I hate to ask the obvious...but do you have to use this KD?

ditto

Oh, bee, how frustrating! Now we know where kitchen design myths go to die. Or, more correctly, live on forever. Hang in there.

The "structural flaws" thing would be a huge surprise to all those Europeans. Actually, I can just hear some KD in Belgium telling the homeowner, "You want what?! OMG, nobody does face frame cabinets, they're so old-fashioned, and horribly wasteful of precious wood!"

As I recall, your new kitchen has generous proportions, so the space saving features of frameless are not essential. If you like his face frames and he makes you a good deal, go for it. Just don't believe him on that one subject. It makes no difference to the world still rotating on its axis if he thinks frameless are structurally defective-he can be a dinosaur if he wants. If he'll provide you with lovely cabinets that meet your expectations, that's all that matters. Cheers!

You know, they MUST have a club...it's like Cheers, where all the KD's go to try to figure ways to talk us out of inset cabs, frameless cabs, and marble countertops!! Seems if we would just shut up and be satisfied with the builders Golden Oak........

Nancy

Somehow in the past few months we chipped a piece of veneer off the bottom edge of the pantry cab (ouch!), but the cab boxes themselves are as structurally sound today as they were 5 years ago when they were delivered/installed. Of course, what do I know? I just live with and use them every single day........

Idiots.

Be brave BEE and get what you want.
Hoping Marcolo pops in to give you more advice.
~boxer

The KD is an idiot. I don't know how you could put any faith behind this fraud of a professional.

I ought to email him a photo of my structurally sound 20+ year old frameless cabinets. They're probably particleboard too (eek).

Bee, I know you are supposed to use this fellow because he works with your builder. Can you not go to your builder and tell him that the KD just isn't a good fit for you and (if that doesn't work) that he is not giving accurate information or listening to your wishes and that you don't think you'll be happy with a kitchen he has a part of? You're spending a lot of money with this builder; it seems kind of odd that you are roped into using a designer who wants to put in his idea of a nice kitchen instead of yours.

I hope you get it worked out to your satisfaction. You might or might not decide you want frameless, but really a designer ought to be discussing facts instead of dismissing your questions.

Do you HAVE to move? The more pictures I see of your current house adn the more I hear about your work on bulding the new one, the more I'd want to say "Never mind." I'm not helping, am I?

Would you like photos of my Woodmode and Brookhaven frameless cabinets with their nameplates on the hinges?

I'm surprises you only wanted to look at shoes. I'd have been wanting to kick some shins! Hang in there!

Why in the world would you work with a kitchen designer who lies to you? If s/he did it once, s/he'll do it again.

Good grief !
Here in Western Canada, it's frameless that's the standard.
(I can't speak for Eastern Canada). We actually go the States to get framed cabinetry!
LOL!

Time to fortify yourself before the next visit.

So, assemble yourself:

Sour pickles.
Hot sauce.
Stinky cheese.
A tack in your shoe.
A pinching too small thong.

Eat a few of the pickles and feel what that does to your face. Hold on to that look. Douse the last couple of pickles in hot sauce. Feel the burn on your lips and in your gut. Eat some of the stinky cheese. Feel how every exhale melts paint. Feel the churn with the hot sauce and pickles. Put the tack in your shoe and put on the too small thong.

You are now ready to confront Idiot Cabinet Guy. Get in close to ICG and breathe in his face when you talk. Use your pickle expression. Be grouchy and irritated and USE that stomach discomfort, foot and butt pain. Demand what YOU want and every time he goes off on an uninformed idiotic tangent, lean in close and let that miasma roll toward him and put him in his place.

STOP BEING "NICE"! That's a sign of weakness. You're not trying to date him or inherit his money. He works for you.

And if that doesn't work, use the tactic with your builder to demand the right to change to someone more knowledgeable, experienced, and accommodating.

In lieu of staring at the feet, try staring at the stomach. Works on everybody except the skinnies.

