PPF no doubt I was misled regarding the face frames. As a consumer, not a cabinet expert, I was not aware that seamless face frames were impossible to deliver. My contract is clear.

It was my understanding that wood mode was a high level cabinet maker, and wanting a factory finish I believed they were the best option. At over $1000 per linear foot, the pricing reflects that level of quality.

I created this post so that other consumers might benefit from what I'm going through.

What you think is seamless face frame it is not what cabinet industry refers to .

In general in contracts you can also find that hairline cracks are in painted cabinets "normal" and not under warranty.

Beesneeds-- this post is meant to bring awareness to those members that may be considering wood mode cabinets. I'm sure everyone will consider these responses and draw their own conclusions.

I'm truly confused why anyone considering purchasing wood mode cabinets would be responding to my post with questions about details that will be asked by attorneys as this case progresses. For any consumers that would like more information, I'm happy to provide it!

Not a lawyer but if you already hired an attorney, I would stop posting about this. Anything you say may be used against you.

Google affects of humidity on painted wood cabinets and you will see these joint cracks are usually due to humidity issues. There have been posts on this before.

I know you are upset but this is not uncommon for wood painted cabinets. I am going to assume you have no idea what the humidity is in your house???? Get yourself a hygrometer. They are cheap. It will allow you to see what the humidity levels are. Where i live we get high humidity in the summer and low in the winter. I need to use a dehumidifier in the summer and humidifiers in the winter to keep humidity in acceptable ranges.

And no I am not a Wood Mode rep.

Ohhhhhhhh....ok. I get what seamless faceframe is referring to now. Seamless means: Instead of screwing together 3- 18" wide base cabinets, you make it as ONE big long 54" cabinet. You keep the vertical stiles at 1.5" and you get bigger doors and drawers this way.....Less wasted space.

HOWEVER there will still be joint lines where they screw the frames together. Some brands call this "Combined" like Combined bases or walls. I do this all the time. It's more expensive, but looks greats with Flush/Beaded Inset cabinetry. Their 'seamless' verbiage does not mean there won't be ANY seams.....you can't carve the front frame from a solid piece of wood. Just doesn't work that way.

Someone else pointed out the faceframes aren't lined up. I have seen this happen once with extreme environmental conditions. So if they were lined up when you got them....but they started popping up out of alignment, to me....that says extreme ups and downs in humidity levels. The only other reason I can think of that would be factory fault? Is maybe the wood wasn't cured properly before painting?

Thats something to look into. Just not sure how you prove it. Anyone?

I'm asking questions to try figuring out how lovely cabinets turned to crap in a few weeks. Or maybe 12 days? It might be on the manufacturer. Might be because the contractor used them as impromptu sawhorses in a humidity issue area and wants to pass it off on the manufacturer. Or other things. Don't know. Might be moot.

Since there is another thread on this, and since the OP has lawyered up according to that other thread (thanks PPF)... might be best to stop commenting on this topic.

I do not understand why any one is giving @chautzi grief for this post, the issues are obvious. The only factory finished painted cabinets that I have ever had installed were much cheaper Kraftmaid, obviously not inset, and the painted frames did not have any cracks like shown here. My current painted cabinet frames, again not inset, were painted in house and they have no cracks in the frames. My last kitchen was inset but not painted, those cabinets had no cracks in the finish of the frames. All of my kitchen cabinets cost much less than the ones shown, it is no surprise that the OP is disappointed and warning others.

Edited to add- my kitchens have experienced major humidty changes, it happens where I live. And the OP clearly refrenced that there may have been humidity change due to shipping in the winter but that still does not excuse the product cracking as it has.

I haven't seen posts regarding paint separating on the face frames for inset cabinets where the contract stated there would be no joints. In any event, for consumers wishing to make an informed decision, I hope my post is helpful!

Thank you for your comment s m!

@s m I was not trying to give anyone grief. I am giving suggestions as to why this might happen. It is not uncommon. Google it.

