Ultracraft is a much better quality than Ikea. Look at the specifications of the wood thicknesses on the Ultracraft website and you'll see the difference. I wouldn't recommend thermofoil as it can melt from heat from your dishwasher or oven, even if a heat shield is installed. If you happen to light a candle or operate a crock pot or something hot underneath one of your thermofoil cabinets, the surface will melt and cannot be repaired. So, it's a risky finish. Laminate is a more durable choice, but you have to be careful with water getting underneath the laminate edges and swelling the MDF board and causing the laminate to de-laminate. As long as you are careful with water spillage in the kitchen, the high-gloss laminate cabinets are beautiful! An advantage of Ultracraft is that they offer custom sizes for no upcharge. Several other companies like Bellmont also make these frameless style of cabinets, but always compare them back to Ultracraft specifications so you know what quality you are getting. Ultracraft is the leader, to the best of my understanding. I'm re-doing my own kitchen, so this information is based on my own research and visits to cabinet showrooms.

As previously posted, thermofoil is not a desirable material as it isn't particularly durable. It was used widely in cheap kitchens.

IKEA isn't necessarily the best option unless you are assembling the cabinets yourself and are on a tight budget. You would be way more limited in terms of sizing of cabinet boxes.

Again your budget controls your options. The Italians have some incredibly beautiful high gloss modern cabinets at a high price level.

Shiloh Eclipse or Showplace Evo

Thank you all!! Very helpful! I'm checking out your suggestions as we speak! Much appreciated!

Lindsay, since I wrote my previous comment, I've been looking more at the Inovae frameless line by Plato Woodwork. Their specifications as far as wood thickness are even better than Ultracraft, and their customer service is far superior. They offer all the modern finish options including high gloss. They are based in Plato, Minnesota, and have been around over a century. It's hard to nail down pricing with this company, as some reviews talk about it being high-end pricing while other reviews talk about what a great value it is and less expensive than you would normally see this type of quality. Talking to dealers of Plato, I am also getting the impression that some are raising the price more than necessary, so if there are several Plato dealers in your area, you might compare quotes. You can find a video on YouTube showing how their cabinets are made, and their equipment and processes are state of the art. Keep in mind that if you need custom sizes, then the other company I mentioned, Ultracraft, offers that at no charge. I don't know if you'd get any cost reduction in ordering basic sizes from Plato since most of what they do is custom. Cost between the two companies will probably come down to what door size, configuration and accessory options you choose. So, if you chose the less expensive finish and door style with Plato for instance, it might come to a similar price as the more expensive options in Ultracraft.

All frameless will be in a more expensive category than comparative framed, and needs a top tier experienced frameless designer, and installer, which again increases the job costs. It can be easily ruined completely by a bad installer who racks it. Once installed, it is just as strong and durable as framed, despite some major bad press from those who only sell framed to try to discredit that construction method.

Dura Supreme, Kitchen Craft, and Wellborne are all going to be more moderately priced frameless lines, but none are going to be budget choices. Plato will fall into the same pricing range as Omega Full Access, which is more than the above, but less than the Italian and German imports.

IKEA for high gloss white is a great quality at a reasonable price.

My walk-in master closet is full of Ikea shelving and drawers that cost several thousand dollars. In one year's time, some of the shelves are already sagging under just the weight of bathroom towels. The laminate finish also scratches easily. As a result, I would never consider placing Ikea cabinet products in my kitchen.

My closet has the IKEA Pax wardrobe system, which is laminate over MDF board like the kitchen cabinets would also be. These scratches were created by the plastic attachment on my vacuum which I was using to vacuum up dust. I was not pressing hard, only lightly touching the attachment to cause this damage! My longer shelves began to sag in the middle within six months from only the weight of towels. This photo of the sagging is at one year after installation. The sagging is visible enough in real life that it bothers me, especially given that we spent thousands on these products. The shorter shelves haven't sagged, so if your kitchen cabinets are narrow, you may not have that problem, just prepare for possible surface damage and be very careful how you clean and use them. I will never buy Ikea cabinetry again unless their quality takes a sharp turn for the better.

Go IKEA with Semi-Handmade door/drawer fronts. You get a really custom look for a bit more than IKEA pricing.

I have had Ikea high gloss cabinets in my last 2 homes never had a problem but the finish is not actully a regular thermafoil but it stands up very well, I run a catering biz from my home kitchen so sometimes 6 people are all opening and closing drawers, all the cooking items are in use and still after 11 yrs in this house not one problem BTW the Pax system is for closets has a very different finish than the kitchen cabinets and I have clients that have hadPaz in their kids bedrooms for years with no problems and if that damage was from your vacuum then you better check your vacuum brush. I use the Pax all the time in my bedroom designs where there is no possibility of a walk in closet.

Semi Handmade is not an inexpensive choice at all. I have quotes where it is more money than just buying Omega Full Access that is already assembled and ready to be installed.

Not all frameless cabinets are created equal, and not all cost more than framed cabinets. You can have the look you are looking for with an experienced installer without having to cost you a fortune. and find a cabinet line that offers good quality and have an array of materials for a reasonable price. do your homework and research and you will be able to find what you are looking for, try Hanssem, Miralis, Ultracaft, Hans Krug, etc.

stay away from Thermofoil and look into the Acrylic category or texture laminates, there are several options that will work

Best of luck

@Patricia Colwell Consulting, my Ikea Pax system is only one year old purchased in November 2017, so if the systems in your clients' homes are much older, in that they've held up for years, I can only venture to guess that perhaps something has recently changed in the manufacturing of the laminate to make it not as durable or perhaps your clients are sustaining damage that they don't notice or care about. It was the tip of a plastic wand on a vacuum hose that scratched the surface with only a light touch. The longer shelves are sagging, so someone who has only shorter shelving in a system could possibly get by without the sagging. I wish I had gone with California Closets or something more substantial even if I had needed to pay more. My Pax system was already a several thousand dollar investment.

