I believe that is a key differentiator of quality. Cabinet finishers make a big fuss about how many coats and what kinds, where applied and what to do between coats. We had Rutt cabinets in our old kitchen, which I believe are pretty high end. They are 9 years old and the paint looks like new. Very impressive. Actually, they are so perfect that I specifically asked for hand painting in my new house because I want a rustic look and the paint was so perfect it seemed like it could be fake, to me.

Another Ikea kitchens advocate here. Installed ours in 2003. Spent 11.5K on the entire 180 sq f kitchen - all cabinets doors and fronts were solid wood (pine, discontinued), tons of drawers, sitting area, stainless appliances, granite, etc. If you want to keep your kitchen for the next 50-60 years, spend $150K and buy solid wood cabinets. If you are like many other people will get bored with your kitchen and/or want more modern details in 10-15 years, Ikea is the best option. Thicker than other medium range kitchen MDF (0.75" instead of 0.5") frames, high end Blum hardware with doors and fully extended drawers that have soft closure option. Both solid wood and melamine doors are very durable. As for the designer look, it actually all depends on your design abilities. I've seen $70K kitchen and $115K kitchen that looked much worse than many Ikea kitchens. Pick a good counter, knobs, curtains; think about trim and light. I've heard this 'Ikea-kitchen-is-for-losers' song from many contractors, but never from the actual owners. I will use Ikea kitchen cabinets (hacked) for our master bath remodeling. I was interviewing several contractors - two of them tried to convince me to not use Ikea cabinets for this. When I asked them about the alternative, they offered their cabinets instead. After comparing their cabinets to the Ikea ones that I chose, it turned out that their cabinets are: 1. About 2 times more expensive without all drawers I want and about 2.5 more expensive with the drawers; 2. Have mediocre hardware without soft closure, etc. 'What are you talking about??' said one of the contractors. 'All hardware is the same!' Yeah, right... The new Sektion line promises to be even better - more drawer options, more glass cabinets, etc. It will also be more expensive than Akurum probably. So, if the budget is important to you, use Ikea fall sale. The spring sale is already over in US. I got 20% off this time and I am very happy.

I have no-name plain round ORB knobs, also from "yourhomesupply" on ebay. The finish is holding up beautifully, even on the ones we routinely whack with rings and scrape against with belt buckles and jeans buttons. The price has gone up since I bought them, I paid about a buck each, but they're still a bargain and a half compared to retail. I had purchased the ORB knobs and cup pulls for our previous house from the same dealer (they were a perfect match for the Price Pfister Ashfield faucet in "Tuscan Bronze"... I want another one but it would look idiotic with my current craptastic kitchen) and then when we moved here I bought more of the exact same knobs because the kitchen cabinets had NO knobs at all. They weren't even the kind designed to have no knobs, PO just never put any on. Just took a few weeks of breaking fingernails and mashing fingertips for me to be back on eBay buying those knobs and it was a no-brainer to go back to the same dealer. Of course they're not top of the line but who has the money to spend twenty bucks on a single knob (I needed a lot because of a weird cabinet layout) and I thought they were just smashing for the price, not to mention the customer service was excellent. In the previous house we lived with them for about 8 months before we moved, we've had them almost 2 years in this one and we are NOT easy on anything in our kitchen! (Yourhomesupply's ebay pictures are terrible - the hardware looks MUCH nicer than that!)

Sorry for the delay getting back to you. Life gets in the way sometimes! So, we had the cabinet company make the leg. We ordered it when we ordered the cabs. We asked for sturdy - it's pretty beefy. The granite guy and my GC consulted with me onsite. The GC had done plywood subcounters so the templating could be done. There were several options and we went with the sturdiest, a steel plate. I just measured and it is 3/4" steel. My GC went and got it from a metal shop. I think the cost was around $300 but i'm still waiting on that bill (and many others, but hey I'm not complaining!) It's basically just replacing the 3/4" normal plywood subcounter you have with 2cm granite. The 2cm stacked edge granite is like .8 inches so that puts the steel slightly shorter that the granite overhang. I think the metal fabricator did the holes for the screws into the leg and for the screws into the pony wall in the island.