I'm not a KD, we're DIY, with help from kitchen/hardware store and I chose Kraftmaid. I have been very happy with the quality and haven't had any problems. The KD I worked with was very knowledgable about the line, and all the options, which was one of the reasons I chose it. I really think they look spectacular. I chose a rutherford door, in dark cherry with the black glaze...

Good Luck.

I sell KM and consider it a good middle of the road value. They have one of the widest available selection of doors and stains available in the mid market range. They also are a semi custom line, and their spec book is a couple of inches thick. What that translates to for a customer is a wide variety of choices and it translates to me as a KD as being a wide variety of solutions for difficult spaces.

Most of the problems that I've personally had with KM have been related more to the shipping service than quality control at the factory. I've had the occasional cabinet that needed replacing, but never whole kitchens like I've seen some people talk of here. Other KD's locally have complained about KM finishes being inconsistant, but I personally think they just don't read the spec book and listen to their rep and don't pass that knowledge along to their customers.

If you want a good kitchen in KM or any other line, here's some "basic knowledge" about cabinets in general that is good to know.

Maple is a difficult wood to stain dark and can be splotchy. On a quality cabinet, with a good finishing process, that is minimized. Minimized doesn't mean non existant. If you want dark stained cabinets, choose cherry, alder, or oak. You'll be happier overall.

Solid wood cabinets are composed of, surprise, solid wood doors, with all of wood's natural characteristics. That includes mixing heartwood with sap wood, mineral streaks, pin holes, knot holes etc. If you want perfectly smooth and perfectly even color in your wood cabinets, either spend a LOT more money to upgrade, and I do mean a LOT more money, or get MDF and paint them. Receiving doors that are "striped" and a mix of heartwood and sapwood is perfectly normal and NOT a defect. KM will replace any egregious looking ones, but wait until the whole kitchen is together and the flow from door to door evens out your "striped" door. I promise that everything looks better in context.

To go with the above: cabinets are made of wood, and wood expands and contracts with humidity and temperature levels in a home. Painted cabinets show this a lot more than the stained cabinets do. Separation of the paint at joing lines is to be expected with painted cabinets and is NOT a reason to ask for new doors. MDF panels minimize this for center panels, but the stiles and rails will inevitibly show their joint lines through the paint.

Cabinet companies don't want to send out defective products, but it's the nature of mass productin that they occasionally will send out damaged or defective products. It's not personal. Don't take it that way. Build in the time in your timeline to deal with such an eventuality. It may occur. Do your part. Check in your cabinets immediately, even if your install is months away. ESPECIALLY if your install is months away! Have your contractor pull everything out of your garage and open all of the boxes there on your driveway and inspect them all. Rebox them and put them back in the garage. Build this service into your contractor quote on the front end. It takes time to do and he should be paid for it. If there are any damaged cabinets, contact your cabinet dealer to reorder immediately. Cabinet makers do have a time limit on your ability to claim damage, and if you don't register the problem within that time frame, you usually are cutting into the profit margins of your dealer to get your problem resolved. They don't get reimbursed for reorders 6 months later. It comes out of their pocket. So, many are understandably upset at dealing with an issue that should have been discovered 6 months ago. For obvious warped doors, reorder immediately. For doors that have a tiny bit of a scrape or ding, use the touch up kit. One comes in every sink base, and your installer should know how to use it to make your cabinets look just fine. I promise.

Plywood vs. furniture board. First of all, furniture board isn't partical board. Partical board is the 14 lbs per square inch sawdust board that those round 3 legged "decorator" tables are made of. Yes, it looks similar. No, it's not the same. Furniture board usually is 40-60 lbs per square inch compression rating and with much better quality glues. Cheaper cabinets use the cheaper grades, but it's still not partical board. Most of your "name" cabinet lines use the top quality furniture board, and many are moving to formaldehyde free furniture board. Just remember, any water event that would make furniture board swell will make plywood delaminate. I would not have any problems not choosing the "upgrade" of plywood for my own personal kitchen at all. In fact, my current cabinets are high quality furniture board boxes. This is 15-20% that you can save and put towards organizational items or more elaborate finishes.

If you are planning a kitchen and are on a limited budget (who isn't!) and plan to order some cabinets now and others later, discuss this up front with your KD. Wood changes over time, and a year later, your cherry molding won't match your cherry cabinets that you've already installed. Make your KD a partner in your budget concerns from the beginning for the best result overall. Also, don't be afraid to ask your KD if another door style will give you the look you want for less money. Most consumers won't be able to tell the difference between a veneered flat panel vs a solid pieced one, or between a cathedral raised panel with a bead detail vs a more simple cathedral.

