Sorry, no feedback about Allwood, but I am skeptical because their website says made in the USA and you say made in China. Hmmm.... However, I know a friend of a friend who put in China cabinets (sold at a Chinese shop) and had no problems. As I have been meeting with local contractor about my project, they all show disdain for the Chinese cabinets, they say the doors are bent, hinges are poor,etc. In general, I think there is a feeling in the U.S. cabinetry industry of disgust with Chinese cabinets because their great priced cabinets have taken away alot of business because the prices are great and they have 3/4" plywood construction which is not too common in low to mid range brands. Did you look on Angie's List for info about Counter Intelligence? Good Luck.

I'll put my two-cents worth in here because I personally have been very much un-impressed by cabinets from the two big home improvement stores in my area. I always assumed they were made in the US but I confess I didn't care enough about the cabinets to even look. At the prices they sell cabinets, there shouldn't be ANY particleboard in them! There also shouldn't be plastic reinforcement parts or drawer guide supports. I have seen too many plastic parts fail over time and too many screws that were too small in the first place and screwed into particle board on top of that to wallow out...long story short, I decided I could make my own cheaper and very much more durable. Not everyone has the time and patience for cabinet work (wondering if I'm also in that group) but there are quite a few private shops in my area who custom build cabinets. Maybe these guys are too pricey but you might check them out. For the money you spend on cabinets, at least they should be very well made!

Hi-
I have spent hours searching for information on kitchen cabinets in the past several days, and ran across the following:
It doesn't matter if it's plywood or chip board ... both can use formaldehyde-laden glues. The thing is, except for California, there are no federal regulations on wood product emissions - only voluntary standards. So wood products that's too toxic to even sell in China gets sold here in the States (though some US producers are just as guilty, so don't think it's only imported materials that are an issue.)

CorpWatch*:*US: Unwanted Imports: Goods deemed toxic elsewhere shipped to U.S. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14169

Best bet for low emission wood products - look for California's CARB P1/P2 or European E1 compliance. http://www.columbiaforestproducts.com/Content/Documents/CARB_Customer_FAQ.pdf

In summary, the issue appears to be glue containing formaldehyde or other dangerous chemicals. China has shipped some plywood to the U.S. that was banned in China, including shipping some to U.S. cabinetmakers (one person commented that some larger U.S. cabinetmakers now refuse to use plywood from China. You should look for specific testing seals on the cabinets (see URLs above). California and Europe are tougher than the rest of the states. I have decided not to buy anything with plywood from China.

isn't daveinorlando now in DC? he might be able to help you with cabinets. you might want to google his name, but here's a thread i found...

Here is a link that might be useful: one gardenweb thread with daveinorlando

Actually Allwood meets the California CARB 2 standards, so I don't think formaldehyde glue is an issue with this products. Fwiw I cited that it appears to be made in China because I read that on another forum; evidently the cabinets are assembled in the US which presumably is what enables them to advertise as American made. And for a variety of reasons I am not terribly persuaded by the general argument that anything made in China - or sold by a big box store - is inherently horrible or toxic. I'd be happy to consider other options, to be honest, but there is very little in the archives of this forum that seems to be specific to the DC area.

Our GC used Counter Intelligence for our granite counters...and we were less than impressed. To make a long story short, they cut one piece of counter incorrectly four different times. Then even worse, they substituted from a different slab that didn't remotely match after they ran out of our slab after the second try.

It took plenty of ranting at the GC but CI ended up eventually replacing all of the counters with matching granite. Sadly, the original Typhoon Bordeaux was long gone (with no satisfactory replacement to be found)so we settled for Volga Blue - which they cracked at the sink during installation! At that point we just told them to get out. Eventually we'll have someone else fix the crack.

Here are two examples of their "excellent" work. I was especially pleased with the lovely line of caulk in the second photo.

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@lizzard2you - omg, thank you for posting, and I'm so sorry for what sounds like an awful experience. Of course now I am back at square one. Any suggestions on where/how to find a decent contractor in this area?

I've been at this for a couple of months now, and it just boggles my mind that getting started is taking so long. All we're trying to do is rip out our current kitchen and replace it with something slightly nicer and from this century. And I talked myself into both the AW/Home Depot and Ikea options...until I dealt with their contractors, who were awful and pricey. I'm waiting to talk with someone who has done some work for a neighbor but it's been 2 weeks of attempts just to get a first meeting... Both my husband and I work FT and just want to get this done. But I consider myself warned off CI, so thank you very very much for posting.

We pretty much did a whole house renovation (kitchen, 3 baths and flooring) and used Solstice Kitchen and Bath in Crofton. They were highly recommended by a coworker. We were really happy with their work and their price was lower than most other places we considered.

