Can't answer personally, but my sister has off-white, glazed cabs that are about 13 years old in her kitchen and they still look pretty good. There are some nicks and dings, but they aren't too obvious.
The biggest issue you get with white cabs is that it can be tough to match the paint color well enough to touch up so it isn't obvious. This is especially true if the cabinets are glazed. BUT, as I mentioned, I think my sister's still look very good even after 13 years (she has a pretty high end kitchen which was installed by the original owner and it is still very nice and not dated at all which goes to show you that a nice kitchen can have staying power!)

I had white cabinets for 15 years and went with white again on this remodel. We had no major issues. My step-daughter has stained cabinets and hers look awful, especially where they open the doors. In my opinion, the quality of the paint/stain job is critical to the durability of the finish.

Right. Not all paints or applications are equal. A professional factory or shop finish will typically last much much better than a home job. I've always had old painted cabinets that had to be touched up every few years, and they chipped fairly easily. Like Julie, I still much prefer them to my friends' stained ones. I'm a fairly lousy housekeeper, but no one ever stuck to my white cabinets, unlike my kelly green stage.

Me too. In a previous house, we had a white kitchen because I painted all the cabinetry myself. While I did a good job (if I may say so myself!), you know, thorough prep, excellent quality paint, etc., they still chipped. On the bright side, since I'd painted them I had the paint and was able to do seamless touch-ups.

In our current (post-remodel) kitchen we again have white cabinetry but this time it's factory-finished and what a difference! I can (and do -- we're a messy family) scrub the cabinets to remove all kinds of crud and it's made no difference whatsoever to the finish -- they look great! I know for certain that if I scrubbed the cabinets I'd painted myself this way the finish would show it. (I know it because when I did scrub them like this I could see the difference.)

Our cabinets did get nicked during appliance install and in some spots I used the touch-up and only I know where the touch-ups are -- they are truly invisible.

Anyway, just another voice chiming in for "it's the finish quality which matters."

In our previous house, we painted our cabs red and applied 3 coats of poly over the paint. We lived with those cabs for 5 years with nary a chip (haven't seen them in a year, so I don't know how they're doing) and because we didn't go white, they didn't show a lot of grubby dirt.

In our current house, the POs painted the cabs white, but did not seal the paint with anything. These cabs are chipped and generally look dirty all the time. They drive me nuts. When we finally get around to a new kitchen, I'm putting in wood stained cabs.

Thank you for your words of experience! I've been thinking that the catalyzed white paint finish by the major cabinet company would last pretty well since we seem to be pretty easy on our things. I'm nervous but excited by my cabinet order....

I helped a contractor friend to a large expensive kitchen last year - white cabs were to be installed. On demo day I was shocked to find a dump of a kitchen - very dirty. I was the job one week after it was done the cabs had were already taking a beating.

I think it comes down to how you work in a kitchen. My wife is a great cook but a maniac in the kitchen - stuff's flying all over, dirty dishes piling up in the sink; she's just hard on a kitchen. (I have all our doors and drawer fronts re-finished every 3 years. Our contractor does this for free and does it happily.) When I cook the kitchen is clean during the whole process and I'm aware when I spill anything and clean it up right away.

If you're hard on a kitchen, and there's nothing wrong with that, I'd choose somthing more durable than paint or something that's easily refinished. If you're careful then I'd thnk that white paint would be no problem.

Bill

Bill, the description of your wife's cooking process makes me laugh! Point well taken.