kraftmaid cabinetry

bwalley said:

Midcontinent cabinets are cheap crap, Kraftmaid is quite a bit better, but the Kraftmaid that Howme Depot and Lowes sells are a diffrenet grade than what the dealers sell, I can have very good quality custom made cabinets made for about the same as what I pay for Kraftmaid.

Thomasville cabinets are not made in the Thomasville plants in NC, Thomasville licensed the name.

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I respectfully disagree about Midcontinent. Yes, they have their low budget builders special line but what I order (Signature Series) has been just fine. I upgrade to APC with dovetail soft close drawers. This year they added more sizes to the catalog; height, width and depth. I have many, many options when it comes to them. Are they custom? Hell no. Are they cheap crap? Hell no. Like I said, I've had 1 box that I've had issues with in 4 years. It was a 9" lower. Other than that, I'll get a warped door every now and then but that doesn't stop my installs. Further more, I can get my complete order from them in 10 days. Any replacements are 5.
I routinely price compare what I can offer to what's sold at Home Depot and every time, I can get more cabinet, better options and delivered way faster. I'm usually 20% cheaper too. That's a hard deal to beat.
I'm not trying to sell Midcontinent to anyone. They're what have serviced my mid-range customers best for almost 5 years. If something better came along, I'd consider it. So far, nothing has. Midcontinent is under the Norcraft umbrella. I've had 0% issues with them. I've even used UltraCraft once and those were fine also (another Norcraft brand).

I do know Thomasville (furniture) does not make the Home Depot sold cabinets. It's a shame. People go there thinking they're getting "furniture" style cabinetry and what they get is far from it.

I'd be very surprised if Kraftmaid had a totally different product line sold at Home Depot or Lowes. They may have 1 but I don't think ALL sold there are different from what you'd get at a dealer. That has been a myth for years that HD or Lowes sells lower quality products from national manufacturers. I've even see a manufacturer chime in on CT about that. Not always true.

Good quality with these lines...

We sell 8 brands of cabinets. Have essentially regulated five of the eight to the back. Picked up Armstrong recently for low-end and mid-range. First couple of kitchens have been pretty good, I'm impressed.

Dynasty semi-custom and Omega custom (by Master Brands) are great. Only problem is the price point competing against a lot of what everyone has described. I have a set of Dynasty, one of the lesser expensive styles they have, on order for my mother's house. When compared to an upper range Armstrong cabinet with a few upgrades the price was marginally less for the Dynasty. In other words, Dynasty at the lower end is about the same or a little less than doing a lot of the mid-range brands with upgrades, and you get a better cabinet with Dynasty.

I find if someone wants a good quality cabinet Dynasty is a strong contender price wise. The problem is customers start loading up all the extras (and they are beautiful cabinets) till they price themselves out of their budget. At that point they run off, often buying KraftMaid cheapies that aren't half the cabinet. If a client has a realistic budget both Dynasty and Omega are competitive. Wellborne is about the same price range, and I've compared against other custom and semi-custom cabinets and found Dynasty/Omega were from a little bit more expensive to as much as 23% less, just depends on the exact configuration and who the other guy is.

Dynasty is 1/2" plywood ends standard, Omega is 3/4" plywood, both have soft close drawers as standard, dovetails are standard.Pricing can get real detailed if you have speciality finishes and/or lots of options.

From what I hear, Home Depot bought the Thomasville NAME, then went to Mills Pride (who makes ultra cheapies) and had them produce a cheap line and stick the Thomasville name on it. I despise the box stores for that kind of stuff.