Sorry, didn't mean to write a novel here. Shouldn't have had that second cup of coffee this morning! But maybe some of these comments can help you or others gain some knowledge before you buy.

livewireoak-- I love all of your recommendations. It is so hard trying to plan a kitchen and wonder about basic quality and all of the little things that one should be aware of when planning a remodel. thanks for all the tips

Livewireoak, can you add that knowledge to the FAQ page (unless something like it is already there)? It's very comprehensive. Just in the 4 months I've been here the maple/dark color and plywood/particle board questions must have come up 4 times each.

Live wire said exactly our experience - we had a good one - we went to HD and Lowes and their staff just didn't spend enough time reading the books as well as a few smaller shops so I gave up, grabbed the spec books I could access (not the full ones they give out but we have a tiny kitchen) and went at it. They have enough creative solutions it worked for us - I found the perfect solution to our door problem with a step down cabinet that I love.

We did a mix of plywood on the outside cabinets and sink base - inner cabinets that no one will ever know but us, we used the particle board, and they are fine - how they are finished on the inside, works just as well as the plywood and just as sturdy. We had one base come in in particle board that should have been plywood and a few other minor issues that were corrected right away. The shipping department was great - they called a few times to update us directly and the delivery guys were even better - came within their windows, were very nice, prompt and I had a huge debate with them as they didn't even want to accept drinks after working so hard to lift in the cabinets (they just drove in from OH, going to a few houses before going home to rest to do it again).

We've had our cabinets in for a year... they still look like new and no complaints. At some point, we'll order a matching tv base for a flat panel as our house is so small that if we don't blend everything it will really stand out. So, back to the spec book I will go.

Livewire is also right about Maple - we originally saw our stain - Ginger Glaze in Maple and couldn't see it in Cherry and something just kept me away from it so I had HD order me a small drawer door and it looked much better.

Wow!!! Thanks everybody - especially Livewireoak- this is the exact info I was looking for. If anyone else can add/expand, have at it! I now feel better about Kraftmaid. My inlaws have some (15 ys old) and they look great but after reading posts here on GW, I started getting cold feet. Kraftmaid now remains a viable option. Our other option is Brighton. Does anyone have experience with them?

Hey. Kompy here. Livewire said it all. But I'll add a few comments:

-I have a small, 3 person dealership and together, we sell about $350,000 worth of KM cabinets every year. I, like Livewire, have never had any major problems with anyones kitchen. I certainly have never had to return an entire order before.

- Finish consistency? Overall, they are fine. But there is one KM finish that I won't sell (oatmeal glaze). The oatmeal glaze is one of the more expensive finish upgrades. The glaze looks messy to me. The blackish glaze gets hung-up in spots where you dont expect. Muslin is another that I try to stay away from.

-My installation sub-contractor (who has been installing for me for 24 years!) and I were talking the other day. He installs other lines for other dealers. So, I was curious to ask him his thoughts on cabinet quality. Know what he said? He said they ALL have their problems. None of them are perfect. He said that he has had 'square-ness' issues with just about every line, at one time or another...even the more expensive brands.

-KM is a mass produced cabinet. Their boxes are not immaculate. You will see lines of glue, staple marks...etc. If I get a homeowner that is VERY particular, I will steer him/her towards Medallion or Plain & Fancy. You get what you pay for.

-I would not have a problem having KM in my own home. I have it in my powder room (Halstead Cherry-Sunset) and they are gorgeous. In my last house, my kitchen was Kingsbury Hickory Sunset and that kitchen looked brand new 8 years after I installed. It's also what sold my house in 3 days after being put on the market.

Kompy

Thanks for the info. I definitely feel better about KM now. We can't afford a high end brand (we are more middle of the road) but still want good quality. I was afraid of having to send back all my cabinets after reading some of the posts.

I am debating to order KM in canvas or Alelphi custom for $1600- $2000 more. This is for a house we will only be in 3-5 years. I've read a lot on the forum about problems with KM once they are delivered. But everyone dealt with the problems and really likes the cabs. I did order a sample door from KM and since it is a painted door it came with cracks already.
Any advice about the Canvas?(just looking at a simple shaker door).

