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.

Ann, We just had Kraftmaid cabinets installed in December through a local KD. I'm sure we didn't get the best price, but her help was invaluable. She designed the book case at the end of the island, the crown molding, and figured out how to build in the Advantium and refrigerator. I'm sure HD guys could've done it too.. As for the cabinets- they seem to be good quality and slide very easily. The drawers are full extention- cool! never had that before! Doors and drawers are soft close- I think it is Blum motion. We got all wood boxes. The full overlay looks like inset, I think and am very happy with our choice. I just posted pictures yesterday, you can see them on this forum "Pictures of my new kitchen. Have fun designing! Joan Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures of my new kitchen!

bump

I think it looks great when it's done as above (with the diagonal spacers to make the bump softer). And those spacers can be spice fillers or have hooks in them for towels, etc. I have the opposite, a bumped in kitchen sink :) And in my master suite our sinks are bumped out, much like you see above. I love them both. The bumped in sink is on a corner, and it makes the traffic flow smoother. On the same run we have a bumped out range :) I'm all about the bumps baby :oP