I have used Kraftmaid twice already and both times all of the cabinets have been completely consistent between each other. I just received shipment of 18 cabinets and they all look fantastic - even all of my contractors complimented them.

Perhaps Home Depot is piece mealing their displays from various lots? That may account for variation in color. When one purchases from an independent dealer, I would think there is more control over what is happening than the "big box" stores.

Just a possibility - I have no idea if this is true or not.

Also, my understanding has always been that Home Depot (and other stores similar) have special deals with various manufacturers and "rebox" their items at times (plumbing supplies for instance). Maybe this is the same with cabinets too?

My Kraftmaid cabinets are gorgeous.

I ordered them through an independent dealer rather than Lowe's/Home Depot and they replaced a drawer for me immediately that wasn't sitting on the track perfectly. Also, they sent me a new door for one where I didn't love the way the natural wood knotting looked. The replacements were perfect and matched the color of everything else in the room. Kraftmaid has tremendous customer satisfaction policies.

My DD recently installed Kraftmaid Hanley style in chestnut. All of the cabinets appear consistent and look beautiful! Black hardware finished them off nicely.

No problem with consistency here. I've never noticed any inconsistency in the big box stores either.

Wood is a natural product and all wood cabinets are naturally varied as a result. That's normal. If you want something else, well, there are are ways to get cabinets with zero variation in finish.

#1. Pay a big premium for premium matched woods (like 100% cherry heartwood) and the time of a custom cabinet maker to carefully match and finish each piece like fine furniture. This is the most expensive approach.

2. Do a painted finish. Paint will uniformly cover the variations in the wood. This isn't ideal if you want "wood" cabinets, but it will give you uniformity.

3. Do a tinted varnish as a topcoat. This has a lot in common with a painted finish as it obscures the natural wood grain. But it does leave the wood looking more uniform. This is an approach that many very low cost lines use to create dark finishes on difficult to finish woods like maple. Any chips in the finish will show the light wood underneath.

My suggestion is to take a closer look at many different cabinet lines. What you will see is that the natural variations that will blend together as a whole in your kitchen. It all looks "the same", but NOT "uniform". If any single door or drawer is very very different, then Kraftmaid (or any other brand) will be glad to exchange it out for a new one. But, expecting wood to be perfectly uniform and even in color is only setting yourself up for massive disppointment. It is an unrealistic expectation.

Hi kiana..

I just had Kraftmaid cabs installed 4 months ago...cherry with a dark Peppercorn stain. They look great and the stain is even throughout...Love the richness of the stain. It looks like dark chocolate..

KA:)

Here is a link that might be useful:

Not to hijack the thread, but Kitchenaddict, what did you use for your backsplash? I remember you and I "speaking" a few months back when I was considering the Peppercorn finish. I went with Kaffe instead, on Quarter Sawn Oak, which looks very similar to yours. Your backsplash looks really lovely and I'm still struggling with what to do about mine.

Thanks!

I went with Kraftmaid Maple Cognac and love them. Are kitchen isn't finished yet but here's a pic. To get an idea of the color, I have brazilian walnut floors that are more on the reddish side. The cognac is more on the yellow side.

Hi sivyaleah...

My backsplash is Crema Marfil Tumbled Marble. I got it from Arizona Tile, in Southern California. Good Luck!!

KA:)

I ordered my KM cabinets through Lowes, - Cherry stained with Sunset which is a deep color, but not dark. They all look consistent, and I love them. Kraftmaid and Lowes were great to work with. Perhaps you saw samples that hadn't been on the showroom floor for the same period of time.

I ordered my Kraftmaid cherry chocolate cabinets from Lowes. Lowes was great to work with, but the cabinets came in with lots of quality issues. They were bowed and had uneven fronts and sides. Several of the cabinets did not have the correct bottoms--missing the base molding.
They offered to replace the cabinets, but my kitchen was already torn apart.
Look at the bottom of the thread for link to my pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: my kraftmaid thread