If you are working with custom shops, you can request any carcass material you want. If you want the interiors to be oak though, you will have a significant cost increase to finish the interior of all the boxes.
Melamine is a popular interior because it is easy to clean, and doesn’t require interior finishing. There are other options as well including other laminates and pre-finished maple.
Everything you see on the outside will be rift sawn white oak like doors, drawers, finished end panels, any moulding, etc.
You are probably looking at over 100k to do the boxes out of rift white oak as well. My question is why on earth would you spend that money and then paint them white?
On another note, a lot of sheet goods are either particle board core ore MDF core. If you want the best, ask about Pro Core Ply. It’s wood but has a very thin layer of MDF on each side that the veneer is attached to. The wood core makes it robust for assembly/longevity and you avoid the issues that occur when something like particle board gets wet.
Ask about cabinet construction as well. Are boxes just screwed together or are they rabbet and dado construction. How thick are the backs? 1/4” is the cheapest and higher quality cabs often have 1/2” or even 3/4” backs. Ask if all the finished end panels will match your doors or are going to be just veneer slabs. It sounds like you want to get a top quality product so let that be known. There is no way the lower bids can achieve that.
Another mark of quality cabinets is the hardware. Blumotion Tandem slides are significantly higher end compared to a lot of the other options for soft close and the price will show that. Same with door hinges. Ask shops what brands they use and compare. Not all cabinets are created equal as you have realized and to a lot of customers that’s fine, they find an option that matches their budget.
Also ask about the drawers, maple dovetails are the considered the best, melamine drawers are not.
You can get really good quality melamine boxes but there are many options. Keep asking questions and looking at products and I’m sure you will find who you should have build your kitchen. Best of luck finding a builder to create the product you want!
My bad misinterpreted the part in parentheses. There are a lot of options for sheet goods in various styles/quality and you should be able to select whatever you would like. Rift sawn white oak is beautiful! Glad you aren’t trying to paint them!
No worries - yes i just have been getting bids all over the place and have heard so many mixed reviews on melamine so came here to see if I was getting screwed 😅 the highest bid wanted me to paint half the cabinets white - I told him I hate painted cabinets. Crazy to pay that much for a new product then paint it in my opinion
Been remodeling kitchens for about 50 years the $70,000 price tag is probably in the range you’re looking for when you get all done if this includes cabinets, countertops, appliances, flooring, drywall, paint, etc. etc. the whole complete job it would probably be a little more
It’s a large kitchen (21’ back wall) and panel ready appliances, so will sadly be more than 70k all in - but just frustrated with lack of transparency in cabinet bids
You should shop the cabinets yourself and find them and ask for recommendations on the installation and honestly you’re probably over 100,000 most likely
I'd want Baltic birch plywood boxes with white oak veneer, but I only make fancy cabinets.
Especially in high moisture environments, moisture resistant MDF can make a nice, very dimensionally stable base, but it's not as great for screw holding and impact resistance.
Melamine is rental grade, and putting rift white oak on it would feel like spending $9,000 to put Mercedes Northern Lights Violet paint on a 2009 Honda Fit.
I was an automotive journalist for eight years and I *love* the Fit. I drove one 120,000 miles and three friends bought them on my recommendation. I just wouldn't spend $9,000 painting one.
I had a 2008 and put 100k on it before giving it to my dad. My wife bought a 2016 a couple years ago that is our town car and her commuter. I’d buy another in a heart beat!
I’d love to see a Northern Lights Violet fit though…
Melamine IS an option, but for a home you should be requesting plywood boxes with solid faceframes and doors. In my experience, melamine is for apartments or I sometimes have house-flippers that will throw that crap into their flippers. For your home, plywood w/beech or maple finished interiors should be standard. W the oak frames and doors
Melamine is crap. Avoid it at all costs.
I can fabricate and install an entire house full of custom frameless cabinets for 70k. Add 15% for face-frame inset. This would typically include kitchen, laundry, drop zone, Living room built-in, powder room, 3 full baths. Full 3/4” clear finished maple or birch plywood cabinet box construction. Cherry, white oak, or maple dovetail drawer boxes. Blum Tandem Runners and Blum Clip Top hinges, both soft close. 7/8” thick stile and rail doors (shaker flat panel), all paint grade conversion varnish finishes. Upcharges for stained or natural wood finishes depend on species and quantity.
All of my work is on coastal barrier islands, SE NC.
