Keep in mind that ONLY KraftMaid has the two-coats finished process of their doors/drawer fronts whereas Diamond, Schuler, and other comparable-priced brand only have one-coat finished process. if you go to your dealer or Lowes or Home Depot and feel the smoothness of the doors/drawers' finishes, you will find that KraftMaid has the smoothest feel and a more durable finish than the other comparable competing brands. Also KraftMaid construction and its drawers/doors holds up very well and last longer, and stays good looking longer. I have a Diamond Reflections/Intermediate series with Ply-Ends box construction which weren't cheap and after two years, the quality has started to show its weakness resulting in issues needed to be replaced as such the tall wall cabinet doors starts to bow out, shelves warp down from the weight of the dishwares, drawers are skinny thin the thickness of your pinky finger, especially if you have a pots and pan drawer that's 30 inches or wider, the weight will make the drawer box bow down and become treacheously bouncy as if it's going to break off. The bottom of the drawer boxes on base cabinets of 30 inches and wider do not have a spine the in center under the "floor" of the drawer box to prevent the floorpanel from bowing down, from the weight of the items in it. ONLY KraftMaid has these spines attached from the back to front under the center bottom of the wide drawer boxes for structural integrity. Their drawer runner guides are wider, thicker and much more durable as STANDARD feature. With Diamond, you would have to upgrade to the most expensive Intrigue/Advance series to get that wider and strong drawer runne guides and wood veneered interior boxes. With KraftMaid's the wood veneer interior boxes (only available on APC All Plywood construction) is standard and cost less than Diamond Intrigue/Advanced series. Diamond does have very nice door styles, wood, and color finishes and Diamond is the only leading brand with the most variety of paint color finishes than the other brands. You just have to pick your priorities or poison. If you are concerned about quality finishes and durability, then go with KraftMaid- they are guaranteed to last a very long time as I have seen its true test of time of cabinets as old as 1984 and they haven't aged much at all.

Ok, I had some free time today and went by HD and Lowes to look at Kraftmaid installed kitchens and the other MasterBrand lines. Since they're everywhere, I'll compare to them. I would guess they have some of the same issues since some joints looked similar to my cabinets after I had cleaned them up. I would say that my cabinets showed it more and had more instances of it. But, once cleaned up, I don't really notice it until I look for it. The shelves cleaned up decently well. I don't think I'll notice them now that they're cleaned up, but the Kraftmaid and co. lines had much cleaner shelf ends. As for the cuts in the base bottom that I showed, I've only tried half of the rep's trick, so I can't say how that worked out. I have maybe 4 instances of it across all the cabinets. I really don't care for it, but hopefully it will clean up such that it's barely noticeable. Again, it's all a tradeoff: price, wood family, door style, finish quality, durability, interior quality. I feel that in the end I traded off a bit on interior quality as compared to Kraftmaid such that I could to better on many of the others. I do wish it had been a little better, but I would not have wanted to spend any more than I did (budget) or traded off on finish and durability. See the pantry pics at the end of this. My cabinets are Wellborn Forest. The doors are the Madison door style made of cherry. Finish is ginger with smoke highlights. LWO, you had earlier suggested a simple raised door using a warmer finish than my floors. I hope I got it right. In any event, I LOVE the look! Thank you all for looking this over. I know all of you had very different opinions of this than I. I suppose that's my engineer's mentality coming through. I don't believe in perfection and everything is a series of tradeoffs. I aimed here for the tradeoff that best suited my goals. Before: From Shared After (the angle is a bit different as is visible in the grain pattern, but this is the same joint as above): From Shared Before: From Shared After (it doesn't jump out anymore, whereas before it did): From Shared Pantry: From Shared From Shared From Shared Justin

Mine are just being installed. Panels are 1/4 inch not 1)2 inch. I bought the painted ones in a cream. I did not thoroughly read the part that they tell you different color cabinets are not all same paint quality. Yes the paint process is more of a pressed on skin. For mild dings it's better for hard wacks, your cabs are toast. Just drilling holes for sink Drain the wrap painted finish peeled off. I spent a lot of money on these and can see the future of more chips and dings. If I had to do it over maybe the stain finish is better. What I find misleading is their description of the paint process, at no point do they mention it's more of a pressed wrap painted job. If that is not what it is- than their paint process just does not adhere with the base wood. If I had to do it over would choose a stain . And maybe order extra doors for areas that may delaminate. I don't think this paint peel issue is just Forevermark, it's the newer automated paint process for massed produced cabinets which they show you on their website. At this point I just have to careful.

I have been doing a lot of research and homework on cabinets - and im getting tripped up on cabinet brands and relative quality. I see many cabinet brands that have All Plywood construction, 3/4" plywood shelves, 1/2 inch tops, bottoms, and sides, softclose doors/drawers, solid wood dovetailed full extension drawers and either 1/2 inch backs or 3/4" hanging rails. Basically everything one would need to be considered a quality cabinet. But those cabinets run the gamut in price. Between Forevermark, Fabuwood, Waypoint, Diamond, Kraftmaid, Brighton, Omega, Plain & Fancy and on and on....all seem to have very good construction, or upgradeable to the construction parameters above. Obviously price is not a determinant of quality. But really - what is it that drives the major price difference between the brands? I get that the more expensive custom brands will be able to modify cabinets and make them better fit the space. But if Forevermark fits the space - why spend more? I'm not opposed to spending more on cabinetry - but really trying to understand the value proposition here and dont want to spend more if its not needed. The cabinets I am removing are 1/2" particleboard cabinets, with stapled drawers and no soft close. And they held up fine for 30 years. ....What am I missing?...