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"I have over 20 years experience in the cabinet industry and have sold almost every cabinet brand on the market including stock cabinets, semi-custom cabinets, and custom cabinets. If you are
looking to make a one time cabinet purchase, please consider the following advice which is based upon customer input, field experience, and
cabinet sales history."
Viewing a base cabinet without a counter top is very revealing and is the best way to view construction methods and materials. When you inspect a cabinet look inside, outside, behind, underneath and on top of it. By examining a cabinet from all sides before it is installed you will be able to determine how well it is put together. A good installer can often mask poor cabinet quality, but the absence of quality materials and construction methods will come back to haunt you. Many home center displays have cleverly added bottom molding to wall cabinets to hide poor quality particle board or thin plywood. If you cannot tell the quality from looking at a display, ask to see a cabinet that is not installed.
Checking the bottom and/or top edge of a cabinet box will allow you to see whether the cabinet side is made of plywood or particle board. Some companies boast "all wood" construction or plywood sides, but when you see the materials you may find poor quality. Examine the cabinet material's edges and look for solid, sound materials. I have seen plywood covered in cheap wood grained vinyl, plywood that has a spongy wood filler in the middle, weak staples holding the structure together, etc. The cabinet sides should be at least 1/2" thick grade "A" furniture plywood. If the middle of the plywood looks like a sponge or has lots of voids, it is cheap plywood that won't hold up well. Also look for patches in the plywood. Patches in plywood mean that it is a second grade of plywood (imperfections have been removed and a patch applied). Good furniture does not contain patched plywood.
This is the inside of a popular brand
of plywood cabinet. Once the cabinet
is installed it would be difficult to see this.
Note the torn cuts.
The cuts on our cabinets
are not torn,
and we do not use hot melt glue
to hold the cabinet together!!
(click to enlarge)
Check an uninstalled cabinet for torn cuts, splinters, gobs of glue, and spaces between the joints. All of these signs point to bad construction. The picture below shows a 3/16" gap between the cabinet back and the cabinet side. This gap was filled with hot melt glue. Unsuspecting homeowners can't see this kind of defect after installation, but it is likely to cause structural failure in the cabinet over time.
You will not find gaps like this in our cabinets.
(click to enlarge)
Avoid cabinets made with particle board (sometimes referred to as MDF). This saw dust or flake board material does not hold a fastener as well as solid wood or plywood, and it tends to flake easily, especially near the edges. Flaking can cause glues to give out or veneered edges to peel. Particle board also adds an incredible amount of unnecessary weight to the cabinet which most installers will complain about. Heavy materials not necessarily mean good materials.
Flaking particle board and a degrading finish become
readily apparent before long.
We do not use particle board.
(click to enlarge)
Make sure the cabinet has substantial hanging rails. Wall cabinets should have horizontal wood rails running across the top and bottom of the rear of the cabinet. These should be at least 1/2" thick hard wood, and the sides of the cabinet should be doweled into the wooden rail. The hanging rail is one of the major support structures of the cabinet which keeps the wall cabinet on the wall. Base cabinets should have one rail across the back of the cabinet located at the top. Some hanging rails are visible from inside the cabinet and some are hidden behind the cabinet back. It is very important that the rail join the cabinet side in a snug and sound joint. You should not see large gaps or gobs of glue. Avoid cabinets that have gobs of hot melt glue filling gaps because it is not as strong as wood glues and tends to give out in a short period of time.
Hot melt glue doesn't last (shown above).
We use construction grade glues instead.
(click to enlarge)
Cabinet shelves should be removable and adjustable. If the shelf is fixed, move on to a better cabinet and enjoy more storage freedom. Remove a shelf and inspect the shelf clip and the edges of the shelf to see how it is made. If the shelf is particle board, it won't hold up as well as plywood. If the shelf clip is plastic, chances are it will break and your dishes will become a disaster. Shelves should be 3/4" thick to keep from warping or breaking. Plywood is always better for shelves and usually found only in the better cabinets.
Particle board shelves covered in wood grained vinyl
often fool customers into thinking the interior is wood.
Don't be fooled, particle board doesn't last.
We do not use particle board shelves.
(click to enlarge)
Plastic shelf clips do not hold for long.
Click the image to see other important notes.
(click to enlarge)
Feel the surface of the cabinet's exposed areas. Slowly rub your hand all over the cabinet box: doors, drawer heads, sides, and frame. If the grain is raised and rough like sand paper then the finish is lacking. Feeling some grain is normal, but a sandpaper rough surface will get dirty quickly and the finish will tend to break down more easily because it isn't sealed properly.
This cabinet is only five years old.
A bad finish can degrade quickly.
When the homeowner complained, the manufacturer
blamed the customer for abusing the cabinet.
(click to enlarge)
Check to see if the bottoms of the wall cabinets are finished to match the rest of the cabinet. Your refrigerator cabinet bottom may be an obvious mismatch if it isn't. Other wall cabinet bottoms may stand out as having an odd color underneath. While seated, this problem may be more noticeable. Cabinet bottoms above a window or over a peninsula may be very noticeable.