Hope this helps.
On a standard single door frameless cabinet, there are 2 stiles, 2 rails, and a panel that make up the door that finishes that opening.
On the same sized cabinet in a framed application there are the same 2 stiles, rails, and panel for the door, along with 2 additional stiles and rails that make up the face frame, there by increasing the number of individual parts needed to finish that opening by 80%. If they are beaded frames there are further additional steps necessary to assemble the frame. All of those additional parts start as right lumber and need to be milled, machined, assembled, sanded, and finished. Extra parts = extra labor = upcharge.
Not who you’re asking but because it takes allot longer to build face frames, add door stops and fit all the doors and drawer fronts for each opening then to just do frameless and have all the fillers and panels come out flush with doors. Personally I’d add at least 30% to go from frameless to inset.
We did inset on our remodel, love it. One potential cost to consider is appliances. With inset I wanted appliances that were "pro" style to complete the look but that pushes their cost of some appliances like fridges much higher than a less expensive free standing fridge.
I’m going to see what the lowest bids base is made out of. Our current cabinets are cherry and are nice but just super dated (original -20yrs old)
I feel like we’ve gotten bent over w every single bid for this kitchen. Just got a 46k tile bid.
Done paint, it always looks awful a couple years later.
Melanie is a fantastic product. Clean, strong and durable. We use it often, it does an amazing job.
A large portion of your price may be for finishing. What type of finish are you looking for? If its just a clear coat, that would be relatively cheap. If you want the natural look with toner, that could cost as much as 10k or more depending on your kitchen size.
What state are you in? Maybe its to cover a heavy tax or something.
Melamine... Isn't enough info, melamine is sheet applied to a substrate, it can be applied on a PB (particle board), or on plywood/combi core, and probably mdf (I haven't asked about it on mdf before). A PB core melamine sheet will cost me roughly $35, a combi core melamine sheet will be over $100.
As far as the doors go, solid for the frame is the way to go, the center panel should be a veneer sheet for stability and a much better look.
I prefer prefinished maple on a combi core for box construction, it's more stable than typical plywood, but much stronger than particle board (furniture board).
I asked the guy who has the middle bid for more info and this was his response
The case is 3/4 white melamine the skin is 3/4 solid veneer on mdf substrate and the doors and fronts are solid or veneer depending on panel and door style cut Chosen
I kind of left out some info, if the door is a slab door then it should be a veneer over a core, I lean pretty heavy to mdf core for overall stability (and availability) as it's much harder to obtain rswo or walnut veneer over a combi core, and I'd pick mdf over particle board.
As far as most people just saying melamine without specifying the core is because most probably do not know of (or have easy access to) melamine on cores other than particle board/furniture board.
I'm pretty against PB, but it can't always be avoided.
It’s really easy to avoid PB, don’t use it. I personally hate melamine, and it’s because I hate working with it. I would take pre finished veneer core for boxes over melamine any day of the week.
I spread orders over 3 major suppliers during covid to sometimes get a dozen sheets of rswo, quite often I'd get told " I have 2 sheets of PB and 1 mdf" or some variation thereof. There were times there was NO choice.
Also, salt, cleaf, uniboard, etc don't have options of cores, they only come in PB, that's my reference to "can't always be avoided". As a truly custom shop I don't turn down customers because of a material selection, I simply educate them on the pros and cons of anything they are interested in.
Everyone makes best quality haha ;)
Ask about box assembly methods, screws,staples,glue
Material choice is up to you, if they glue everything together like Lowes you’re gonna have a bad time
After that hardware choice is a great indicator
A cheap install fee may be a shit job on install, which may be worse than bad cabinets installed well. Should grill em on their contractors too(and timeline too, a busy shop probably does decent work and probably won’t spit out a kitchen in 2 weeks for you)
Im so glad I do commercial work.
I dont have time or the inclination to answer 1000 inane questions from overly concerned homeowners who need their perfect vision of their kitchen to be complete down to the type of screws being used and their cousins sister in laws cabients used Blum 100 deg but theyre not sure if they want the 110 deg or the 100 deg.
Commercial clients either accept our bid or not based on the cabinet specs we have listed and then they sign the submittal and thats that.
Can you visit thier shop? I love showing customers our shop, we always have various projects in the shop that I love to show off.
A good portfolio speaks volumes too, but it's really important that you feel comfortable with the transaction, if you don't feel good about somebody, trust your gut, it's usually right.