Maybe our granite fiasco was an aberration, as CI gets good reviews elsewhere. It ended up being tolerable as the GC agreed with us and we didn't have to deal with CI directly.

Here's the PB link to our finished kitchen. I'm happy with the way it turned out, even without the Typhoon Bordeaux :-)

http://s1201.photobucket.com/albums/bb346/bruceandliz06/Kitchen/

DC is crawling with kitchen and bath dealers. Supply and demand is so out of whack it is difficult to stay alive here. The markups on cabinets for the independent stores are half what they were before the real estate correction. Home Depot and lowes have been more consistent in their pricing before and after. If you are an independent dealer and are in the ball park with them I think you are doing pretty good price wise.

I just priced out a custom kitchen using bridgewood cabinets which was very upscale in design. I gave them a price of approx 15,000 The cabinets cost me approx 11,000 I have to give 10% to the granite company who is referring the customer and I have to stand behind the design and any warranty issues and make it right. There is no way to go any lower and stay alive. So that has an approx profit of 2,500

I have another person I suggested they use a RTA cabinet for a house they own which they want to spruce up before they sell. Since the warranty is issued to the buyer the minute you sell the warranty is over.

The kitchens are about the same size. I offered to sell them the chinese cabinets which look very high end for $7,500 with the same granite company in the middle of it. The cabinets cost half of the selling price. So I make all most the same amount on them as the other kitchen with twice the end user cost.

I worked with an indian woman for a month been to her house 3 times as she did not want to take the time to visit my shop to see samples. I brought 30 different door styles to her home. Most she decided were not quite right and was not interested in them. She then started emailing me links to various online companies asking if I could get cabinets from them as they were cheaper then my original quotes. Of course most of them were cabinets I had shown her samples of where she like the picture on the online site but did not like it in person which is really annoying. And of course the online store and I get them from the same importer. So they chose to sell for less money because they do not spend as much time or money giving the service she ultimately needs to make her decisions.

Not to mention the online stores do not send out assembled, she did not want to do it. The contractor who referred her to me did not want to do it either. So of course I would have to assemble the cabinets and deliver them to her condo which has security elevator and all kinds of other head aches. So I told her I would not provide the cabinets at that low of a price because she is asking me to do much more then everyone else will.

Anyways, we were to meet to finalize the paperwork and collect payment so I could order her cabinets. I was not at my shop when she decided to come. She knew I was on the DC beltway and one of us would get there first. She beat me there and instead of contacting me she decided to visit another kitchen dealer on my street (large industrial complex with about 7 of us) she told the dealer she was here to meet me but I was not there. He sells the same cabinet she wanted.

The dealer cost was $2,650 before shipping cost which is normally between 200-250. The online company offered the cabinets to here for $3,350 plus shipping of $450. I offered her to deliver them assembled and placed in her condo for $4,100. Of course I had to stand behind my design and pay for anything that would go wrong if I made any mistakes. The online company was given my drawing to create the cabinet list. They would charge her for anything she would need if there were any mistakes.

The dealer next building over offered the cabinets to her for $2,750 and install for $1,000 and granite for another $1,000. Since I was referred her by a contractor who was going to provide those items I could not sell one item low and make the money in the other 2. He made me look like a rip off which was his intent which is not true. Most dealers would have doubled the price of the $2,650 which is $5,300. She took their deal which I do not blame her for.

So if you are talking to a lot of smaller shops the competition in general is brutal between us. If you get multiple quotes that are similar in cost you probably are seeing the reality of what it takes to keep your doors open. I have been here in DC from Florida since Sept. I still have to live in a friends house for free to just have enough money to pay the direct bills of my business at the prices I can get most of the time. Some jobs I do ok on where there is a relationship of trust factored in. Others are like my example above.

People want to feel you are established and not going out of business but yet they do not want to pay for their project at an amount that keeps the dealer in business. The NKBA suggests most kitchens when completely remodeled should cost 10% to 15% the value of the home in max sellable condition.

Her condo was worth 225k. Her kitchen excluding appliances was $5,000 including flooring I did not mention that above. That is 2.2% of her re sale value. I find many people on here that say everyone is to expensive are looking for prices like that. There is no way a dealer can stay in business as a small store that does not have big box volume to create over profit to stay open with.

I can do it for 5-7.5% any day of the week with countless choices to offer.

Counter Inteligence used to fabricate all of Home Depots countertops in the Mid Atlantic. Contintetal Surfaces in off RT 50 just inside the beltway on the east side of dc does it now. I do not know the reason for the change which happened in 2010.

There are countless fabrication shops in DC also. All of which have BBB ratings. The guy next door to me has a low rating which is normally the case with companies doing things at the lowest possible price. If something goes wrong with any regularity they do not have the money to fix it and keep their doors open. They stiff the customer and pay their overhead instead.