If the OP is going down the lawyer route this humidity issue will be brought up. It does not hurt to know what the humidity is in the home. If it were me before going and paying for a lawyer I would want to know what the humidity was in the house to see if this is a factor into why the cabinet paint is cracking at the seams.

Sorry looks like it logged me in under my previous user name. I wrote the post under Ann Marks.

Ann I think it's the other responses that are the most egregious. I appreciate your suggestions regarding humidity levels. The attorney is aware of all important factors.

^^agree. Humidity question will be brought up sure. My custom cabinet maker installing my new cabinets said straight forward if I don't want cracks or other issues with cabines to keep humidity under control.

We were not home for long time during winter time and humidity was much below recommended and it cracked, after 3 years being great. Oh well, I will live with that especially that I like to open windows whenever for fresh air so eventually it would crack most likely.

Nobody is giving a OP a grief just reality check. Her claiming seamless face it is not what she says it is. If she was mislead by seller, she should contact seller about it. Was she shown seamless face in the store while selecting cabinets?

If she has in her contracts seamless faceframe it will be interpreted as it is in cabinet industry, not they way she thinks.

Here's black on white Wood Mood regarding seamless faceframe

J Sk I'm sorry to hear that you are having to replace your custom cabinets. I've been given a reality check with several experts in the cabinet industry as well as my general contractor. Appreciate your concern, my attorney specializes in the industry so we are well represented.

For the record, I do not work for Wood Mode, nor am I an attorney. (I'm a retired marketing executive who has done two renos and has learned a great deal from reading the Kitchens forum.)

First, I'm sorry this happened to you, especially on such an expensive project.

Second, I can't speak to the paint issue, except to say that I had new hardwood floors put in about 16 months ago, and I have been monitoring the humidity in my house rather obsessively. It can fluctuate quite a bit between the AC season and the heating season, and I do see gaps that appear when it gets low.

Finally, for anyone looking into inset cabinets, I'm wondering if the terminology has contributed to the issue. The term I've heard for seamless inset cabinets is "ganged" - if the first picture below is what you mean. The second picture shows inset cabinets that are not ganged, and therefore you can see a seam. I don't think cabinet firms should expect consumers to know that, and I would hope a designer would help out with that.

Ganged:

Not ganged:

@J Sk Seamless is actually referring to "I was assured that wood mode could create a seamless face by building the boxes as one long unit so add not to have seams between boxes." original post

One of the cabinets in question, as shown in above linked post:

The reference to seams is to not have individual box cabinets stuck together.

That's is wonderful, and no my cabinets are not been replaced. I am not concerned because I have reason to be concerned. First read your contract, everything is in there. What you think it is, just doesn't matter especially in legal system. I just noticed based on your post that you kept repeating like mantra what you think or thought is seamless and you don't try to learn anything or understand.

The paint cracking where the seams are is kinda normal. Much more noticable on a painted cabinet. And also helpful to provide some more data about the environment in which they were stored. Cabinets are still shipped in trucks, so.... they ought to be able to withstand some decent fluctuation.

I do agree that there looks like some other issues with things lining up. Would be interesting to see the other poor quality items.

lastly - get that dang masking tape OFF THE CABINETS as that can easily damage the finish. Gentle blue tape only.

Even if @chautzi may have not fully understood what "seamless" meant, these seams have not held up as most of us would expect.

We have hygrometers all over our house (spouse's obsession) and our humidity fluctuates pretty severely but our cabinets do not have this issue.

The company will likely bring up any possible reason to not fix the problem but that does not mean that it is the true extent of the issue.

^^ it depends what kind of painted cabinets you have, how they were built or what materials. The bottom line everything is in the contract. Explained clearly. If she can prove that someting was not build the way it's in the contract, great! But nobody will care what she thinks seamless means. It's clearly stated in her contract. I wonder if there is any information in the contract regarding humidity.

Thanks Just Janni, I will get it removed (it arrived that way!)