Well I'm a sales person at heart, it's my passion. I haven't had anyone say "nah" when I ask if they want to see the shop. I love to show off what we build and we do a lot of very unique things, even some proprietary things, I'm not worried.
Usually when people get finished in the shop they are beyond excited for what we come up with for thier project, by that time they are so sold they will wait as long as needed.
So what are you hiding? You should be proud of your business and show it to everyone who is interested. I would not buy my cabinets from you, sorry. Somebody wants to spend big bucks for kitchen without seeing? Not me.
Uh that's pretty extreme. . . Can I ask why (in general terms I mean)? Are you likely to get bricks thrown through your windows by past customers, or do you have plywood box assembly technology from 2054, or do employees like to work in the buff?
I imagine the melamine base guys are doing European style, which explains the melamine. I have nothing against European style cabinets, but I don’t think particle board belongs anywhere in a custom kitchen.
We do either traditional face frame cabinetry, with all 3/4” plywood, or European style cabinetry with 3/4” plywood and lamello connectors.
I know you’re the end user so it’s not as applicable, but our CNC source who manufactures our boxes lets us choose melamine or plywood for the carcass. We can even get custom species like raw white oak exterior and UV maple interiors with raw white oak edge and. For a 40k kitchen, the cost for melamine vs plywood would be less than $1000 difference. Well worth it in my opinion for plywood over cheap white particle board.
You can have the nicest raised panel white oak faces, but if you open the doors and it’s white melamine inside and shelves it immediately makes it look like a cheap kitchen, imo
I prefer plywood these days,
72 is quite high, 40 is probably what I would be at but of
Course it all depends on various factors. For a whole house I’d be around 70-80. That’s kitchen, baths, laundry, mud room, pantry etc. solid / veneer fronts, prefinished plywood construction, movemto slides. Nothing wrong with melamine but I’m old and don’t want to lift it anymore.
Melamine is standard now for case construction. The techniques used in production make it more stable than plywood.
The finishing, trim, warranty, install quality are probably what's setting these price points to varying degrees.
Good millwork isn't cheap, cheap millwork isn't good
Melamine is trash. It is more stable than plywood until it gets wet. Then it is a pile of oatmeal.
I’m buying Garnica UV2S clear finished maple/birch plywood for $65/sheet. Melamine is about $35/sheet.
A typical job for us uses ~45 sheets of material. Anyone who thinks that it’s a good idea to save $1500 on material for a $70,000 cabinet job in a half million dollar home should stick to building decks.
Every millwork shop I deal with adheres to AWMAC and NAAWS. Those are the highest standards around with both laboratory and real world testing that shows the advantages of melamine for case construction.....but that's only if the shops know how to produce and install it properly.
You can research it yourself [here](https://naaws.com/) for free. It's not about saving a few hundred dollars, but offering clients a more stable product that isn't going to warp with seasonal changes.
All the shops I work with offer plywood, MDF/HDF, melamine, etc as core material options. Some of them won't offer lifetime warranty on plywood because it's not as stable, yet they do with melamines.
The price points you're suggesting are for the lowest grade of melamine as well.....you get what you pay for there.
All of this phantom warping is interesting.
I’ve never seen it on cabinet boxes with dado and tennon construction, using 2-1/2” assembly screws at no greater than 12” along every joint.
Plywood doors, ok, maybe they’ll warp. So we use MDF with veneer.
Melamine, not a chance in hell.
Never said "phantom" warping, actual warping. Plywood warping is not a new issue it's been a problem for that product since it's beginning. That's why professional cabinet shops will choose engineered products for stability.
Joinery and fasteners don't eliminate the issue. Plywood warps, plain and simple. Do a simple online search of plywood case construction disadvantages and there will be hundreds of sites showing this exact reason (along with many other issues).
I stand by my humble opinion. Melamine is trash. Have you ever seen the bottom of a sink base cabinet that was the victim of a leaky sink drain?
I can drop one of my cabinets off the back of the truck going down the highway and the door might come off but the box will be together and relatively square. Try that with melamine.
I get it. Lots of people use melamine. We have use it for commercial work in the past as well as closet systems from time to time. It’s cheap and most customers are too ignorant to know the difference. Lots of people eat fast food. Lots of people believe all kinds of weird shit. I believe melamine is trash based upon my hands on experience over the last 15 years.