I hope you at least tried the awkward pause and the "anyway."

If they really can't do frameless, you'll have to simply content yourself with inquiring, without explanation, whether he takes any continuing education courses. Then you just say "Hm." and move to the next subject.

The united states are pretty much the only country in the world to put a face frame on cabinetry. I guess cabinets are falling apart all over the world. I sell frameless 4 out of 5 times I meet a client.

My Mom gave me this piece of advice years ago, has always been my "secret weapon" when a guy has talked down to me or ignored my opinion at work....

"If you want to make a guy stumble and feel uncomfortable keep staring at his hairline while he's talking to you...."

Bee,
I've read several of yours posts about this KD - seems there is a pattern of this person not really be current with what is going on his/her own industry - clearly a red flag. What if 6 months down the road, you wish you'd listened to all these little red flags.

If this is who your builder is recommending it potentially tarnishes his name -- he should know this... perhaps this KD stuck in the stone ages isn't who he should be recommending. Some people would start to reflect on the builders reputation given who he is choosing for a sub -- it doesn't sound like that is what you are doing, but that makes your builder lucky to have you for a client. He might not be so lucky the next time and might really appreciate hearing from you about the less than satisfactory experience you are having.

It sounds like are putting an enormous amount of money into this project. There are really good and qualified designers out there so hungry for work. Personally, I would have moved on by now... If I were you I would consider finding someone else a little bit more current on what is going on.

Also, I didn't respond to a previous thread you had posted about needing custom so that you could get a specific depth of cabinetry -- this is not a custom feature. This is done all the time even in semi custom lines.

Good Luck

I'm a huge fan of frameless - let me state that just to get it out of the way. Huge fan. Love my frameless cabinets.

That said, please know that frameless cabinets are constructed differently to framed, they rely on different construction formats, need different construction tools, need a different level of precision to build and assemble and they get their structural integrity from different elements compared to framed units.

So, if your cabinet guy tells you that in his experience, frameless cabinets are structurally unsound and fail often, believe him. It means that he doesn't have the knowhow to build frameless.

Just because the world knows that frameless cabinets hold up well, doesn't mean that this guy's frameless will hold up well. If you need to or want to get frameless, do not use this person. If you need to use this person, then don't get frameless. Honest. I would never want to be the person who tosses the coin with someone who has all but told you he doesn't know how to construct frameless cabinetry.
If you have to use him, get something that he does know how to construct - even inset requires a level of precision that say framed overlay cabinets doesn't. Make your peace with something that the cabinetmaker is proficient at and then hold him to that standard.

Good luck!

Mindstorm, I think this was the KD, not the cabinet maker. Unless he is one and the same. Yikes.

Bee, perhaps direct your builder to this conversation where so many kitchen savants are saying essentally that his KD is an idiot. And ask if maybe he'd be open to you picking the KD and cabinet maker. I'll bet if he gives you free rein you can come up with a kitchen that will be an eye opener for him - style and price wise.

The builder is a businessman and kitchens sell houses.

Mindstorm said exactly what I was thinking earlier but didn't post. I've encountered similar sentiments when I was interviewing contractors for our bathroom remodel (proceeding right now, yay!). What I heard behind their words was "I'm not experienced/comfortable/qualified to do X," which did little to instill confidence in me. Either I had to choose a different feature or I had to hire a different contractor, which is what I did. If you don't have that choice (which I believe is your situation), you'll have to figure out how to work within his comfort zone/area of expertise. I really wish you weren't having to deal with this.

I think they just get stuck in their groove and don't want to get out of it. My electrician insisted I couldn't put my electrical box for a plug and two switches into the back of my cabinet because the microwave that would sit in front of it would be two deep. He had measured it several times, you see, and it was too many inches across. I took the box from him, and without saying a word, turned it on end so the switches lined up vertically instead of horizontally. He gave me a long look and walked away. The box is behind the microwave.