It's not about temperature but humidity

How long your cabinets were transported, for weeks?

You might want to question the seller about condition your cabinets were transported du e to issues you are dealing . Who knows maybe they were not properly transported and this happend?

That is an insane amount to pay for cabinetry.

I would point out, @chautzi, that just because a person disagrees with you, does not make them a rep for Wood-mode. Many of the posters here are regulars on this and other fora.

On the “seamless” thing, that means a long run of cabinet has a single face frame, rather than a bunch of separate face frames that butt up to each other. The OP explained that herself in the other thread:

”I was assured that wood mode could create a seamless face by building the boxes as one long unit so add not to have seams between boxes.”

It does not mean that the entire face frame, 8 or 10 feet long, is cut from a single slab of wood. Where would one get a 10’ x 3’ solid slab of maple? If a woodworker had such a piece, it would be used for a very expensive custom boardroom table, not a painted kitchen cabinet.

Face frames are always made from lengths of wood, glued together. Customers may not know that, just as they don’t know anything else about how cabinets are built, but you can’t expect the cabinet company to teach every customer everything about how cabinets are made and correct every mistaken assumption the customer has.

The hairline cracks in the paint are a bit irritating, but if they weren’t there when the cabinets were delivered . . . anyway, wood is wood and acts like wood - expanding and contracting with humidity changes - no matter how much anyone pays for it. Read the warranty documentation, there is probably a disclaimer for hairline paint cracks!

No, I don’t work for Woodmode, never heard of the company, would never pay that much for factory made cabinets anyway - it seems a nonsensical thing to do. The workmanship shown in the photos does not impress. I have no reason to think highly of the company’s product.

Thanks @colleenoz for the clarification. Perhaps no reps are commenting and everyone is just super interested in letting me know that I've made a grave error for spending too much money, for being misled regarding how the cabinets would be constructed, for not having control over humidity and temps during the shipping process, and for wanting to let others know that this is their possible future should they choose to purchase from wood-mode. Nothing like working for decades to finally save enough to put together your dream kitchen, only to be sold a product that does not perform as specified and to have no recourse other than spending more money on litigation because the company refuses to provide even the most basic possible solutions. Forgive me if I'm a bit wary.

I’m sorry that your grand dream that you worked so hard for has not turned out the way you wanted it, but what people are trying to tell you before you throw any more money into this mess is that just because the words you had written into the contract meant what the vision in your head was, doesn’t mean that they don’t have a different and more widely recognised meaning in the cabinetry industry. And so legally Wood-mode may be found to have fulfilled their obligations as contracted.

Since you spent so much money did you try to contact the seller? They might be willing to work with you to resolve issues. You are very upset and emotional which is understandable with such expensive project going not the way expected but try to think about all options to resolve it.

Believe me, most people understand you and your disappointment. Been there and done that, building a house where money spent was a few times more than cabinets and things went wrong too. Some things took me 3 years to resolve to my satisfaction, some others quickly and some were not resolved. Take a lot of pictures. Especially if the finish was not sprayed properly or something was out of square or not build flush. Those issues you have stronger standing to push to be resolved.

@colleenoz I've not conveyed all aspects of my case on this forum as my intention was to provide some caution to those considering purchasing this product and not debate the legal specifics. Three independent industry experts have inspected the cabinets and all have determined that the damage falls within the warranty. The cabinet experts do not have any skin in the game so there would be no reason for them to give me false information. Unfortunately it seems that wood-mode has no desire to comply with their warranty.

@j sk the seller has asked wood-mode to correct the issues, however their west coast rep has stated that the cracks are normal and expected. The cabinets arrived in several different shipments and each were 1-2 weeks from east to west coast.

What about other issues regarding the finish not sprayed properly or not flush??

Push to get the phone number to contact corporate. This was the way I was able to resolve some problems.

It seems that so many posts on this Forum are from people disappointed that what they thought they ordered and paid for isn't what they got. We've seen it with expensive white counters developing water stains, seams in counters not lining up, tile installs gone wonky, and I've shared my own tile selection mishapsin an effort to help others avoid the same.