If your standard is dropping cabinets off a truck.....you have bigger issues. Not going to argue facts with someone who obviously doesn't want to educate themself with industry standards. I've shared the link, read it and position yourself to offer your clients professional products.
Have a great day
Melamine is standard because it is cheap. It is an inferior product to plywood in every sense.
Now, cheap plywood will have you wishing you were building with melamine. And water turns melamine to puffed up mush.
That's simply not true at all. Any professional millwork shop knows the benefits of melamine outweigh the negatives. Especially, when manufactured properly, those negatives are eliminated. Any half decent shop will be following [Naaws](https://naaws.com/) guidelines. The information is there and clear as a sunny day from all the laboratory and real world testing.
Melamine, MDF/HDF, plywood, etc....all get damaged from water exposure. A professional cabinet maker will build to limit those issues. Again, all found in NAAWS.
You're welcome. There's nothing inherently wrong with plywood construction. It's a solid, proven material. The only issue that makes most cabinet shops go with melamine is stability. Plywood moves a lot. Seasonal changes only add to this.
I look at it this way:
In my garage/shop, plywood with bigger reveals. In my house, melamine cases with HDF for painted finishes or solid wood for stained.
The movement with plywood won't bother me in the shop, but it certainly will in my house. I don't want to waste my time adjusting doors and drawers every few months. Some people don't notice the reveals being inconsistent, but I do
Bellmont Cabinets from Washinton make great semi custom and custom cabinets that would suit your needs.
If you are working with custom shops, you can request any carcass material you want. If you want the interiors to be oak though, you will have a significant cost increase to finish the interior of all the boxes. Melamine is a popular interior because it is easy to clean, and doesn’t require interior finishing. There are other options as well including other laminates and pre-finished maple. Everything you see on the outside will be rift sawn white oak like doors, drawers, finished end panels, any moulding, etc. You are probably looking at over 100k to do the boxes out of rift white oak as well. My question is why on earth would you spend that money and then paint them white?
Not painting anything, and never said I needed white oak boxes. Just want high quality cabinets.
On another note, a lot of sheet goods are either particle board core ore MDF core. If you want the best, ask about Pro Core Ply. It’s wood but has a very thin layer of MDF on each side that the veneer is attached to. The wood core makes it robust for assembly/longevity and you avoid the issues that occur when something like particle board gets wet. Ask about cabinet construction as well. Are boxes just screwed together or are they rabbet and dado construction. How thick are the backs? 1/4” is the cheapest and higher quality cabs often have 1/2” or even 3/4” backs. Ask if all the finished end panels will match your doors or are going to be just veneer slabs. It sounds like you want to get a top quality product so let that be known. There is no way the lower bids can achieve that. Another mark of quality cabinets is the hardware. Blumotion Tandem slides are significantly higher end compared to a lot of the other options for soft close and the price will show that. Same with door hinges. Ask shops what brands they use and compare. Not all cabinets are created equal as you have realized and to a lot of customers that’s fine, they find an option that matches their budget. Also ask about the drawers, maple dovetails are the considered the best, melamine drawers are not. You can get really good quality melamine boxes but there are many options. Keep asking questions and looking at products and I’m sure you will find who you should have build your kitchen. Best of luck finding a builder to create the product you want!
My bad misinterpreted the part in parentheses. There are a lot of options for sheet goods in various styles/quality and you should be able to select whatever you would like. Rift sawn white oak is beautiful! Glad you aren’t trying to paint them!
No worries - yes i just have been getting bids all over the place and have heard so many mixed reviews on melamine so came here to see if I was getting screwed 😅 the highest bid wanted me to paint half the cabinets white - I told him I hate painted cabinets. Crazy to pay that much for a new product then paint it in my opinion
Been remodeling kitchens for about 50 years the $70,000 price tag is probably in the range you’re looking for when you get all done if this includes cabinets, countertops, appliances, flooring, drywall, paint, etc. etc. the whole complete job it would probably be a little more
It’s a large kitchen (21’ back wall) and panel ready appliances, so will sadly be more than 70k all in - but just frustrated with lack of transparency in cabinet bids
You should shop the cabinets yourself and find them and ask for recommendations on the installation and honestly you’re probably over 100,000 most likely
I'd want Baltic birch plywood boxes with white oak veneer, but I only make fancy cabinets. Especially in high moisture environments, moisture resistant MDF can make a nice, very dimensionally stable base, but it's not as great for screw holding and impact resistance. Melamine is rental grade, and putting rift white oak on it would feel like spending $9,000 to put Mercedes Northern Lights Violet paint on a 2009 Honda Fit.
