We had MDF in our old home and really liked it. However, we didn't have kids at the time. The thing about MDF is that is can dent easily. With wood you can putty dents and things but I am not sure if you can with MDF, that may be a question to ask. I think the MDF looked really nice, we used an high quality oil based paint on it so the finish was really hard and durable. The paint went on very well. The other consideration is the moisture sensitivity of MDF. If you have it in locations that can get damp like a bathroom you may have some trouble with it if it isn't sealed well and a lot of water gets on it. As far as price...our last home was in a different area and the MDF was considerably less expensive than real wood of any species. The home we are building now the wood is less expensive than MDF since MDF is not commonly used in this area for some reason. We have decided to do real wood trim in our current home since we have two little boys and two dogs. We feel the real wood will hold up better and can be repaired if something happens. I agree that the paint has everything to do with the prep and quailty of paint used, we will go with the crazy expensive oil based paint from Sherwin Williams again since it held up so well with the last home.

wryorwhite -- Don't be scared by all this talk of yellowing. It's exaggerated. Bear in mind that oil-based paint was essentially all that was used in American homes through the 1980s -- so unless you're a teenager, you were around when any house you'd walk into (including the one in which you grew up) had its walls painted with oil-based paint. Trust yourself and your own experience...do you ever remember walking into a house and thinking to yourself "My, these walls are awfully yellowed!"? I sure don't. When's the last time you've heard someone say "Oh, look at those walls! They've gone from looking like snow to looking like Big Bird! This is certainly oil-based paint!"? Never. Yes, oil-based paint yellows very slighly with time. So do all oil-based products, including the clear polyurethane with which wood floors are most often finished. This "yellowing" effect is minimal, and it's not something that jumps out at you or is offensive or anything like that. You have to actively look for it, and the only people who do that are (a) homosexuals, and (b) people who work in the marketing departments of latex-based paint companies. The drawbacks of latex-based paint have largely been resolved in the past few years. The latex-based paints of 2008 are a far cry from the ones of 20 years ago. This is especially true with the high-quality brands like Pratt & Lambert. Modern high-end latex pains bond to drywall well, hold up to moisture and cleaning well, etc. However - latex-based paints aren't as good as oil-based paints when it comes to moisture and dirt resistance, standing up to scrubbing, and bonding to wood. They never can be, because oil (unlike latex) naturally resists water, and naturally soaks into wood (rather than just sitting on top like a skin). Think of what happens when you mix oil and water -- they don't mix; instead, they just separate and keep apart. So moisture and dirt don't bond to the oil-based paint, so it's very easy to clean without damage. In addition, oil-based paint soaks into wood -- unlike latex-based paint, which forms into a skin that you can peel off. This is one of the big drawbacks of using latex paint on high-traffic wood items (like kitchen cabinets). My house has latex-based paint on the walls and ceilings, and oil-based paint on all the wood trim (including the doors and windows and cabinets) -- this is a time-tested and popular arrangement, and it has held up very well for me and my neighbors. Speaking of polyurethane -- there are two types, oil-based and water-based (latex-based) - same as paint. ALL of the manufacturers -- Minwax, Cabot, etc. -- recommend strongly in favor of using the oil-based polyurethane on floors. It's tougher, it holds up better to traffic and moisture, and this "yellowing" effect that the self-proclaimed experts yammer on about are so minimal as to be non-existent. The same is true with the oil-based vs. water-based (latex-based) paints. Again, trust yourself and your own experiences -- how many times have you walked into a home and thought to yourself that the painted walls and ceilings, or the wood floors, were yellowed?

Ball bearing drawer guides are ubiquitous now; it's tough to buy cabinets without them. BUT there are many types of glides that use ball bearings, with a wide range of quality and usefulness among them. There are cheapie glides that cost only a couple of dollars per drawer and do well enough, but only allow you to pull the drawer out 3/4 of its length so that stuff in the back of the drawer can be hard to reach. At the other end of the scale (~$30/drawer) are glides that are completely concealed under the drawer, allow you to pull the drawer all the way out so you can access the very back of it easily ("full extension") and have a mechanism that gently closes the drawer for you so that it's impossible to slam. In between those price points are slides of varying quality that are full extension but that are mounted more conspicuously (some people think they're unattractive) and lack the soft-close feature. If this is all new to you, you might want to spend some time browsing threads on cabinetry in the Kitchens forum. There are lots of options to choose from, many of which are worth the upcharges that inevitably go with them. If you don't yet have a detailed cabinet design and are just asking cabinet makers for guesstimates based on room size or linear feet of cabinets, then the prices they are giving you probably don't mean much.

You said you ordered the Doors wood with MDF panel - that will not eliminate the paint fissures from expansion and contraction - the wood parts will still move. The mdf panel helps because it is not moving but it is not the cure all. I have a company who does doors made of all MDF but put together like a regular door is and while the paint lines are minimal they are not marketing the product as not ever getting those lines. It will still be possible but much less. As far as chipping goes, I think that will happen no matter what the door is made of. Have a conversation with your KD and see what the real deal is and go from there....Maybe they will let you use one of the doors as a test... bang it around, bump it with pots, soak it with water, spill stuff on it and see what you think ( but you should try that with wood too....) Good luck!