I don't know any of those brands, but in terms of price for quality, you can't beat Ikea. If you have one close, you should look into it.

That was exactly my thought, too. Ikea makes quality, durable cabinets. My remodeling contractor, who also does custom homes, has installed them for some of his clients and in his own home as well. My next door neighbor, who has a fancier house than mine, installed then when he remodeled the kitchen of his $1M+ home and has been quite satisfied. Below are two helpful links regarding using Ikea kitchen cabinets.

5 Things We Learned While Buying an Ikea Kitchen

Ikea products overview

We have Homecrest and they are quite sturdy. They are five years old and still look like new in terms of wear. These are maple and have turned an orange color, other than that, no complaints.

I'm not sure what qualifies as mid or low. We're focusing on simple and durable in our little kitchen too.

We're chose Barker Cabinets (Ready To Assemble) in our new house; I've read only good things about them on GW. They have plywood boxes, dovetailed drawers, Blum hinges, solid wood doors and some kind of a special durable painted finish. They're also fully sourced and made in the US.

A standard 36" sink base cabinet, with shaker doors and painted white is $355.95. The same cabinet is $240.95 if you choose an unfinished cabinet that you'll paint yourself.

if you go medallion, the silverline has different glides than the gold or platinum. i have the silverline in a stained finish so can't comment on paint but the drawers definitely do not close as well as the lowes schuler version with the upgraded glides plus the brackets are plastic not metal! i wish i had asked more questions about the glides and upgraded to the better model:(

We have painted Kemper, they are about 3 years old, no problems. They were not upgraded to the plywood boxes in our (spec) house we bought. They have soft close doors and drawers., which work well. The finish seems to be durable - we are not particularly careful. One annoying thing was that they did not offer a soft close trash pull out. The other thing is that I think the full overlay could be closer together.

I have Diamond cabinets, which I think are the same as Kemper. We opted for painted finish at the last minute (I couldn't find a stain I liked as well as the taupe-y Portobello painted finish.) I had previously talked myself out of painted cabinets for fear of durability issues, but so far (9 months) they've held up great. And this is in a small, heavily trafficked galley kitchen that my boys occasionally use for indoor soccer matches! Fwiw my trash pull-out has soft-close, maybe that's a new addition?

I understand the love for Ikea as well as Barker here, but it's not a practical solution or a preference for everyone. We had neither time nor space to build cabinets, however easy it can be. I went so far as to order a sample cabinet from Barker, so I can attest to how nice their work is. But given all the disruptions of a full gut-remodel in a house with 2 working parents and young kids, whatever (modest) differential between Barker/Ikea and a mid-range brand like Diamond was well worth it for us!

Ikea sales starts today, I think.

I agree with smalloldhouse on the RTA cabs. Barker might be a good quality at a cheaper price, but not a great solution if you don't have the time to assemble. My husband would have killed me if I ordered RTA cabs :)

I have said this before in another post because I just researched cabs myself. It seems like there isn't a cab out there that people are not complaining about. Pick 2-3 cab makers you like, compare the specs & go for it. I read another thread where someone basically said mid grade cabs are generally the same (except for what Adorion said - make sure you are comparing apples to apples) and to buy from someone you like & will help you through the process. Not sure if that is helpful. Reading reviews for months will make you nuts and will paralyze you into no decision at all. Who knows what some of these people are doing to their cabs that are writing reviews?? I have had builder grade cabs for 20 years!! And there isn't one thing wrong with them, except that I hate them :)

I know a few people who have medallion & are happy with them (except the silver line for reasons stated above), my dad got Starmark without a minute of research & they are really nice.

Just a quick aside on RTA cabinets. We are planning to use Barker for our upcoming remodel. My contractor will be assembling them for us. And he thinks the quality of the specifications and the price point is good, even considering paying someone to assemble. Part of the Barker equation for us is that they offer a lot of flexibility in size at a low price point and we have an old house with very non-standard dimensions. We also purchased IKEA cabinets and had a carpenter do the assembly and installation in our last house and came out ahead of other low priced cabinets that we compared to.

So I wouldn't dismiss RTA just because you can't /don't want to assemble yourself. The money may still work out even if you are paying for assembly.

Crl, good point. I figured by paying someone to put RTA cabs together it would be a wash or maybe even more expensive.

Lily, I think it just depends on the specifics of the situation. When we did ikea we had a $40 an hour carpenter who was speedy and good so it it took him not very long to assemble our cabinets. It's been awhile, but I'm sure less than ten hours. This go around we need 20 inch deep cabinets for our sink run and a few other quirky dimensions. It's hard to find those options in most lower cost cabinet lines so that helps tip the equation in favor of Barkers for us this go-around.

Well, I got the Medallion quote today and it's close to the Dynasty one- too high for our budget, so it's out. Thanks all for you input - would still love any other insight if anyone has any! Your comments have been so helpful, thank you! Clearly I've been living under a rock though as I've never heard of Barker! Lily Spider and crl- you're right, I'm paralyzed, but...I still want a little more information to give me some comfort. Our contractor works with the KD quoting us Homecrest, but I can't find much about this company. Tempted to go with another KD who quoted Kemper as I at least have been able to find some feedback on this line. Just don't want to regret anything and even though, it's a tiny kitchen and not high end, it's still a lot of money. Many thanks - I'll definitely look into soft close & hardware more. Great to hear that pain finishes have been ok!