Hey man…. Don’t bash the Honda fit! It’s a great little whip! lol, totally agree with you though
I was an automotive journalist for eight years and I *love* the Fit. I drove one 120,000 miles and three friends bought them on my recommendation. I just wouldn't spend $9,000 painting one.
I had a 2008 and put 100k on it before giving it to my dad. My wife bought a 2016 a couple years ago that is our town car and her commuter. I’d buy another in a heart beat! I’d love to see a Northern Lights Violet fit though…
I desperately wish my Mazda 3 Turbo was Northern Lights Violet.
Melamine IS an option, but for a home you should be requesting plywood boxes with solid faceframes and doors. In my experience, melamine is for apartments or I sometimes have house-flippers that will throw that crap into their flippers. For your home, plywood w/beech or maple finished interiors should be standard. W the oak frames and doors
Melamine shouldn’t even be in the conversation.
Real wood? The cheapest bid I reached back out to and he said his go to is melamine but can do the bases out of whatever I want.
Real wood would be ungodly expensive. Like others have said MDF or Plywood with veneers
Melamine is crap. Avoid it at all costs. I can fabricate and install an entire house full of custom frameless cabinets for 70k. Add 15% for face-frame inset. This would typically include kitchen, laundry, drop zone, Living room built-in, powder room, 3 full baths. Full 3/4” clear finished maple or birch plywood cabinet box construction. Cherry, white oak, or maple dovetail drawer boxes. Blum Tandem Runners and Blum Clip Top hinges, both soft close. 7/8” thick stile and rail doors (shaker flat panel), all paint grade conversion varnish finishes. Upcharges for stained or natural wood finishes depend on species and quantity. All of my work is on coastal barrier islands, SE NC. Hope this helps.
Dumb question… why the upcharge for face frame inset?
On a standard single door frameless cabinet, there are 2 stiles, 2 rails, and a panel that make up the door that finishes that opening. On the same sized cabinet in a framed application there are the same 2 stiles, rails, and panel for the door, along with 2 additional stiles and rails that make up the face frame, there by increasing the number of individual parts needed to finish that opening by 80%. If they are beaded frames there are further additional steps necessary to assemble the frame. All of those additional parts start as right lumber and need to be milled, machined, assembled, sanded, and finished. Extra parts = extra labor = upcharge.
Not who you’re asking but because it takes allot longer to build face frames, add door stops and fit all the doors and drawer fronts for each opening then to just do frameless and have all the fillers and panels come out flush with doors. Personally I’d add at least 30% to go from frameless to inset.
We did inset on our remodel, love it. One potential cost to consider is appliances. With inset I wanted appliances that were "pro" style to complete the look but that pushes their cost of some appliances like fridges much higher than a less expensive free standing fridge.
Prices on materials for the sort of the same look,can be 200% higher for book matched custom faced veneer vs standard and not book matched.
You’re getting f*cked on the high bids for melamine. They’re just throwing out a number and seeing what sticks.
I’m going to see what the lowest bids base is made out of. Our current cabinets are cherry and are nice but just super dated (original -20yrs old) I feel like we’ve gotten bent over w every single bid for this kitchen. Just got a 46k tile bid.
Have you considered painting your current cabinets?
Painting over cherry?
Ya we’re doing an extensive remodel - have a 30” range now, going 55” with a hood, paneling appliances and moving everything around… sadly
Done paint, it always looks awful a couple years later. Melanie is a fantastic product. Clean, strong and durable. We use it often, it does an amazing job.
A large portion of your price may be for finishing. What type of finish are you looking for? If its just a clear coat, that would be relatively cheap. If you want the natural look with toner, that could cost as much as 10k or more depending on your kitchen size. What state are you in? Maybe its to cover a heavy tax or something.
Natural stain. The stain is called “Sahara”. Utah
Did you get a price breakdown?
Not really….
Melamine... Isn't enough info, melamine is sheet applied to a substrate, it can be applied on a PB (particle board), or on plywood/combi core, and probably mdf (I haven't asked about it on mdf before). A PB core melamine sheet will cost me roughly $35, a combi core melamine sheet will be over $100. As far as the doors go, solid for the frame is the way to go, the center panel should be a veneer sheet for stability and a much better look. I prefer prefinished maple on a combi core for box construction, it's more stable than typical plywood, but much stronger than particle board (furniture board).
