5 Tips for Buying High-Quality Cabinetry For Your Kitchen

A lot of emphasis is placed on buying stainless steel appliances or updating countertops in the kitchen.  The foundation of the room, however, is your cabinetry.  This can make or break a kitchen, as cabinetry typically predominates the room.

Buying cabinets can be very intimidating.  There are, at least, 10 different tyles of wood to choose from, and from there over 500 different door styles to select, along with innumerable color combinations.  So where do you start?

2013 president of the National Kitchen and Bath Association, John Morgan, and the Zillow blog put together this list of 5 Tips for Buying High-Quality Kitchen Cabinetry.

1.  Go with the pros

Any kind of kitchen redesign or remodel, according to Morgan, is best undertaken by an experienced team that you trust.  Grab yourself a designer, contractor, and cabinet installer with a solid reputation.  This team will know what quality products you can use, at whatever price point you're looking at.  Don't settle for anything less than the best team, because a shoddy team can lead to a shoddy product.  Make a good investment.


2.  Look at the finish first

If you're purchasing stained cabinetry, be sure and closely examine the finish before anything else.  Poor finish?  This is usually a sign of poor quality cabinetry too.

If you're purchasing painted cabinetry, ask about the brand of the paint and the process by which they were painted.  How many coats of paint?  How are the seams being treated?  What top seal are they receiving?  The best finish is a baked-on catalytic finish which outlasts basically anything else that is applied on-site.

3.  It's what inside that counts

Don't forget to closely examine the inside of the cabinetry too.  Morgan suggests carefully rubbing your hand up and down along the inside edge of the frame, checking for sharp edges.  Be sure and go slowly to avoid splinters!  While the inside doesn't have to feel as smooth as the exterior of the cabinet, it shouldn't feel rough or raw.

Also take a look at the shelves.  Three-quarter-inch or MDF shelves are what you want.  Five-eighths or half-inch particleboard shelves can start to sag with time and weight.

4.  Don't forget the hardware

If something is going to fail on your cabinets, it will most likely be hardware related.  Check the drawer guides, hinges, and other parts that move.  You want brand-name hardware, and a lifetime guarantee is a necessity.  If something does fail, you're going to want to get it replaced.

5.  Check the joints

Be sure and check how the cabinetry is joined together.  Morgan prefers drawers that use dovetail construction on all four corners, but other techniques (like mortise and tenon, or glued dowel joints) are also used in quality cabinets.  Want to check?  Pull a drawer out of a showroom cabinet and turn it upside-down.  See pins and stables?  That's a sign that it will likely fail down the line.  Drawers with solid-wood sides and a plywood bottom fitted with grooves on all four sides are typically well-built.

Need help building a team?  Not sure where to start?  Send me a message or give me a call and we can get you in touch with professionals in your area.