Thanks for the correction. I Googled around and saw a few complaints about Thomasville laminate cabinets. -They yellowed over time -They were equivalent to thermofoil in many ways -Thomasville was rated the absolute lowest of all cabinet manufacturers in the US at a ratings website. They fell under American Woodmark, Homecrest, Yorktowne and Shenandoah! While I don't 100% trust that website and there aren't enough reviews to support it's stance.....but still, it isn't a medium or highly rated company either. This same site placed KraftMaid over Medallion, which I disagree with....but both companies still had better than average reviews. Also read the reviews on Consumer Affairs on Home Depot...see link below. Home depot really does not want to be in the kitchen business....they know it's over their heads and hard to control/manage. I hear they are testing a new way of running their kitchen dept. where all design will be done at one location for the entire USA. Let's see how that works out for them. You are definitely making the right choice with Shiloh. What was the price difference and how big is your kitchen? Number of cabinets? Just curious! Here is a link that might be useful: consumer affairs

Custom should mean that you can get what you want that mass production does not offer. Cabinets offered every 3 inches is a function of mass production over the last 40 years or so as cabinets have shifted to being made from outside sources and not by the carpenters who build the house. Most larger cabinet companies order their doors from companies like conestoga who only make doors at mass produced levels. Now conestoga makes them to any size if wanted. Your semi custom companies as a general rule build the cabinet boxes and do the finishing of the cabinet units. Semi Custom generally means they will modify the parts they build which means the face frames and the box size. So you can modify depth and add an extended stile where a filler would go otherwise. A custom company is supposed to mean in its pureist form that they do not have a book of generic sizes and instead they design and price a kitchen of any specs and build it. I personally prefer the abiltiy to work with larger companies that have more years of combined expeirence with more expensive equipment and longer warranty that is backed by the length of time the company has been around. I do not see the worry of how long the local retailer has been in business over warranty concerns when the warranty ultimately comes from the cabinet maker. Now, to be fair most large cabinet companies that are custom need something of a base line to allow a person in a showroom far from the cabinet plant to design and price a kitchen quickly. This creates the need for a product line you can work with as a designer. A book of standard sizes and configurations is needed as a baseline to work from. We end up with a long list of modifications that can be done to a cabinet to create the custom layout where the standard cabinets are modified in countless ways to create the perfect fit and still be able to arrive at a fixed price as a designer who is not an employee of the cabinet maker. I work with 2 companies that have books like this. Yet one is custom and one in my opinion is not even though they call themselves custom. Geppetto will build anything I can dream that is technically possible. Bridgewood will not. Both call themselves custom companies. One is highly modifable (Bridgewood) and one is custom Geppetto. When I meet someone that just needs the cabinets to fit just right with no fillers and wants a low price I use Bridgewood and the price is lower. When I meet someone who wants a lot of personalized look to the kitchen and needs inset door styles I use Geppetto. Hoods are another animal that is a pain. Stanicci makes nice hoods and many custom companies offer them. A true custom company will make the hood themselves with what ever look you like. Stanicci allows a designer to use a symbol on a drawing and in a 3d that has an exact price. I like a wood hood or a custom metal hood from Rangecraft hoods. Ultra modern chimney hoods just do not do it for me personally. To each his or her own I suppose. Inset door style is definetly more elegant when used with a nice finish. I think you have made the right choice.

Just wanted to pipe in and say I have Kahle oak cabinets c. 1997 and they have worn like iron. No problems with the finish. No malfunctions of slides, no blown out hinges - everything still works like the day they were installed. Now, ours were their opening grade so no high end slides or hinges, but they work great, smooth, and have lasted under family use all these years with no apparent aging! We got ply boxes, melamine coated interiors (I preferred these for wipe-downs), real oak veneer end surfaces. (Never get the non-wood veneer, as it ages and discolors at a different rate than your natural wood will so will look awful in a few years relative to the real wood surfaces.) Whatever finish they used back then on stained wood was very robust. One great thing about them is they make the SAME things, decades later. I went to a showroom to inquire about a replacement door (2013) and could special order the exact door I needed because they use classic profiles. They were a great value for the pricepoint.

I'm looking at white oak with one of the lighter grey stains @Mary Anne Scaglione - I would not have the beautiful white oak and then put a grey stain on it. You might as well then not spend the money for white oak. The whole point of spending extra on white oak is due to its appearance. Remove the grey stain from your choice. Or, if you really want grey cabinetry, then don't get white oak and instead choose one of the painted grey finishes. See @Sammy's comment above which has a link to @Suzanne Brown's beautiful Shiloh kitchen with grey painted cabinets.