Thanks,
Positano

Positano,
KM just introduced paint in the last year...or maybe two. I have only done two painted jobs so far and both were the Dove White (one was a veneer raised panel called Glasbern and the other was called Huntington, a shaker style). Both jobs were installed perfectly without one complaint from either homeowners. No replacement doors needed.

However, I recently overheard my co-worker say he had problems with a KM paint job. I was really busy at the time and meant to ask him later what those problems were. I'll find out when I'm back to work on Tuesday.

Livewire, have you had any experience, good or bad, with KM's painted finishes?

Many of my samples (both painted and opaques) do have the tell-tale hairline cracks. I like it that way, so my customers can see what happens with a painted finish.

I am not familiar with Adelphi cabinets, so I can't advise you if they're worth the extra expense. KM does have pretty darn good pricing for paint. Medallion Cabinetry's painted cabinetry is getting up there with the custom priced cabinets.

Thanks Kompy. I think the door style I was looking at was Huntington also.Did the doors you installed have the cracks when they were delivered? I would love to hear what your co-worker has to say about.

Thanks again!

The Glasbern kitchen, I never saw installed, only photos. The home was a vacation home several hours from me.

The shaker kitchen, I did see. I don't recall if there were any cracks or not. I didn't see anything that looked out of the ordinary. The homeowner had an open house/happy hour for her kitchen debut.

I would think that some hairline cracks (at the joints), even when first delivered, are possible.

I've done quite a few of KM kitchens in the Bisque glaze, which is their Dove White with a vanilla glaze on it (as they are now renaming their finishes to reflect more accurately the layered process). We have an office display in the Bisque. That particular display is old enough that all of the doors show the typical cracking associated with the expansion/contraction of wood.

I've only had a couple of issues with customers being unhappy with the Dove White with Vanilla Glaze (Bisque). On one of those complaints, there was a definate factory defect in that the outer frame of the door had warped enough that unpainted wood showed extensively at the joints. Those few doors that showed that were replaced and no further problems ensued. I know that a big contributory factor to that was that this was new construction that didn't have adequate temperature/humidity control achieved yet. It was only a couple of doors, so it wasn't a problem to ask for replacement. But, really, it's up to the customer to achieve temperature/humidity control in the environment before the cabinets are installed. It wasn't worth it to make that point with only a couple of doors affected, so we registered the point with the customer, had the doors replaced, and made sure we adequately cover that issue more clearly in the future.

One of my newer colleagues had an issue with a laundry room he did in Bisque---because he didn't adequately explain all of the above that I listed to the customer. She was very unhappy about the joint line cracking. She eventually accepted it (with several doors replaced and a discount) because it was a laundry room. My colleague had a meeting with me he won't soon forget and now adequately qualifies the customer on the front end. Especially those who say they want paint. Often, what they really want is thermofoil that looks like paint, not real paint.

I have done one kitchen in the Dove White this year that turned out quite nicely. It was in the shaker style with the satin chrome bow pulls and very simple moldings and a lot of clear glass with in cabinet lighting. Light grey floor tile and beadboard backing for the peninsula and back splash. Very serene beachy looking and the customer loved it. We had zero issues on the cabinets other than KM "losing" half the order (which showed up the next week), and yes, some of them came in with the paint already showing some cracking at the joints. She knew to expect this, because it was explained on the front end. So, it was not a problem.

I sell a lot of Kraftmaid -- my department here bills over 1.4 million with Kraftmaid -- a lot of cabinets at a kitchen at a time! They're a a mid-range line in the scheme of things, but it's our lower line of cabinets and is about 80% of our business. It's a great cabinet line with many options, finishes and styles and a price about 35% less than our next-higher custom line. I've seen my share of quality control issues (just last week a hickory door showed up in a cherry kitchen), but as others here has said, most problems can be avoided with proper explaination at the initial meetings, such as joint lines on painted doors (happens with all wood doors, no matter the manufacturer), or inconsistancies in glazed finishes -- I make sure to point these things out -- I've learned the hard way, LOL. Kraftmaid buys their doors from another source, so the wood is not hand-selected for your cabinets or finish -- it's very random. Some people would consider something like that a defect. If you are one of those people, you'll need to go up to a custom line that makes the doors and selects the wood. Some people have a higher tolerance for what's acceptable than others, and nothing made by man is perfect. All this said, Kraftmaid will make good on anything that's defective and the most important thing to remember as a consumer is to work with a dealer that is dedicated to customer satisfaction. The dealer is who will be contacting the cabinet company and getting your replacements in a timely manner.