@Anthony Perez I agree that not all frameless styles cost more than framed within a particular brand. Some brands put such thick panels into their framed cabinets that the thickness of wood required for frameless isn't a downgrade at all, and the lack of framing equates to overall reduced materials cost for them. Frameless cabinets are usually faster to produce in the factory than framed, reducing labor costs. The type of door and hardware required for the cabinet design has as much of an impact on cost as does framed vs. frameless styling, based on what I have read. Frameless is a more modern application, so there is the element of companies being able to charge more for the newest trend plus increased development costs for styling that is new to a brand.

I'm really sorry to hear that, Inspo. I've had 3 Pax wardrobes for years now with no issues and recommend them heartily to people. Perhaps their finish quality has dwindled over the years. IKEA does have a warranty on their products though (the shelf sagging might be covered but not sure about the finish scratches) and accept returns for up to a year. They even buy back their products so you might want to look into that.

@tartanmeup Thanks for that warranty info on Ikea. I didn't know about that. I thought I'd just switch the shelves upside down periodically to let them warp the opposite direction. It would be difficult to extract the Pax system as it is currently installed tight to all walls and under a light fixture which had to be removed. The majority of it functions well for us, and I love the soft-close drawers we have in a couple of sections. We'll probably live with it and just never buy any wood or laminate products from Ikea again as a precaution. The areas where we had long shelving needed to be long to accommodate accessory organizational units we already owned plus blind corner areas, so I couldn't have avoided the warping by limiting our choices to the narrower units.

Hi everyone! I am sitting in an Ikea store as I write this. All your comments inspired me to do something about my sagging Pax shelves so I am getting 3 more shelves to help distribute the weight of items stored on them. I have taken a closer look at the kitchen cabinetry after several of you said you liked it, and while the styling is impressive, I have run across multiple broken door latch mechanisms, doors that are so stiff to open that it is a strain, and gouging out of the shelving material just on the display units. Granted the cabinetry looks better than many other frameless displays I have seen so I guess it is whatever your tolerance level may be for quality. I personally am shopping elsewhere for any brand new cabinet installations.

Passing judgment on Ikea kitchens by citing a few malfunctioning pieces of hardware throughout multiple showroom displays that have been roughly handled by tens of thousands of people or not properly installed in the first place doesn't warrant commenting on. What I'll say instead is working with Ikea kitchen cabinets on almost a weekly basis in my opinion their hardware is the best thing about them. It's made for them by Blum a top German cabinet hardware manufacturer. Their cabinet box itself is adequate but not impressive in any way. I never use their doors and drawers because I'm in the business of making custom fronts for these cabinets but you can put together a pretty nice kitchen using Ikea and even better using Ikea + Custom.

@jdesign_gw The multiple latches that were broken were plastic push-to-open pieces. The small plastic pegs that stick out of the hardware were broken off on doors all over the showroom, making the doors completely non-working. One display had uplift doors that were too stiff to open without enormous effort. I would imagine a real kitchen would receive just as much wear as a showroom over years of use. Do you follow up with clients as to their long-term outcome with the cabinets you've installed? I was thrilled with my Ikea closet when first installed. A year later, not so much. I'm glad you've had a successful business with Ikea products. Perhaps your custom work includes your own door-opening hardware that isn't failing prematurely like some of the hardware that comes standard on Ikea doors.

By the way, I ended up getting 3 drawers instead of more shelves to add to my longest shelf area as I feel the box construction of the drawers will better prevent sagging. I did notice that the Ikea kitchen cabinetry stayed within a narrower width tolerance for all the units available versus the closet systems, and I wish they would restrict width on the Pax closet system as well to protect customers from the sagging shelf problem I am facing. I loved one of the 3D laminate option on the kitchen doors, and the tolerances of the door clearances and design options looked great compared to other displays of frameless cabinetry brands I've seen. Pros and cons are mixed with Ikea, in my opinion. I've bought a lot of things there, but the closet shelving was my most expensive purchase and a little disappointing in the long-term. I will doubtless shop there again, just not for cabinetry or shelves unless I hear they have upgraded to prevent some of the quality issues I've experienced.

Ikea's Pax closet drawers are nothing like their kitchen drawers. The kitchen drawers are a much better quality. As for their touch-latch I have never used theirs. I use one by Blum which they call "tip-on". It's drilled into the edge of the box so you don't need to use the holder with it. I don't think their touch latches would get the same abuse in ones own home but it's only a few dollars to replace them. Wide shelves without additional support are prone to sagging not just Ikea's. There are a number of things you can do to minimize this problem depending on the look you want.

@jdesign_gw Thanks for the review of Blum tip-on. I was hoping to use that for my new cabinet hardware and figured the plastic touch-to-open units breaking on IKEA doors must be their own brand, not Blum, so thanks for the confirmation. I'm attaching a few photos of things I liked from my recent IKEA trip from the kitchen cabinet displays, 3D laminate and low-profile pulls to help with clearance issues, though the pulls would feel more sturdy made from heavier or different metal than what appeared to be aluminum.