We have Costco bamboo flooring in our kitchen and think it's great. The click lock floating floor aspect makes DIY installation a snap. I personally don't consider kitchen floors to be a "wet" area like bathroom floors. We spill things, but not that often and we wipe it up right away. We've had the floor for two years and no problems. In fact we just pulled it up (in the midst of a kitchen renovation) and there is no water damage of any kind. That said, the idea that it is harder than oak is a bit deceptive. It dents and scratches like any wood flooring. It won't look pristine for that long. I have had it long enough to decide if the wear gives it character like oak or just makes it look beat up. Having pulled it up and having to put it back down make me very happy that we chose the flooring we did.

As a long-time kitchen designer I believe the All Wood Cabinets are made in China. Sometimes they come CKD--or complete knock down which means your installer has to assemble them. There are many finish issues. I am Kitchen Design Editor for How We Live magazine and Google! I am more than happy to answer direct questions about quality and price. Please go to my site and on the contact page you can 'Ask the expert'. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.designsbymichael.net

As Fabritec has its' own RTA line that is going after the Ikea market I did talk to a Contractor who had used both RTA lines and liked the Ikea better. He said he thought they assembled more easily and were machined more accurately. In terms of the assembled lines like Expressive\Expressions the veteran installer we had from Home Depot liked the Fabritec product a lot more than Thomasville and thought the finishing was better than Thomasville and Kraftmaid. Both Expressive and Instant were produced by Maax who sold to Fabritec a few years ago. HD staff in a few locations were very impressed with the improvements made by Fabritec since they took over production and they were supplier of the year to HD Canada a couple of years ago. Construction on the cabinets is pretty unique and they are much stronger than most frameless cabinetry before installation (they don't rack at all). All the cabinets except the sink base have solid backs made of the same material as the sides (Ikea just has a 1\4 inch cover you nail on). Fabritec uses 3\4 for their RTA line but only 5\8 for the assembled. I don't think you can get the ply in Canada, upgrading to ply is really a US thing and isn't really that desirable for frameless in my opinion.Fabritec Edgebands (in a PVC) to match your door colour. Hettich makes good hardware. My Mom didn't get full extension hardware (it isn't standard on the Instant) but I have seen the hardware in store and you can't notice any difference from displays using Blum. My Mom did a thermo finish but she only returned a couple of fronts and it wasn't a problem. Here are some pics of my Mom's kitchen. The cabinetry lined she used is called Instant and is stock line not semi-custom like Expressive\Expressions. Her kitchen isn't fancy (thermo, resilient sheet flooring, laminate etc.). Still the cabinets had some thoughtful details - the interiors were colour matched to the doors, the one piece MDF doors have a second routered edge that makes the corner appear to be square not rounded like many thermo door styles also they do all matching drawer fronts (no slab drawers, they always match the door style even on the RTA product). I contacted Fabrited directly with some questions and they were very responsive.

We just received our Tuscan Hill cabinets (which we are certain are made by Starmark). We opened them all and they are beautiful. One error was a decorative piece and they are already shipping a whole new Cabinet. We looked at almost every middle and high end cabinet in Northern Virginia and these exceed them in quality. The closest we have seen in quality were the direct Starmark cabs the neighbors have. Of course we do not yet know how things will fit as install starts next week and we customized a number of cabinets but our rough measurements look good.