After reading the Forum for so long, I'm aware of things like picking out slabs in person, being involved in templating to see how seams will fall, blah blah blah, but I still don't know what I don't know, and I truly feel for posters who have no idea going into a reno that they may be held accountable for decisions that they didn't know they needed to make.

Sorry to OP that I'm getting way off topic, but I really feel for consumers who feel taken advantage of (after trusting a vendor to provide a good service or product), and aren't using a good designer who is invested enough to guide them through decisions. To net it out, I'm grateful to the professionals on this Forum (designers, architects, fabricators, et al) who share their advice with random people like me.

Ugh. Now I sound preachy or something. Happy first day of Spring, all!

Admittedly I don't spend much time on this forum. I've been through renovations before and generally have researched thoroughly enough to not have a catastrophe of this magnitude. My expectations have always been realistic. This one is rough in that I've worked with this designer, I've installed (a much less expensive) wood mode cabinet package in a previous home, and I was exceedingly specific regarding what I was expecting to receive for the exorbitant cost.

I would be very ticked off at my kitchen designer for not talking me out of spending a truly ludicrous amount of money on these factory-built painted cabinets.

For $125K you could have had an actual custom furniture maker build gorgeous pieces from stunning wood, pieces meant to be treasured and passed to the next generation - and gotten $60K back in change. In my book, furniture pieces too nice to be in a kitchen, but I guess opinions vary.

Your designer is supposed to guide clients who don't know what they should. S/he should have steered you in the direction of a true craftsman for a truly special result - or to a far cheaper source for standard painted cabinets.

You have painted inset cabinets with (poorly done) bead-detail on the face panels - very standard, there is nothing special about that, plenty of shops can do it and probably better. Total cost probably $30-40K ish.

Your designer should also have told you what "seamless" means, etc.

I'm not saying there isn't some blame to the cabinet company or that they did good work, but I think this is mostly bad decision-making by the buyer and failure to do his/her job by the designer.

The finish is a disgrace. They should not be cracking

I was going to do the same style and finish, now I’m going to Starmark I guess

Wow I am surprised Wood Mode did not take care or replace the damage cabinets. Also for rep to come and see the cabinets

in person and did not take of the problems immediately without questions is not good. Customer service is extremely important for any company to have great customer service. I am an Interior Designer in NC and was looking at Wood mode for my Personal house. I am very detail and picky, I didn’t want to spend or buy custom high end cabinets but I can’t find what I am looking for after meeting with 2 cabinet makers. plywood is being used more than wood, the finishes do not look right and they are close to custom wood prices. You are not wrong in being upset, expecting what you ordered and quality they have missed.
It’s a shame they did not take responsibly and fix everything immediately without question since you’ve paid for it in full. Now the time, the stress and not happy with the cabinets and maybe court legal fees is so unnecessary. It’s clear their fault.
As for the humidity, we have a vacation condo at north Mrytle Beach. The humidity is as bad as you can get. I check and control the dehumidifier from my phone, the humidity should not go over 50, I keep ours 30 to 40.
I replaced the cabinets there before I bought the dehumidifier and did not have any issues. White cabinet they still look great.
I think your problem is coming from the finish, after painting a base, several coats of paint the final coat is finish clear coat to seal the paint in a flat sheen up to high sheen, but not sure if they used a base, how many coats and if it has a last finished clear coat to seal. If this is done correctly nothing should penetrate the sealed final coat, not even the humidity. I am working on Multi family big Projects right now, I used a company called J & K Cabinets, there cabinets are not custom. I also used this company at our beach place, I didn’t want or need custom cabinets. They look better than the pictures of your custom expensive cabinets. If I was in your place I would go around the rep and ask to speak the owner. He may not know what is going on or who ever is above the rep. Sounds like he decided not to take responsibility for some reason. A client is always right not matter if they are picky, I sure miss working with clients in high end residential, after working on business, Banks now my last is Multi family just finish our 5th project. Have one more coming up.
Good luck and hope they correct everything quickly without any problems.
They should know reviews can help or kill their business. Now I have another company to looked into, wood mode is off my list.
I think Wood Mode went out of business May 2019 and someone bought the company, so maybe this is why you are having a problem

@chautzi hope things are on track to be resolved. I came across this post as I am considering Woodmode, and wondered if the issues have been rectified.

