I have both. I chose the KraftMaid Venezia line for my summer kitchen - sleek and modern in graphite satin. I chose Brookhaven for my regular kitchen. I am so pleased with the Brookhaven quality. It really is like fine furniture. The pull-outs are smooth, the drawers close beautifully, even though I don't think I ordered soft close drawers. I chose the Andover square raised panel in Maple and the color is a cinnamon-ny red called country. Went with five piece drawer fronts and "Premier" hardware. Mine looks like bunches of fruit - so pretty.
My cabinets only were about 15K - very different in price from the Venezia, which was about 5K installed. There were fewer cabinets and fewer bells and whistles, thought, so it's really not "apples to apples"
The Venezia line is also really nice. Just, imho, not as solid and quality as the Brookhaven.
I don't really know how to post pics. We're expecting a snow day on Wednesday. Maybe I'll make learning how a fun project.
I really do love my Brookhaven cabinets. I think they are also having a sale, now.
Good luck.

Don't have either but we bought a less expensive line of cabinets from manufacturer who makes a pretty high end semi-custom line. I think the elements that contribute to making a high end line (good suppliers, state of the art machinery, good design, skilled workforce, rigorous quality control) trickle down to the junior lines. I also think the manufacturer knows today's Brookhaven customer may be tomorrow's Woodmode customer. Just a thought.

I have Brookhaven and Woodmode and can recommend both of them. I have the frameless version and love them. At the time I ordered there were folks who loved KM and folks who were having nightmares with KM. I don't recall a single significant problem with Brookhaven cabinets. I have needed a couple of replacement pieces due to installation problems, but I'm very happy with the cabinets in both lines.

I have (frameless) Brookhaven and love them. I had absolutely no problems with the order, everything came in perfect. My kitchen is four years old now and still looks brand new. I couldn't be happier.

At the time I ordered there were folks who loved KM and folks who were having nightmares with KM. I don't recall a single significant problem with Brookhaven cabinets.
I'll second that. During the 5+ years I've been reading this forum, I don't recall a single complaint about Brookhaven but have seen dozens about KM.

I have Kraftmaid cabinets in my kitchen. They were the existing cabs when I bought my house 3 years ago. I'm redoing my kitchen now, but keeping the cabinets. So, I can't speak to issues related to installation, I can answer your request to post some pictures (you will note that the pictures show my kitchen in the "before" and "during" stages of the remodel, as I'm now in the thick of it!):

Here they are piled up while the flooring is redone:

Good luck deciding!

Thanks jen19083 for the pics. Sometimes I think I am worrying too much over cabinets. I want a furniture look to some of the cabinets....but on a limited budget. We have sheet rock....the cabinets should already be ordered. I hate ordering from samples.

No problem, sallen. I just had my granite installed today, so here is a pic with the cabs topped with granite:

If you're considering Brookhaven, what is the pull towards KM? Brookhaven is an entirely different caliber (much higher) than Kraftmaid. Also, are you comparing them apples to apples? I.e. two frameless lines for example?

I have to agree with mindstorm. Brookhaven - even if you don't go with fancy scrolls and decorative moldings - even their least expensive doors and finishes - are all just so rich. They exude quality and craftsmanship. Today is the snow day, maybe I'll figure out how to post pics.

One of the KDs that sells Brookhaven told me that they are offering incentives now....I think it was something about reduced door charges. You might want to ask your KD and make sure that they're passing that along to you.

I believe you are at the point where only a sample door can answer the question. If the lines themselves don't convince you, pick the one that looks best. (Or is cheapest!)

My Brookhaven rep did rework her proposal because of the specails offered. The standard Brookhaven door and the Kraft Maid (Rutherford Maple) are now within hundreds of dollars in price. We are looking at a few furniture details on the cabinets and the estimate is around $16,000 for either Brookhaven or Kraft Maid. First of all I can't believe cabinets costs that much! With all the other details...I am not sure I know the difference between framless or other???

I haven't seen any pictures of the Brookhaven cabinets on gardenweb (that were identified Brookhaven). I would love to see your pictures chefnewbie and any others out there.

Love the granite jen19083! Thanks for the support! My Brookhaven sample doors should be in any day and my rep from Kraft Maid should be back from the Kraft Maid meeting on Friday. Next week has a decision has to be made!

Another question: does the door style make a great deal of differnce if you are adding furniture featurs (columns, two class front cabinets, wall cabinets glazied, island cherry, china style cabinet in cherry). Whether I choose Kraft Maid Marquette or Rutherford will it actually matter or be noticed? You know, Better Homes and Gardens will not be visiting my home anytime soon. But, we all gather in my kitchen. And I want it to be $16,000 well spent!

