Unreliable Cabinet Brands To Avoid (& Better Alternatives To Consider)

Cabinets are expensive. They are used heavily, and they're arguably the most impactful element in what is arguably the most important room in a home: the kitchen. So homeowners get understandably upset when a $9,000 investment in a semi-custom cabinet or a $20,000 investment in a custom model doesn't deliver on their expectations.

But what constitutes unreliability for a cabinet? For an appliance, the concept is simple enough: an unreliable appliance stops working, or stops working well, before we think it should. But because so much of a cabinet's job is aesthetic, unreliability must also include premature aesthetic failings — which are, by far, the most common ways for a cabinet to fail. Many cabinet brands occasionally miss the mark, particularly with their budget offerings, but there are a few that are consistently inconsistent.

There are some trends that are worth noting. Some are not unexpected; a lower cabinet price, for example, is far more likely to indicate an unreliable brand than a high price. Budget cabinets simply aren't as durable. And there isn't always (in fact, there rarely is) a correlation between a brand's reputation among consumers and its reviews or its reputation among industry professionals. It also seems to be a relatively volatile industry in terms of brands, with product lines being frequently renamed, companies absorbed into others, and a few going out of business. And, finally, what constitutes a brand can be confusing, with both parent companies and even retail distribution channels sometimes being referred to as "brands." Here, we're using the term to mean the name of the product line on each cabinet.

Home Depot has a handful of house cabinet brands and exclusive relationships with cabinet makers, and none of them fare particularly well in terms of their reputations in the industry or with consumers. The store now has exclusive rights to use the Thomasville name, a once-reputable brand under the MasterBrand cabinetry umbrella, though the name does show up on other kinds of furniture, like a fan-favorite Costco sleeper sofa. There have been reports that companies other than MasterBrand have manufactured sub-par cabinets under the name. Thomasville fell off the JD Power rankings between its 2020 and 2021 customer satisfaction studies, and from consumer reviews, it's easy to see why. Common complaints include cabinets that arrived damaged or defective and poor finishes, especially peeling paint.

At the time of this writing, 84 of Home Depot's 85 "top rated" cabinets were all from Pelham & White or Hampton Bay, an HD house brand. Hampton Bay reviews were even more negative than Thomasville's, perhaps owing to a more consistent manufacturer. Hampton Bay basically performed poorly in every source we studied, and for many of the same reasons (damaged and defective products and finish problems, for example) and some new ones like generally poor overall quality (drawer slides and door alignment get mentioned a lot). Customers also cited the fact that replacement parts aren't readily available, even for recent purchases.

If there are upsides for the Kitchen Craft Cabinets brand, it's that the name is prominent and is sometimes perceived as a good value. But "value" can be a two-edged sword because the concept often weighs a low price more heavily than high quality. Some customers complain that the company's customer service isn't very good, and that they were told the company's headquarters only deals with individual dealers, not consumers. This bent is evident in the company's own FAQ, which, rather than answering most questions, repeatedly refers customers to local dealers.

It's how the purchasers got to the customer service lines in the first place that is the real problem, though, and here we found a couple of troublingly common problems. Customers complain that the Thermofoil wrap — basically a plastic shrink-wrap usually applied to medium density fiberboard (MDF) cabinets — was separating from the cabinets. (This is a fairly common complaint for companies that use Thermofoil. In spite of its name, the product is apparently easily unstuck by heat, which is not a great quality in a kitchen product.) Customers also complained about finish quality.

In brand reviews from industry professionals, Aristokraft performed poorly without exception, somehow managing to miss being considered a good value in spite of its low prices. It also manages to have low brand trust ratings, which often don't match up to quality in any meaningful way. 

But, in fact, pro opinions of Aristokraft cabinets are probably a bit more vociferous than consumer reviews. While purchasers aren't shy about complaining, of course, there's less commonality among the reviews than is true for other brands. Repeated criticisms target the quality of the cabinets' structure and the fact that the Thermofoil wrap peels or "melts" off of the cabinets' surface too easily. In fact, almost all the critiques describe issues with the finish or the general quality and durability of the construction. Of course, some of these — drawers falling off their slides and shelves collapsing under small amounts of weight — are more serious than others.

Cabinets To Go doesn't seem to get a lot of respect in the industry, and that might not surprise anyone except HGTV, who trusts the brand to supply the cabinets used in their stunning dream homes. But while you might expect a company like this to excel at logistics and fail on quality –- along the lines of certain perpetually failing discount flooring chains –- reviews seem to suggest exactly the opposite. Well, okay, mostly the opposite. While complaints about quality do exist (poor finishes that aren't durable, for example), customers are mostly vocal about the process of getting the cabinets to their homes.

And every step along that journey seems to be fraught for Cabinets To Go. The professional measurement service alone, apparently a paid add-on, seems to get more complaints than all of the quality-related grousing put together. One customer complained that two measurements in their kitchen were off by 19 and 26 inches. It's difficult to imagine how a trained measurement engineer, or whatever we're calling them, could possibly have accomplished this feat. Purchasers also point out that cabinets arrived damaged or defective, and sometimes were the wrong cabinets altogether. And, adding insult to injury, the company apparently responds with poor customer service when they deliver the wrong cabinets in the wrong sizes and beat up in transit.

We identified unreliable cabinet brands by poring over every industry and professional review we could find, hundreds of consumer reviews, and even the sometimes immoderate points of view on professional online forums. Using online ratings and reviews is always a dicey proposition, as they're so often gamed by retailers, manufacturers, and anyone else with a stake. On the other hand, those who've had trouble with a product can sometimes be far louder than the far more numerous purchasers who haven't, especially on independent review sites where positive reviews tend to be far less motivated than negative ones. (Because of this effect, we talk about the common, specific issues that consumers experienced, rather than their ratings.) And, as we mentioned before, sometimes a brand's reputation is completely at odds with its reviews. So we looked at everything we could get our hands on to make sense of the cabinet landscape, and our list evolved from every available type of information.

In the process, we also turned up some promising alternatives. It's not unusual to find basic cabinets that outperform more expensive options in terms of durability, and brands like Kraftmaid, Wood Mode, and Brookhaven are known to punch above their weight in terms of quality construction. W. W. Wood Products' Shiloh line has emerged as one of the best values in cabinets, as have Village Handcrafted Cabinetry, Wellsford, and Main Line's Bishop brand.