Did Woodmode resolve this for you? I am a few days away from ordering a Woodmode kitchen and am now second guessing whether I should. I was going to do Dove White inset cabinets on the perimeter and a rift cut white oak or walnut island. Would love to hear more from you. My email is svr317@gmail.com

Some years ago we re did our kitchen. hired an architect a full construction crew with electrician plumber rough and finish carpenters.
went to a kitchen design consultant and got cabinets from Wood Mode https://www.wood-mode.com/
I will not recommend Wood Mode. They use inferior finishes and lousy fasteners. The actual wood work is great. The follow through is not.
The screws holding the cabinet doors work themselves out of the wood. The doors then start to hang and before long you notice that they are wearing through the finish.
The finish is some stupid water based garbage that doesn't stand up to lipids in airborn fats that are exactly what is liberated into the air when one actually cooks. Doesn't matter I got the top end Wolf Exhaust No residential exhaust gets everything.

Wood mode did not resolve any of the issues and unfortunately there is no recourse other than legal action. Had we opted for custom cabinets, at least the state contractor board could help if the product is not as promised.

We found an additional issue after installation, the custom color I chose (for an additional 10% fee) was not consistent. Some doors were a different color than the frames, some were the same. My rep stated that it most likely fell within the parameters of "industry standard color variation" which of course means once again, no recourse other than legal action.

My attorney has advised that legal action would most likely by handled by wood mode's insurance company, with extensive resources thus being very expensive. I haven't ruled it out tho, just got moved in finally last month after 2.5 years of construction so I need to decide now how to proceed.

I ended up having the cabinets repaired and repainted, so the custom color and special finish were a waste of money. My warranty is also voided, which doesn't really matter as they clearly won't do any warranty work!

Also regarding humidity as the cause for the fracturing, after installation, repair, and repainting there are no cracks. Humidity in the house has varied since they were painted in place (summer) thru now having the heat running for winter and there are zero issues. My painter believes that the product they used to get that "rock hard" finish doesn't allow any flex. So once they build the cabinets, box them up, ship across country, and then they get moved up stairs and into position, every weak point will create a fracture in the paint. The compromise I decided on was to use a more flexible paint to refinish.

These are the 3 year old toekicks for my wood mode cabinets. I had issues with the cabinets immediately after I had them installed. The cabinets may be wood, but the toe kicks and supporting pieces are laminate covered particleboard or something of that sort. I have a normal kitchen and despite multiple contacts with the company they will not honor anything related to the workmanship as they state it is “excessive water “ which makes no sense. I have hardwood floors in my kitchen, so there is no excessive water used in cleaning them. The customer service is nonexistent. They never came out to look, and as I escalated to the manufacturer, they simply forwarded emails that they had internally from the distributor to the manufacturer. This is the toe kicks as well as pieces of the cabinets where they are mounted to my countertops.

These are the 3 year old toekicks for my wood mode cabinets. I had issues with the cabinets immediately after I had them installed. The cabinets may be wood, but the toe kicks and supporting pieces are laminate covered particleboard or something of that sort. I have a normal kitchen and despite multiple contacts with the company they will not honor anything related to the workmanship as they state it is “excessive water “ which makes no sense. I have hardwood floors in my kitchen, so there is no excessive water used in cleaning them. The customer service is nonexistent. They never came out to look, and as I escalated to the manufacturer, they simply forwarded emails that they had internally from the distributor to the manufacturer. This is the toe kicks as well as pieces of the cabinets where they are mounted to my countertops.