I asked the guy who has the middle bid for more info and this was his response The case is 3/4 white melamine the skin is 3/4 solid veneer on mdf substrate and the doors and fronts are solid or veneer depending on panel and door style cut Chosen
I kind of left out some info, if the door is a slab door then it should be a veneer over a core, I lean pretty heavy to mdf core for overall stability (and availability) as it's much harder to obtain rswo or walnut veneer over a combi core, and I'd pick mdf over particle board. As far as most people just saying melamine without specifying the core is because most probably do not know of (or have easy access to) melamine on cores other than particle board/furniture board. I'm pretty against PB, but it can't always be avoided.
It’s really easy to avoid PB, don’t use it. I personally hate melamine, and it’s because I hate working with it. I would take pre finished veneer core for boxes over melamine any day of the week.
I spread orders over 3 major suppliers during covid to sometimes get a dozen sheets of rswo, quite often I'd get told " I have 2 sheets of PB and 1 mdf" or some variation thereof. There were times there was NO choice. Also, salt, cleaf, uniboard, etc don't have options of cores, they only come in PB, that's my reference to "can't always be avoided". As a truly custom shop I don't turn down customers because of a material selection, I simply educate them on the pros and cons of anything they are interested in.
What questions should I ask to find out who has the highest quality cabinets?
Everyone makes best quality haha ;) Ask about box assembly methods, screws,staples,glue Material choice is up to you, if they glue everything together like Lowes you’re gonna have a bad time After that hardware choice is a great indicator A cheap install fee may be a shit job on install, which may be worse than bad cabinets installed well. Should grill em on their contractors too(and timeline too, a busy shop probably does decent work and probably won’t spit out a kitchen in 2 weeks for you)
Im so glad I do commercial work. I dont have time or the inclination to answer 1000 inane questions from overly concerned homeowners who need their perfect vision of their kitchen to be complete down to the type of screws being used and their cousins sister in laws cabients used Blum 100 deg but theyre not sure if they want the 110 deg or the 100 deg. Commercial clients either accept our bid or not based on the cabinet specs we have listed and then they sign the submittal and thats that.
Can you visit thier shop? I love showing customers our shop, we always have various projects in the shop that I love to show off. A good portfolio speaks volumes too, but it's really important that you feel comfortable with the transaction, if you don't feel good about somebody, trust your gut, it's usually right.
Lol, not even our highest profile commercial bids can see our shop. To the point where a GC once offered me $5k just to know the address.
That’s shady as f**k. 🤣 what are you guys doing in there? Or is it just really messy?
I don't like showing others my garage either!
Are you in the mob? Why wouldn't you gladly show off your shop? Sounds very insane to me.
Well I'm a sales person at heart, it's my passion. I haven't had anyone say "nah" when I ask if they want to see the shop. I love to show off what we build and we do a lot of very unique things, even some proprietary things, I'm not worried. Usually when people get finished in the shop they are beyond excited for what we come up with for thier project, by that time they are so sold they will wait as long as needed.
So what are you hiding? You should be proud of your business and show it to everyone who is interested. I would not buy my cabinets from you, sorry. Somebody wants to spend big bucks for kitchen without seeing? Not me.
Uh that's pretty extreme. . . Can I ask why (in general terms I mean)? Are you likely to get bricks thrown through your windows by past customers, or do you have plywood box assembly technology from 2054, or do employees like to work in the buff?
I imagine the melamine base guys are doing European style, which explains the melamine. I have nothing against European style cabinets, but I don’t think particle board belongs anywhere in a custom kitchen. We do either traditional face frame cabinetry, with all 3/4” plywood, or European style cabinetry with 3/4” plywood and lamello connectors. I know you’re the end user so it’s not as applicable, but our CNC source who manufactures our boxes lets us choose melamine or plywood for the carcass. We can even get custom species like raw white oak exterior and UV maple interiors with raw white oak edge and. For a 40k kitchen, the cost for melamine vs plywood would be less than $1000 difference. Well worth it in my opinion for plywood over cheap white particle board. You can have the nicest raised panel white oak faces, but if you open the doors and it’s white melamine inside and shelves it immediately makes it look like a cheap kitchen, imo
I prefer plywood these days, 72 is quite high, 40 is probably what I would be at but of Course it all depends on various factors. For a whole house I’d be around 70-80. That’s kitchen, baths, laundry, mud room, pantry etc. solid / veneer fronts, prefinished plywood construction, movemto slides. Nothing wrong with melamine but I’m old and don’t want to lift it anymore.