OK...this is my kitchen at the 80% finished point...we're about 90% now, but no backsplash or trim so I haven't put it on the FKB. I have Brookhaven cabinets, painted white (no glaze) and I can't remember what door style...one of the cheaper ones, though. Whole thing was 14K.

I can't say enough great things about our Brookhaven cabinets--I chose them because my parents have 1950's WoodMode cabinets that, while a little dated looking (knotty pine), are still in 100%, fabulous working order. I couldn't afford WoodMode, so this was a close second.

I hope this helps--I'll attach a bunch of pictures of our kitchen in progress (these are from about 15 months ago).

and one of the first install pics of the range hood (sorry, don't have it any more updated!)

Brookhaven designer concept of the wall w/radiator:

Other three walls:

Upgrades I got were: two glass cabinets, double oven cabinet, fully surrounded fridge area, panel for the dishwasher, decorative (but pretty basic, comparatively) hood, all drawers on bottom cabints, two lazy susans, angled corner cabinets, etc.

LOVE all the time I spent on this project--no complaints!! I got all my help from this forum so if you have any questions, go for it. I have lots of other more close-up photos (interior of frameless cabinets, interior of drawers, etc.)--if you want to see them, let me know.

-Sarah from Albany

Oh, and FWIW...I definitely think that Brookhaven and KraftMaid aren't exactly comparing apples to apples...maybe KraftMaid and Schrock or Brookhaven and Decora...

I've heard a lot more complaints on here with KraftMaid (finishes not matching, etc.) than Brookhaven. One of the best features of Brookhaven is that they send your whole kitchen through the staining or painting process all together...so the finish is likely to be much more uniform than that of other cabinet makers.

:)
Sarah

sarahandbray, thanks! Your kitchen is beautiful. I visited yet another dealer yesterday. He has Brookhaven, Woodmode and several other brands. He had a beautiful diplay of a cabinet called Crystal. It is an all wood cabinet and is less expensive than Brookhaven. He did say that if price were the same he personally would choose Brookhaven. But, the Crystal will be less expensive. He did mention that Brookhaven is made with partical board (maybe exterior sides). Does anyone know anthing about Crystal cabinets?

About half of my kitchen is the same Brookhaven cabinets that sarahandbray has. They are wonderful -- well made adn beautifully finished. Since I just saw a thread about cabinet depth, I will point out that standard wall cabinet depth on Brookhaven is 13" and allows you to fit larger plates and bowls in your upper cabinets.

Don't get trapped into thinking that wood is necessarily better than composite materials. There are different grades of wood (generally plywood) and MDF, poarticle board or other composites. I've had plenty of plywood around here for home and school projects. In fact, there is a sheet sitting under concrete blocks on my driveway because it had some serious warping issues. Plywood is very vulnerable to warping.

I can also tell you that in the two years since I had my cabinets installed, I have had several water issues -- my plumber didn't connect the prep sink properly. I had a leak inside the cabinet. Even though I mopped it up and thought I caught it fairly quickly, the bottom of the cabinet bubbled in places. No -- it wasn't MDF or particle board. This was inside my all wood Woodmode cabients on the island. On the other hand, I had water run through the pan of my rangetop and down into the cabinet belwo when someone turned their back on the new and fast flowing potfiller. I was sure there would be a problem, but you would never know. Similarly, the main sink and faucet were also not connected properly (the plumber was the source of the bigger pains in my remodel). I have had water in the bottom of that cabinet at least three times before everything was caught and hopefully fixed. No problems there either. Both the rangetop and main sink cabinets are Brookhaven.

Another thing -- my KD ordered the cabinets on the end of each run with wood sides -- not because they wood was better but because she wanted to assure that the finish was the same on the ends as on the front (I have seen the two materials with the same finish and they do look different).

Overall construction and finish should be more important that generic terms like "wood" or "MDF".

I have heard of Crystal here but don't know anything about them personally. I don't get the imprssion that they are on par with Brookhaven though.

If Brookhaven and Kraftmaid are within a few hundred dollars, I have no doubt that I would pick Brookhaven -- for the finish (which also has a lot to do with how well your cabinets last over the years), the added inch of depth and the overall quality. Plus, you have the Woodmode company behind you if you have any problems.

jen19083,

Nice kitchen! What is the Kraftmaid finish on the cabinets?

Ken