Kraftmaid

I wish there was an option to give a "negative star" rating to this company. My kitchen remodel began in April 2016. It is now September and it is STILL not finished due to what can only be described as gross incompentence on the part of Kraftmaid. While I accept that mistakes get made and I am usually able to roll with the punches, the amount and degree of screw-ups and the lack of the company caring about said screw-ups is absolutely ridiculous. To begin with, several cabinets arrived incorrect (wrong dimensions) and/or damaged, which isn't really unheard of, so no big deal since Kraftmaid offered to replace them. However, that meant waiting another 6-8 weeks, which again, would have been fine, had the products not been replaced with items that were further either incorrect and/or damaged. All of the trim pieces for my entire kitchen were packaged with the stained surfaces against each other and no packing material between them, resulting in not a single piece being useable. Again, they were replaced (at another 6-8 week delay), but this was avoidable for about $0.35 worth of packing material. The quality control of the stain application is atrocious and we had to have a furniture refinisher out on 2 separate occasions to fix the stain so that it appeared even (seriously, I don't think their employees even look at things before they go out the door!). Wrong sized and/or damaged pull-out drawers were delivered for the pantry and were replaced with drawers that were the correct size but had the wrong rail mounting system. When my fiancé called to have them replaced for the second time, he even did Kraftmaid's job of looking up the correct item # and telling them exactly what to order. The next set of replacement drawers were the wrong size. The set they sent after that was damaged, because again, they apparently have children or poorly-trained monkeys supervising the packaging of their products. Each of these replacements comes with yet another delay. Finally after MULTIPLE replacements of the same products, we have pieces that are usable. I won't say they are correct because they were still damaged but we can't wait another month or two to complete this job, so we've fixed them ourselves. In all of this, not once has Kraftmaid expressed any desire to "make things right" other than to continue sending us subpar product. And, they don't take back any of the damaged and defective product, so in addition to them wasting thousands of dollars on unusable product instead of just getting it right the first (or the second, or the third time), I'm now stuck with an entire garage full of crap product that I have to arrange for disposal of.

The only saving grace for this sh*t-show of customer service is the knowledge that, not only will no one I know purchase from this company, but my contractor (who deals with a whole lot of people buying cabinets) will be steering everyone he encounters clear of this company.

I've dealt with plenty of other companies that have gotten things wrong in the past, but it has always been handled in a professional manner in which the company was apologetic about mistakes and tried their best to make sure that further unnecessary delays were avoided. I've never encountered a company with such low standards and apparently no desire to foster food customer relations. Kraftmaid has shown zero desire to offer any kind of compensation or even verbal acknowledgement of our dissatisfaction. I could not ever, in good conscience, recommend this company to anyone.

Kraftmaid offered the options we needed to make our kitchen the way we wanted it to be. The Lowes designer was excellent and knew the Kraftmaid product very well, so our expectations were well-managed.

The cabinets arrived right when they said they would, and the delivery matched every item on the order. There were many line items (over 50) and it all added up. So far so good.

The installers were very good, they made sure the kitchen floors and walls were as level, square and plumb as possible in our crooked 100 year old house. Their careful prep work made the cabinet installation go very smoothly.

The cabinets and drawers are well made from good materials. Everything was solid. Where there were door collisions, we installed invisible hinge restrictors that kept the door opening to 89 degrees, eliminating the interference. All the hardware is good quality and works well.

Where things fell apart somewhat is on the finishes.

1. Our doors are mitered and many arrived improperly joined, with large gaps in the seam. We understand that wood is a natural product that expands and shrinks over time, but this was brand new stuff. The starting point should be as close to perfection as possible. During our remodel, the carpenters cut numerous miter joints for woodwork to trim the doors and windows, and these were perfectly done on portable saws in our driveway. I expect the Kraftmaid doors, built in a climate-controlled factory on CNC machines, to be as good. They were not. The Kraftmaid factory rep visited our house and reviewed our complaints. He mentioned that the standard for a miter joint is "a gap smaller than a credit card." Credit cards are pretty thick. He did replace 9 doors and while we are not 100% satisfied with some others, we are satisfied enough not to pursue it further other than to mention it here.

2. We got one 4 drawer bottom cabinet. The door faces were not aligned with each other nor with the adjacent pieces. There are adjustment brackets, but several of these were screwed in such a way that no adjustment was possible. We ended up redrilling many holes to get these in line.

3. There were several painting flaws: bubbles that didn't burst when they were still wet, and one door had a very thin coat of paint, you could see the wood. Kraftmaid replaced these.

Overall, we are happy with our cabinets and love our new kitchen. But we spent way too much time managing quality issues that could have been avoided with a closer eye back at the factory.

Well to start I didn't expect high quality for the price, "You get what you pay for". But I did expect better than I got.
Part is Lowes. The designer didn't read the disclaimer about the corner units with swing-out draw not being next to appliance. So this unit will not swing all the way out for access to sliding shelves inside.
Small brass hinge on swing out unit too weak to support weight of one Crock-pot.
Requested plywood construction. received plywood framing and shelves. Side paneling 1/16th in laminated particle board. Couldn't they have at least used Masonite?
Soft close hinges block one shelf location. Called Kraft Made and they sent adjustable pins that cannot be used because they are too thick to fit between shelf end and side panel.
Love the appearance, hate the thoughtless design.

I will NEVER AGAIN purchase anything made by Kraft Maid and I hope others will read this and all the other upset and disappointed buyers who purchased Kraft Maid cabinets. They're quality control is incredibly substandard. They just could not (or more likely didn't want to further bother after several attempts) get the overall wood stain even. We originally purchased these in December 2015 and after 8 months of my "thanked patience" they STILL COULD NOT GET IT RIGHT! I purchased the cherry wood with a honey finish. The stain was SO UNEVEN from the finished product. The doors looked like there were 5 different stain colors used. When I initially inquired about one part of the sample that had an eyesore of what looked like an unstained streak, I was informed I needn't worry because the door would be replaced. I never dreamed that kind of inconsistency was THE NORM! I've worked with unfinished cherry wood myself and I never had the level of inconsistency in the wood stain and finish that this company has demonstrated. The experience I had was that Kraft Maid would rather keep producing off their assembly line substandard quality control stained cabinet doors rather than truly satisfy their customers. I paid a lot of money for these cabinets (had to pay the total amount up front at Home Depot) and it is disgraceful what I went through with them. I will NEVER AGAIN purchase any product from Kraft Maid again and will warn every and any person I come across thinking of remodeling or looking to purchase a new home to purchase Kraft Maid cabinetry.