I bought cabinets from this same guy and you are not imagining it, these are poor quality. I had many of the same issues plus I had damage to the finish. I brought out a custom cabinet builder/refinisher to see if they were repairable and his professional opinion is that the cabinets have been exposed to too many variables in humidity that is why there is so much bowing, shrinking, warping,separating, etc. In my case the finish actually bled onto the styrofoam packaging material leaving marks all over the finish. The replacements they sent had the same problems so I asked for a refund and told them to come get their cabinets. Like you I had assembled the cabinets that weren't damaged on the promise that the damaged ones would be replaced. Mind you it took 2 months to get replacements and they were no better. I also want to note that my phone calls and emails were not returned during the 2 months we were waiting on replacement cabinets. Because I am out of state and these items were being shipped I initially ordered one cabinet which my husband now refers to as the "bait cabinet" it was very nice unlike the majority of the other cabinets I later received. I did file a chargeback with my credit card company and Ben fought me every step of the way, even blatantly lied. Fortunately, I smelled a rat early on and saved every email and kept note of every unreturned phone call. I too filed with the bbb, I am the "refusing to adjust" complaint. Ultimately, I won my dispute but not without harrassment. The cabinets sat in our garage for a year waiting to be picked up and I finally donated them to a womens shelter. You may want to run his name through California state contractor license board- search by personnel- you may be surprised by what you find. It may also help to know that KitchenPros is also Lido Kitchens or something like that and Westlake Construction, might want to look up those names too. Good luck, I feel for you. The lesson I learned " if it seems to good to be true, it is" I now have pinnacle RTA which I purchased through a local hardware store and I love them!!

OK - not to hijack this thread - but I just have to say that my experience so far with Lowe's and Kraftmaid has been GREAT. Affer I placed my order at Lowe's I read a thread on here that had me scared to death I had made a terrible decision. I actually haven't read much positive feedback on Kraftmaid here so I wanted to put in my two cents. I had gone through several KD's, then basically took the design I liked best to Lowe's and had them order the cabinets according to the design I brought. It was a very large order as we will have a pretty big kitchen when this is all done. (combining 2 rooms) Anyway, we are smack in the middle of our remodel now. Our Lowe's kitchen cabinet guy warned me that it was more likely than not that some cabinets would arrive damaged, but that he could get a replacement within 2 weeks, so not to panic. I level set my expectations to expect this. All of the base cabinets have been installed, and they all look great! We had a few small problems - a few drawer fronts had the wrong style front on them, and some trim that wasn't finished right. But no scratches, dents, or anything like that. I am guessing that all Lowe's are not like this - but the cabninet guy has come to my house several times to "check on the installation" (even though our installer is not affilated with Lowe's at all) - and when he saw the small problems he immediately went back and ordered replacements, no questions asked, I don't even have to send back the wrong fronts, or take picures, or anything. And he has the Kraftmaid rep coming to my house next week to look at the problems with the trim to see if he can finish it on site - but the Lowe's guy went ahead and ordered replacements to be on the safe side. So, so far so good for Kraftmaid. I haven't seen the uppers yet, they are stacked in my garage in a way that I can't really get to them until they take them out to install them. But I'm less worried about those, at least by that point I will have the granite in and can get my kitchen in "working" order.

Not at all high. Cheap. Suspiciously ridiculously cheap for that huge amount of cabinets with that level of ++++ upgrades. It's 2x-3x the size of an "average" kitchen. You've probably got 2-3K worth of just drawer glides in there, and the hood is about 4-5K, without the blower. And yeah, those doors are an expensive profile. I'd have to see examples of his work for that price for sure. (I would want to anyway.) But, I'd want to have a sample door and subject it to my own KCMA testing. It's the finish that usually is the weak point in custom cabinets. It's never as durable as a factory finish. So, I'd want to be sure it was at least durable enough to pass my own lifestyle test. Here is a link that might be useful: KCMA testing. Do your cabinets pass?

"butt joints with fasteners" is likely to be the same as "pocket hole" construction- the most common in semi custom, and local custom makers. To get doweled or mortise and tenon face frames you typically need an upper mid to hi end maker- there are fewer of them. Just because they call it custom does not mean anything about construction nor is it the same as the manufactured brands that are custom. Even with those it's always worth checking, some of what gets called custom is barely that IMO. Dado is unusual for frameless- I'm used to seeing doweled. Melamine is not unusual in frameless. It cups less than ply so in many ways is better.