I almost went out of business a few months ago. I ordered a kitchen with the wrong door style from Allwood which are good cabinets by the way. I delivered the cabinets to get a call the next day that they looked wonderful but were flat panel when they were supposed to be raised. Allwoods website is tricky to keep your quote from being changed when you save it. The only way to price their cabinets electronicaly is to log on to the dealer sect of their website and make an order on their site using a shopping cart.I have learned that it is easy for details to change on you when you view your order multiple times over different days. I had to buy another set of cabinets to fix my error. The first set was on sale and I marked up the order based on the sales price. I was given the customer by a contractor who I had to pay a comission to also. The correct door style was not on sale and cost 1500 more then the original price. I was only supposed to make 750 to begin with. I lost 4,000 on that kitchen.

I had to borrow the money from relatives to re order the cabinets. So everyone on here says to go with dealers that are stable. Stability comes from profit. You can not have it both ways. Or you have a choice as a dealer fix your mistakes and go out of business or screw your customer and stay in business cause you do not have enough money for both.

Allwood is Carb 2 compliant. There cabinets are made just as well as any big box brand is. They are on the high side of the chinese spectrum for cost. They and 6 square are the highest quality and the highest cost of chinese products. They offer the lifetime warranty to compesate for it. Correct me if I am wrong but every cabinet I recieve with blum drawer glides has a plastic piece connecting the drawer to the cabinet box in the back.(for one of the posts above). Based on the samples and products I have been personaly involved in 6 square has better quality miters of the door styles that are mitred instead of mortise and tenon construction. My painted 6 square mitered sample is better then my semi custom cabinet company samples if you want the truth. The paint has not cracked yet and the miter is perfectly tight.

Most of the information repeated on here over the lowest cost cabinets out there is very miss informed. Many times the positive things said should be negative and the negative should be positive.

Most kitchen dealers are lazy, most of the large importers who are big and successfull offer to ship out RTA cabinets assembled. The local dealer does not want to put them together and selling unassembled cheapens their american products by assocation. Their are many smaller importers who undercut the price of these companies. The quality of the cabinet is generally sacrificed for them to compete on price only. RTA cabinets in general always have small pen point size defects on them some where on every one pf them. Others have them all over the place.

I sold a set of cabinets last month that was just plain embarrasing in quality. I do not like that company but I keep their door samples around. I told the contractor they were not good quality. He did not care as he wanted them fast and cheap. I wanted to order another brand which was better that cost the same price. They did not have everything we needed in stock at that time. Somehow the contractor got it all installed without complaint from the buyer. Had I ordered the other if all was available it would have been a much better kitchen short term and long term for sure.

In this business you will definetly get what you pay for if it is super cheap. If it is super expensive you probably just over paid. The middle pricing is usually your best bet.

Daveinorlando - what is your opinion of Woodcore, proline cabinets (proline is their standard doors, choice of 7, priced better)? Also, what plywood cabinets, made in the US, with good drawer slides, etc. do you recommend? I am not considering RTA and I want to avoid big box stores, but I can't go for a Brookhaven product, out of my price range. My dealer is pushing me towards Medallion Silverline, but I still think its alot of $ for their quality. So aggravating that no one will give you a price without designing your kitchen first. Seems like such a waste of time. I know the layout I want, now I am just trying to find a good pricepoint. Ideally, I would like a cabinet that has the option for a low sheen wood stain finish, for a furniture look.I appreciate any recommendations. Thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful: woodcore

Re: above: When I say no one give a price without designing the kitchen, I mean there is no point of reference to go by. Where as in the big box stores, you have a price per lineal foot, there is no such comparison figure once you leave the big stores. This doesn't sit well with me, accountant, and I feel many dealers have layed out kitchens just to give me a still estimated cost, only to find its way over budget. It seems if you don't know where a particular brand falls in the multitude of choices, no one is going to tell you. They just hope you fall in love with it and come up with the $.

Prices per lineal foot seen on the place cards in a kitchen display are so far from reality they are a waist of time. Take your kitchen design to a lowes or home depot and see if it turns out to be the same price per lineal foot. I bet you $100 the cost on your kitchen design is between 50-100% higher per foot then what the card says.

I know the costs on my cabines pretty well. I can not give an exact price but I can give you a range most of them will be in per lineal foot.

For example most RTA cabinets that are a decent quality will be 200-250 per foot from local retail stores. They will be 150 - 200 most of the time on the internet.

