long as he can remember, and began to help manage the shop after graduating from Kennesaw State University with a degree in Business Management in 2018.

“I think the most significant change we’ve made since I joined the business is developing our semi-custom cabinet line. We’ve worked with a manufacturer to produce RS Select, our own prefabricated, solid-wood cabinets, which still offer the things we’re famous for– solid wood construction, soft-close doors and drawers, and dovetailed joints– just at a more affordable price,” explains Neal Smith, Jr.

“Semi-custom cabinetry is different from our custom jobs in that pieces are measured in increments of three inches, while we can go down to 1/16” for our custom jobs. However, the beauty of working with a local business instead of buying your cabinets at a big box store is that we can create one custom piece for you and finish it to match the prefabricated cabinets, giving you a custom look at a price that won’t break the bank,” explains Smith, Jr.

Smith, Jr. estimates that the median price for a semi-custom, full kitchen cabinet renovation is approximately $15,000, but notes they also offer more affordable options.

“No matter what your budget is, you’re still going to get a level of service that you can’t find at a big box store. The person who measures your room will be the person who designs your cabinetry, so mistakes are minimized. We want to make this a much easier process, even when our prices are comparable to what you would find in a store,” Smith, Jr. said.

For more information on RS Kitchen and Bath, or for a free estimate, please visit raymondsmithscabinets.com, or call Neal (678) 571-4806 or Jr. (678) 416-5668.

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