Home Depot Cabinets Review
I’ve been in the kitchen business for many years and have had plenty of experiences with getting cupboards from super centers. I’m going to focus on Home Depot and offer my opinions in this review based on my experience through the years.
First, the kitchen and bathroom cabinet manufacturing industry has made gigantic strides over the past fifteen years.
People used to say that places like Home Depot sold junk for cabinets. This couldn’t be further from the truth during our present time.
With the ever growing level of competition in the arena of prefabricated cabinets, which is what Home Depot sells, we are seeing the quality rise as the prices lower. This seems to be the typical trend for anything that is evolving among the consumer market.
Now, several years ago they sold Mills Pride cupboards. Those cabinets were total junk. If you wanted something to last a lifetime, those ready to assemble (RTA) cabinets were a nightmare for many enthusiastic “do it yourself ” (DIY) homeowners.
Here’s the point I want to make, Home Depot cabinets are NOT very bad. In fact, the ones I’ve installed were built very well. There is nothing wrong with the majority of the brands they sell.
Aside from having to tighten a few screws or rebuild a little something every now and then most of the time the cabinets are built pretty good.
You will find that they have dove tail drawers, solid wood face-frames and a large selection of raised and flat panel door designs.
Like anything else in life, you get what you pay for. The more you spend-the better your cupboards from Home Depot will be. You may start out with cupboards that have vinyl coated finished ends and upgrade them by installing raised panel doors on the finished ends.
The problem, however, is found in the many variables that cannot be controlled. Have you ever heard the expression; “too many irons in the fire?” Well that’s the problem with getting cabinets from Home Depot. Another popular expression says; “the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” Yet my favorite saying goes like this; “if you want something done right, do it yourself.”
Home Depot is just the middleman trying to coordinate the sale to the customer through designing, delivering and sometimes installing the cabinets. As much as the company would like to have control of things, there are too many variables working against them.
Here are some of the problems I’ve encountered through the years. Oftentimes there are damaged parts and components that never make it to the job site on time. On one occasion there was over sixty feet of molding that was sent which had the wrong profile design on it. In review of a recent job, there was a base, drawer-stack cabinet that was missing.
What happens is that these types of things cause delays. One or two key components needed to install a kitchen might be damaged or missing and it can mess up everyone’s schedule.
Imagine having the flooring people scheduled to install wood floors once the kitchen is installed and they have to be pushed back two weeks because cupboards were missing.
Then, the granite countertop subcontractors need to be rescheduled because the base cupboards could not be installed. Therefore, the granite countertop templates cannot be made to build the countertops from.
The plumber that was scheduled to install the sink and dishwasher after the granite tops and cabinets were to be installed also needs to be moved back.
It’s a ripple effect than can happen with any cabinet supply company, but you generally do not have problems like this when you hire a custom cabinet fabricator. If something goes wrong it can be attended to right away.
When there are bank loans involved, oftentimes the next draw to be released is contingent upon the cabinets being installed. When the kitchen gets pushed back for two weeks, the bank doesn’t release funds. This can really cause a contractor to be in a pinch.
So, my point is that Home Depot sells good cabinets and even for reasonable prices. As I review things that have happened through the years of dealing with them, as a whole, I’d NOT want to take a chance of things not going smoothly.
What I have shared is not just solely related to Home Depot cabinets. I did a Cabinets To Go review that was written from the same perspective. Any large distributor of several different brands of kitchen and bathroom cabinets will have the same issues that I have shared here about Home Depot.
Your best bet, if you can afford it, is to go to a custom Cabinet shop in your area and see about getting your cupboards from them.