Many cabinet brands produce cabinets with real wood face frames and doors / drawers but use wood grained vinyl veneers on finished ands. Any parts that are covered vinyl will not age the same as the real wood face. two or more tones will will become apparent as the kitchen ages. I have seen vinyl coverings peel, bubble, and stain. Avoid any veneers that are not real wood and made from the same wood species as the face of the cabinet. Solid color thermofoil laminated cabinets have the same problem. Thermofoil is a heat applied plastic that adheres to the door and drawer front to give the appearance of a solid painted finish. The cabinet boxes are laminated in a different material than that used on the doors. This variation in materials will also bring about a two tone appearance as the cabinets age.
Wood grained vinyl peeling off a shelf.
We do not sell products like this.
(click to enlarge)
Remove the drawer and look inside the cabinet. If you can't remove the drawer ask a sales person to show you how it comes out. Closely examine the drawer slide and how it attaches to the cabinet. If it has a plastic mounting bracket, the drawer slide will break free. The mounting bracket should be made of metal. Check to see if the slide is screwed to the cabinet; the bigger the screw, bracket, and mounting block, the better the holding power. Make sure the drawer slide screw isn't just screwed into a thin cabinet back. Some manufacturers screw into 1/8 - 1/4" thick cabinet back and believe this will hold. You need at least 1/2" material under the screw to hold. Hardwood or plywood material is best.
Plastic drawer slide mounts don't last.
We use steel mounts!
(click to enlarge)
Check the drawer box for quality while you have it out of the cabinet. The dovetails should be extremely tight and should also be beveled to hold themselves together. Is the drawer box made of hardwood? Press on the drawer box with your thumbnail. If the wood doesn't give under pressure, the drawer box is more likely to last. Some companies use sycamore or other softwoods and call them hardwoods. Other manufacturers use metal drawer boxes, but it has been my experience that metal drawer boxes tend to lose the drawer head after a few years because of poorly designed mounting systems. Make sure the drawer head is screwed to the drawer box with good size screws.
Is the bottom of the drawer made with plywood? You want a stable bottom that is supported by the sides of the drawer box and drawer slides. Avoid drawer boxes with a laminated vinyl interior. Is the drawer box sanded smooth or are you going to get splinters when you use the drawer? Check to be sure the drawer slides with little effort when opening and closing. Hard moving slides tend to keep the drawer open and chance of personal injury or drawer damage may occur when someone collides with an open drawer.
Find out how often the manufacturer delivers damaged goods. The length of time it will take to replace a cabinet part may also be an important issue. I have seen one giant cabinet company deliver damaged goods to nine out of ten jobs. That manufacturer had so much damage they offered a standard monthly rebate as a dealer incentive. Our products arrive 99.995% of the time without damage, and we have an outstanding record of fast replacement parts if something is delivered damaged. Delivery of replacement parts in three weeks is common for us (unique items, custom finishes, or items with doors may take longer ). Some companies take 6+ weeks to replace an item.
Lose cabinet parts shipped in a box ready for you to assemble can be purchased, but there are many problems with this type of cabinet. If you are familiar with the ready to assemble office furniture sold at the big office supply stores, you will know that these items are low quality, short term products. You will also know that it takes a long time to assemble each item and that the methods and fasteners used are not durable. In order to create a durable cabinet a craftsman uses methods of joining, gluing, and clamping that require fine skills, the proper glues, and more equipment than the average homeowner owns. Cabinets like furniture should last as long as the structure they are installed within.
Stock cabinets are usually low priced cabinets mass produced in a narrow range of sizes and styles using rapid assembly line methods and kept in a warehouse waiting to be sold. After experiencing declining sales, the stock cabinet industry realized that in order to be more competitive with custom cabinet companies they would have to offer more cabinet options. Many stock cabinet companies did indeed add some attractive options, but they maintained the lesser quality construction methods and materials. These cabinet lines were called "semi-custom" and were sold with the idea that a custom look could nearly be achieved at a much lower price. However, if one closely compares a semi-custom kitchen to a true custom kitchen, big differences between finishes, cabinet assembly methods, durability, and level of customer satisfaction become apparent. Some semi-custom companies added options to up-grade to thicker materials and some offered plywood up-grades, but the down falls of rapid assembly still remain. If there is a significant price difference between custom and semi-custom products, you can suspect that something in the quality of construction has been omitted.
We would like to offer a green concept that you may take to heart. There are over 6,000,000 kitchens being remodeled this year with most of the old kitchen cabinets going into land fills. If you are planning to purchase cabinets for any space, we encourage you to buy a durable product that will not need to be replaced in the near future. As you can see by reading this web page, many cabinet companies build products that use inferior materials and methods that do not last. If you purchase our durable goods, you will be creating a space that will not have to go into the land fill and will not require replacement for many ages to come. You will be purchasing cabinets that will become antiques. It is possible to find quality furniture that is 200 or more years old. You can take part in continuing a legacy by passing down our furniture grade cabinets from generation to generation.
Take a look at close up images of our FE cabinet box to see
how well constructed our FE cabinet is made.
I have yet to find anyone that offers anything built like our cabinets at our price level!
Purchasing good quality cabinets once is more economical than paying to replace problem
cabinets in the not so distant future.
We have serviced the New England area for over 25 years. We began shipping nationwide from our on-line store in 1996. If you buy cabinets from us, you will be working with an award winning design expert. This expert will guide you through the process and help you create a marvelous space. For more information, please give us a call at 207-667-4439 Monday - Friday 10 AM - 5 PM EST.
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