I redid our entire kitchen in a very nice maple about 3 years ago (I had 70's vintage myself
). It turned out awesome, and was a big feature when we recently sold our house. Rona (Revy) helped out with the planning for no charge, delivered all the material, I built all the cabinets and installed them with some friends. I assembled the cabinets in the basement first.
There's a couple of tricks, such as getting the right length screws & saddles (to tie the cabinets together) from Calgary Fasteners, using a proper glue, and also using shims & clamps to get the whole caboodle sitting straight. As long as you're not all thumbs, you shouldn't have too many problems. It took me about 2 weeks of evenings & weekends to totally put all in, and then tinkering to get the doors all lined up nice. Had the main row of cabinets up in about a day and a half (no doors). You will also have to drill and install handles, but with a template this is not too difficult. I had a private contractor do the countertop afterwards. Overall, I think I paid about 1/3rd of what it would have cost commercially.
Feel free to pm me.