I think that red birch door is beautiful - I love the variation in the wood. It's one of the things that makes wood beautiful to me. My maple cabinets have some variation, in pattern as well as color - maple gets this satiny/swirly thing sometimes - and I love that. This door is beautiful, and the wide shaker style is very striking. Well, you know I like wide shaker - I did mine in Kraftmaid. I think this Ultracraft door is even nicer! To me, it's a very cool, contemporary, updated style. Also, FWIW, usually when I see wide shaker, the center panel is less recessed than on a standard shaker. I think that makes it less of a dust trap. I hate when you go to a cabinet showroom and you can run your finger along the bottom edge and pick up a ton of dust... I'm not HCO (house-cleaning-obsessed), so for me, a shallower edge is better. ;-) Don't know a lot about the construction differences between Ultracraft and Ikea (or about the total cost difference), but I think you should go for the one you *like* better. You're going to be looking at these doors every day. You don't want to look at them every time and say, oh, but I really wanted the other. Oh, the reverse raised panel thing vs. veneer doors - I think there are advantages and disadvantages. Here's a quote from a message from kompy: SOLID PANEL PROS: more durable, solid feel, consistent finish CONS: You can have some 'striped effect on center panels, more $$ VENEER PANEL PROS: less money, no striped effect on center panels CONS: less durable, finish might age differently around the frame and center panel. Here is a link that might be useful: The quoted thread

Very disappointed with our ours. White uppers, what was sold as maple (but is actually a veneer) lowers. “Wood” finishes don’t match from one cabinet front to another. The finish is easily damaged on the “wood“ and the white looks cheap. Not at all equivalent to the price they charge. Our contractor: ”I don’t understand - this is supposed to be a high quality product.”

I spent a lot of time comparing and contrasting Ultracraft with Innermost during my frameless cabinet review. I think Fergusons was surprised I returned so frequently to check their Ultracraft display. Opening and shutting drawers, checking their gliding, going over interior finish, feeling the finish. Ultracraft would have had my contract except for three things: -I noticed the pull split the wood of a front drawer. I asked about it, and they said it was just a display. Things happen, and perhaps it was an accident, but it made me wonder if when mine would be installed, they would split the drawer like that. -They had three whites, none of which were just right for me. The finish was more matte like than satin like. -Their price came in higher and was non-negotiable. I chose Innermost (Elkay Cabinetry) painted frameless and am very satisfied. All cabinets came in without any imperfections which i found amazing for painted (they are also conversion varnish, btw). All interior birch was similar and nicely done, without knots and edging well matched. All painted interiors were done nicely, but regrettably, on the thee 42" tall glass cabinets with mullions, the middle hinges on the box sits right over the glass door mullion, so your shelf must go either above or below the hinge. This makes the shelves not all aligned with the mullions as most competitive cabinet manufacturers have, and aesthetically the way it is suppose to be. I had asked about this prior to order, and am displeased. I'm working with Elkay on a remedy: my suggestion is four $3 Blum hinges on each door side, thus permitting the glass door mullions and inside box shelves to line up with each other. I have two original built in mullion glass cabinets in my dining room and was trying to integrate the look in the kitchen with the connected dining room. It's Elkay's satin paint finish I just marvel at: just a bit of sheen, no plastic offensive look or feel, and it's very durable and easy to keep clean. I love it! I think either Ultracraft or Innermost are very nice choices. I just had a few important particulars that swayed me towards Innermost, one being their paint finish. You do have more space with frameless. This post was edited by SparklingWater on Fri, May 2, 14 at 17:31

The cracks are caused by the wood expanding and contracting with natural changes in humidity and temperature. If the doors are made of multiple parts (as Shaker doors are) and paint is applied after the doors are built, the paint doesn't expand and contract with the wood and you can get cracks where the rails/stiles meet the center panel. MDF doesn't expand and contract. If the manufacturer were to paint (or at least prime) all the door parts before building the door, you wouldn't see cracks either -- but I don't know if anybody actually does this. Probably it would make construction a lot more complicated. In our house, we get noticeably wider gaps between ends of old HW floor planks in the winter. We also have painted beadboard wainscoting that has significant paint cracking in the winter (this is because I didn't know to prime/paint the tongues before installation). But our old painted wood interior doors don't have any cracking, and the newest HW floor doesn't have gaps either, so I think it partly depends on construction and finish. We have a white kitchen and avoided the question entirely by using Ikea doors that are clad in thermofoil or something, not paint. The new factory paint finishes are so smooth and hard they look pretty similar to thermofoil to me anyway. [heresy]