I painted half wall paneling in a large family room with ProClassic. Very little odor while painting and none as soon as it was dry. I rolled the paint on with a mini-roller, then back brushed it quickly with a good brush - Corono Chinex. It's a hard, durable finish and smooth like an oil paint would be. If you can, take the doors off and paint them flat. That way, you'll avoid any drips or runs that might occur. Be sure to use a good bonding primer-SW has a very good one-not oil based.

It's a good thing that you chose KM because they do stand behind their product. I've used them frequently and never had as high of a percentage of problems as you are having. Maybe they had a bad batch go through their line. But, they will strive to make you happy, if the issues are defects in the product. However, occasionally when we have other problems, we view everything under a microscope and find things that wouldn't be apparent to normal scrutiny. I don't mean to imply that you are being hyper critical, but perhaps some of your issues are normal ones that you are viewing as defects? I hope your KD explained the normal issues associated with choosing painted cabinets. If she didn't, I'll take a minute and give you some insight as to what to expect. Wood is hygroscopic. It is normal for it to absorb moisture in summer and swell. It's also normal for it to lose moisture in the winter and shrink. That's why maintaining a constant humidity through a HVAC system is important for your cabinetry, trim, and flooring. If you didn't have the air running while you were moving in, the extra humidity is the most likely culprit for many of your issues. If your humidity has been controlled at all times, then there is certainly something else going on. When you refer to "cracking" are you referring to longitudanal cracks in the solid wood that follow the grain or are you referring to the cracks forming in the paint where the stiles, rails, and panels meet? The former is a cause for action and the latter is 100% normal and should be expected to occur with any painted finish, especially in the presence of uncontrolled humidity. Mitered corner cabinets are worse about this than are mortise and tenon joined ones. As I said, I'm sure KM will take care of you, but I wanted to make sure you were informed about how your cabinets will behave now and in the future.

I'm in CA and used a local large custom-ish cabinet maker that does a baked on conversion varnish. We will see how it holds up, but they were (of course) confident in their product and contractors had good things to say about them too. Most people I talked to seemed to think as long as it was a heated finish rather than just painted it would wear well, regardless of where it was manufactured. I'm not an expert and have only had my cabs for less than a year though, so time will tell!

What works best depends on the layout and the client preference. With current software it isn't unreasonable to expect to can't be shown a decent representation of your choices. Photo-realistic is another story, but a general idea of the relationships should be easy enough unless you're still working with a pencil or 2D CAD. My preference is that it is ok to change modling color at an end of a run but it is always up to the client. First one shows two options of the 4 that the client was shown and a photo of the result. Second is flat molding-again client was shown multiple options to make final choice. Then something we are working on now. Very little of this is actually settled as the client is having difficulty settling on colors. Because of the color issue I did the first image which is more realistic but far more time consuming to produce so not as reasonable to expect (requires a render specific software program that I am just learning-the rendering was done with the gracious help of a professional renderer Rene from Rabbitt Construction). The other images were done within our standard design software but still need work on lighting (backsplash also needs to be resolved)