I didn't think I'd been gone THAT long...

Bee, you have a new kitchen!?!

I'll need to google and find out when that happened...

....Love the hairline thing hee hee.

Commenting on the skills and tools to make frameless cabinets: Our local community college has the best furniture making/wood working program in the west, maybe more than that. They actually call it Cabinet and Furniture Technology. One of the things they offer is a certificate program in making cabinets. Framed and frameless cabinetry making are totally different classes with separate and unique building techniques. Each has some specialized tools for that type of cabinetry only. The head of the department has aggressively pursued state of the art for 20 or more years and is a kitchen cabinet maker himself. He got the European makers of the big machinery needed for frameless cabinetry to donate the pieces to the school so that there would be trained frameless cabinet makers out there, a win-win. I never took that class, but I saw the machinery being used - we're talking stuff that takes up a lot of floor space, significantly bigger than large stationary table saws. You know all those holes they put in for adjustable shelves? There's a machine that makes whole sets of those holes so they'll be perfectly spaced. You need to train on the machine to make it come out right. The guy beekeeperswife talked to has never trained in this technology and doesn't own these very expensive tools. I can see that he maybe wouldn't want to be totally up front about that. The rest of the world has gone to frameless because their native wood supplies are not what they once were. By using "furniture board" with the good stuff laminated onto the outside, less premium wood is needed.

As consumers, we care more about look and function in our space, but it's good to see the bigger picture sometimes.

I went out to dinner after I posted this, so I just was able to do some reading. Thanks for all the support and comments. I didn't post in order to get any ammunition against this guy. I just thought you might find it amusing (and a wee bit annoying) to know this is still going on "out there".

As much as I appreciate the idea that I should move on, I cannot. I can work with framed cabinets, but I just had to ask him about frameless. I know that they save room plus I thought less wood would surely equal less dollars. If they are not set up to do frameless, there is nothing I can do about it.

I cannot go to another kitchen place. This is the custom cabinet shop that my builder uses, this is the place he gets a deep discount. He is passing his deep discount on to me since he knows the kitchen is important to me. The kitchen is pretty large, and I know that what we are doing would cost a lot more elsewhere. I have toyed with the idea of going somewhere else just to get an estimate--to share with the builder. Maybe he can spread his business around.

I will be fine. I consider it as an opportunity for all of us to teach him a thing or two. Once I found that piece of cabinetry inside the shop that was being worked on, my heart was all aflutter. And did I mention it was "Dove White"? I won't even go on with what I said when I heard the color. Way too TKO.

We should not be surprised about the frameless thing, after all this is the guy who when I mentioned Christopher Peacock, he just looked at me like deer caught in headlights. Actually, he might have looked at my shoes, then paused and said 'Anyway'......LOL

I'll keep you posted.

Thanks
Bee

I really like the idea of going to your builder and letting him know you're going to be shopping for a new KD.

If someone were to stick with a guy like that, they deserve what they (don't) get. Hang in there and stick to your guns.

Barker Doors and Barker Cabinets, who make excellent drawer boxes, door and drawer fronts, only make frameless cabinets. Won't even entertain the idea of a face frame.

Someone ought to invite this guy to the early 1990s.

Don't settle, Bee.

Christine

I was amused, BKW. Thanks for the chuckle. Are you doing an OTK? OTKs should absolutely be face frames.

WHY must everything be so difficult? i'm sorry bee. you know i am.

Bee, I will just say that we went with our horrible tile people because they were THE tile people our builder used. I think you know how that story turned out. On the other hand, when we told our builder we weren't happy w/ the first cabinet place, he sent us to Dutch Wood and that ended up being a great experience.

In other words, if you are not happy already, I would seriously think about at least mentioning your problems to your builder and not just going along w/ this because you feel like you have to. We did that, and it was not until we were too far in to get out w/ the tile people that the FULL extent of the problems arose, teaching me the lesson that you should never ignore your gut instinct when something isn't right.