When I was buying and researching a few years ago, the construction specs for Diamond and Thomasville were not exactly the same. The backs of the Diamond were thicker than the Thomasville for one thing. I can't remember off hand if there were other differences. Looking at Thomasville and Diamond catalogs, they look exactly alike.

dreamojean: Thank you for taking the time to put this list together. I've spent months educating myself on the various lines, yet I am still not sure on a few things. You mention the Columbia cabinets in your descriptions, but it isnt in the list. Do you know where it would land in terms of quality / cost?

Update: I ended up choosing the Prelude line, upgraded to all plywood boxes, and with hardware upgrades (soft close, etc.). While the shaker style wasn't as great as the Reflections (the drawers are slab rather than 5 piece), since it's for a summer cottage I decided I could live with that. We have a small kitchen and with all the Lowes instant discounts, and sale, the cabinets came to approx. $5000(with tax and freight). This also includes the "premium finish" of white painted. The Diamond reflections line, with all plywood box, came to about $7500. So, it was an easy decision. The sale at Lowes included instant discounts of $400, $800, $1200, etc. depending on how much the total was, a Diamond promotion that included a free sink base and premium finish for buying 10 or more cabinets, and also a mail-in rebate of 10% for a visa gift card (good for anywhere, not just Lowes). So I will be getting a $470 gift card as well, bringing my total down to about $4500! While this was still quite a bit more than the Ikea cabinets we were considering, we decided it was worth it since the only Ikea is about 4 hours away (we wanted to avoid multiple trips) and our contractor had never installed Ikea. Seemed like headaches were in the offing and it just wouldn't be worth it. The only bummer with the Prelude line was that the base lazy susan cabinet was not great - low sides on the lazy susan and no options for upgrade, and built in a "barrel" style. Really didn't like it, but again, seemed like a worthwhile trade-off, since it's not our full-time kitchen, but a shared summer cottage. The KD at Lowes was really great. He priced it out several ways, and even worked the system a bit for the Reflections line (even though I ended up not going with it.) He added "furniture ends" to my end cabinets which brought the price up, but also bumped us up to the next level of instant discount (another $400 off), actually saving money over not having the premium ends! I'll update again when they get installed!

I've had Century cabinets in my kitchen now for 8 years, going on 9 years. I'm fairly happy with the cabinets. The build is good quality and they are glossy and as nice looking as the day we bought them. They survived a wild child crashing into them with toys and everything else without scratches or chipping. They clean up fairly easily too. We occasionally wipe them down and clean them with murphy's oil and thats about it. We have soft close drawers, which I like, but some of the drawers stick from time to time and dont close all the way. Not a huge deal, since opening and closing them again usually fixes the problem. It might have more to do with the amount of stuff in the drawer rather than a hardware failure. We did not get soft close doors, which I do regret. The hinges can easily be replaced to upgrade. Speaking of hinges, we have had a couple hinge failures, where they snapped and we had to replace them, but I think it has more to do with my wife's "bull in a china closet" style handling. Having done extensive research of different cabinet brands, build materials and quality standards, I can tell you that many brands are equally good when it comes to quality. Just look for brands that use at least 1/2" plywood sides (solid hardwood for a premium option), solid hardwood face frames and doors and a plywood backing. Finding a brand that is KCMA Certified cna provide you some peace of mind that the company has taken additional steps to ensure that the cabinets are a quality build. If you are going with custom cabinets, thats all the research you will have to do, but if you are trying to save a lot of money and want to go with a semi-custom cabinet, look for brands that have extensive catalogs of cabinet sizes, options and accessories. This will give you a lot of flexibility in your design. We followed this advice to build our kitchen and laundry room and have been very happy with the results of both. For our laundry room, we chose the Shenandoah Cabinetry brand. I didn't expect much from a brand sold at a box store that is semi-custom, but we ended up being more impressed with their product than Century. Not only is the look and build quality equal to our Century cabinets, but the customer service and ordering process was so easy. Century was not so easy and it seems that they prefer to work directly with local installers. Shenandoah had a huge catalog of sizes, styles, options and finishes. We had no problem custom fitting their semi-custom product in our space. The end result seems to impress everyone who comes over, while the Century cabinets in the kitchen rarely gets gets many accolades.