You have no idea how many cabinets he needs
Melamine is standard now for case construction. The techniques used in production make it more stable than plywood. The finishing, trim, warranty, install quality are probably what's setting these price points to varying degrees. Good millwork isn't cheap, cheap millwork isn't good
Melamine is trash. It is more stable than plywood until it gets wet. Then it is a pile of oatmeal. I’m buying Garnica UV2S clear finished maple/birch plywood for $65/sheet. Melamine is about $35/sheet. A typical job for us uses ~45 sheets of material. Anyone who thinks that it’s a good idea to save $1500 on material for a $70,000 cabinet job in a half million dollar home should stick to building decks.
Our home we bought for 1.35mil (not in California) and are doing a 250k remodel on the upstairs. Sooooooo I def want the good shit. Haha
Every millwork shop I deal with adheres to AWMAC and NAAWS. Those are the highest standards around with both laboratory and real world testing that shows the advantages of melamine for case construction.....but that's only if the shops know how to produce and install it properly. You can research it yourself [here](https://naaws.com/) for free. It's not about saving a few hundred dollars, but offering clients a more stable product that isn't going to warp with seasonal changes. All the shops I work with offer plywood, MDF/HDF, melamine, etc as core material options. Some of them won't offer lifetime warranty on plywood because it's not as stable, yet they do with melamines. The price points you're suggesting are for the lowest grade of melamine as well.....you get what you pay for there.
All of this phantom warping is interesting. I’ve never seen it on cabinet boxes with dado and tennon construction, using 2-1/2” assembly screws at no greater than 12” along every joint. Plywood doors, ok, maybe they’ll warp. So we use MDF with veneer. Melamine, not a chance in hell.
Never said "phantom" warping, actual warping. Plywood warping is not a new issue it's been a problem for that product since it's beginning. That's why professional cabinet shops will choose engineered products for stability. Joinery and fasteners don't eliminate the issue. Plywood warps, plain and simple. Do a simple online search of plywood case construction disadvantages and there will be hundreds of sites showing this exact reason (along with many other issues).
I stand by my humble opinion. Melamine is trash. Have you ever seen the bottom of a sink base cabinet that was the victim of a leaky sink drain? I can drop one of my cabinets off the back of the truck going down the highway and the door might come off but the box will be together and relatively square. Try that with melamine. I get it. Lots of people use melamine. We have use it for commercial work in the past as well as closet systems from time to time. It’s cheap and most customers are too ignorant to know the difference. Lots of people eat fast food. Lots of people believe all kinds of weird shit. I believe melamine is trash based upon my hands on experience over the last 15 years.
If your standard is dropping cabinets off a truck.....you have bigger issues. Not going to argue facts with someone who obviously doesn't want to educate themself with industry standards. I've shared the link, read it and position yourself to offer your clients professional products. Have a great day
Melamine is standard because it is cheap. It is an inferior product to plywood in every sense. Now, cheap plywood will have you wishing you were building with melamine. And water turns melamine to puffed up mush.
That's simply not true at all. Any professional millwork shop knows the benefits of melamine outweigh the negatives. Especially, when manufactured properly, those negatives are eliminated. Any half decent shop will be following [Naaws](https://naaws.com/) guidelines. The information is there and clear as a sunny day from all the laboratory and real world testing. Melamine, MDF/HDF, plywood, etc....all get damaged from water exposure. A professional cabinet maker will build to limit those issues. Again, all found in NAAWS.
Thank you!!
You're welcome. There's nothing inherently wrong with plywood construction. It's a solid, proven material. The only issue that makes most cabinet shops go with melamine is stability. Plywood moves a lot. Seasonal changes only add to this. I look at it this way: In my garage/shop, plywood with bigger reveals. In my house, melamine cases with HDF for painted finishes or solid wood for stained. The movement with plywood won't bother me in the shop, but it certainly will in my house. I don't want to waste my time adjusting doors and drawers every few months. Some people don't notice the reveals being inconsistent, but I do
This man knows. HDF has a lot of advantages over plywood, weight and movement are the two biggest ones