If you have an actual drawing that shows the cabinet sizes any dealer should be able to print you out an exact quote in 30 minutes or less. It takes some time to enter in the all the details of the cabinets to get a correct MSRP on them which then you are given a discount from to arrive at the exac price. If you are looking for a satin finish instead of typical semi gloss you will need to find a company like Bridgewood Custom which offers it as a standard option for all their colors or you will need a company that will produce the cabinets from any company like benjamin moore, sherwin williams etc. I have a semi custom company that will do that which is brandom for example. Bridgewood and Geppetto are my to custom companies where they will produce your cabinets in a custom color.

You will not get RTA prices for what you want. RTA advertises at 50% less then big box stores. This is sometimes true and sometimes not. Depends on the sales going on and all the free upgrades offered and the buy more save more plans.

Bridgewood for example almost always costs the end user with my markups 300-400 per lineal foot meaning a 10 x 10 kitchen would be 6,000 to 8,000. What drives the cost up is modifying the cabinets to a particular size in width or height. Most semi custom companies only let you change depth for a % of the cost of the cabinet for example. Drawers everywhere and lots of corner cabinets, interior finish adds 35% to each cabinet for glass doors. Drawers in the place of a lazy susan is a pricey choice.

I happen to like Bridgewood cause they build frameless and face framed cabinets for the same price. I do not like the look of the a frameless cabinet when it is open for example. Looks very cheap to me. So I design most kitchen with frameless base cabinets and face framed upper cabinets in full overlay construction. There is only 1 or two companies out there with brand name recognition that offer frameless cabinets in the price range of Kraftmaid and Thomasville. Problem is they do not offer framed as well it is generally one style or the other.

Your truly custom companies will offer both and inset also but your base price on the entire kitchen will be higher. I have a kitchen I am working on where we are doing frameless base cabinets and inset walls. With a few tricks of the way we are having the doors made the average person will not realize at a glance they are different. It has taken a lot of effort to get the order correct as every size of door and drawer has been changed by the owner to be just right for organizing things for them. Every pull out device is not normall size either. The customer will end up paying about 24,000 to get what they want. I think it is a good price others will think it is to high and others here will spend twice that to have bragging rights to their other rich friends who come over to visit. As for me I make about 4,000 out of it which is about 35% of the factory cost. Most dealers who can sell that type of kitchen are more established and command 50-100% mark ups instead. I think I am in a win win situation with them. They are chosing a Benjamin Moore off white color which will be custom formulated to be applied to their cabinets. At first I thought they would have to be from here everyone wants benjamin moor off white frameless base and inset walls here.

Medalion is a respected cabinet company for the most part. I am not familar with how much you can customize their cabinets when you chose a cheaper series. When their are different series it means not everything is available in it to offer things at different generic price points.

Most kitchen dealers open their doors find a cabinet company looking for more local representation make a deal with them to offer their products and wing it. The general attitude among those who market products to dealers with showrooms is if you put in a nice display of something you will be able to sell it and do not stress about if it is the lowest cost. Most successful showrooms are hired on trust more so then on lowest price. Big box stores are hired more on price and less on trust on the exact details of the kitchen as the trust in the name of the franchise more then the skills of the designer and others involved in the project.

You have to be realistic about your prices though. Not everything is for free. And thanks to the the powers that be in politics and money supply the little companies get squezeed while those with first access to borrowed money leverage it to the hilt to make small margins on huge amounts of money. The result is costs for business rise and they increase their prices to maintain the same amount of profit in the form of purchasing power from their fiat money system. All of my cabinet companies have raised their prices this year on me. All the dealers I know and compete with continue to fight for work and lower prices trying to get interested customers in the door. It is a mess.

DO NOT buy from All Wood Cabinets. It seems there's a bit of a "bait and switch" going on. Their website says they ship in 10 days. We placed an order on 2/25/12 for 5 cabinets. We received an email from AWC on 2/29/12 saying that our order would be delayed and would ship on 3/27/12. We agreed to wait. On 3/22/12, we received another email from AWC saying our order was again delayed and would not ship until 4/23/12. I cancelled the order.
As a manufacturing company, they know exactly how many units they can produce per day and how many orders they can fulfill per day. Advertising they ship in 10 days but, in reality, shipping in two months, is dishonest and misleading. If they are dishonest at the ordering process, then, in my opinion, they will be dishonest about everything.

It is very easy to write code for one's website to inform the purchaser that an item is on backorder before an order is placed. They did not do that yet continue to advertise they ship in 10 days.
After we cancelled our order, we went to Home Depot. Consulted with a very knowledgeable kitchen design expert. Saved $400 and the experience was easy and effortless.

We are considering terminating our Costco membership because of this. If Costco is aligned with such a deceptive company, then Costco is also a deceptive company. If we do decide to stay with Costco, we will never buy anything more expensive than organic chicken there. We have an entire house to update. That's tens of thousands of dollars that will go to another company.