Most RTA companies out there only sell the most used sizes in cabinets. For what ever reason the easy reach wall cabinet does not sell much. Fabuwood is about the only large importer of cabinets that offers an easy reach corner cabinet in all three heights in their more expensive series of door styles. Down side to Fabuwood is the Ready to Assemble part is not user friendly to some one who is not mechanically inclined, or does not have all of the following an air compressor with a staple gun, bar clamps, glue, cordless drill, and some patience.

Most urban areas have a dealer for Fabuwood somewhere. I think it is better to pay the local person slightly more then buying off the websites. The websites all are so shady saying they are factory direct when not. The only exception would be Lilly Ann they have the business model of importing and selling direct. I saw their cabinets in their Vegas location a while back. I was not impressed with their quality. Of course I do cabinets every day so I may notice things others do not. No RTA company out there is really anything to brag about for overall quality and flexibility of sizes. I say that while I have the door samples to 6 RTA companies on the wall of my showroom. I do sell something in RTA every other month or so. I am not totaly biased against them I have worked with every major RTA company out there. They all have their good and bad days.

I have an account with Wellborn Forest and because i do apt sales now and then they set me up with the Americana line which has 9 door styles and 350 cabinets to chose from. They offer easy reach wall cabinets for example. I had a guy ask me the other day if I could match or beat Lowes cabinets on the shelf. With the Americana series on the lower priced door styles I could match the price of the cabinets on the shelf at my local Lowes. I had 30, 36, 42, microwave wall and base cabinets, pantrys up to 36" wide, drawer base 12 - 36" wide even. Many RTA cabinet lines only go to 30" wide drawer base. I can change cabinet depth add matching interior and glass doors on anything and a lot more. Lowes for example only has 30" cabinets and 84" tall cabinets on the shelf not to mention the semi custom modifications I can do. My orders must be in by monday mornings each week and the cabinets are at my shop the following Wed - Thur. Most RTA cabinets take at least Mon - Mon.

Since I have gotten set up with the Americana series of cabinets I am leaning more and more towards taking my RTA samples off the walls of my slection room where I have a door sample of almost all styles of every company I work with which is currently 12 from stock and RTA all the way to custom. Every one is all about the plywood construction. To me plywood in an of itself is over rated as the reason to go with RTA over something american made.

The Americana series has twice the cabinet choices of any RTA line. Each door style has 4-5 stain colors, there are 3-4 glaze choices on top of that. I can also add blum tandem undermount soft close guides to the drawers. The only thing I would change of the americana series is they do not offer butt doors on cabinets 30" or wider. Most RTA cabinets 30, 33, or 36 will have butt doors.

As a dealer to compensate for that you need all the RTA companies out there to offer a selection of color. No RTA company has all the same cabinet sizes available as the next company so generally you can not compare one to the next without a different design which is time consuming to re do every time. People want you to price all of them to see which will be the lowest cost.

Once a cabinet is installed to the wall it generally will stay there! Plywood is more durrable for shipping and man handling before it is screwed in place. If you buy the matching plywood panels you can skin the exposed sides of the cabinets and have the colors match on a particle board cabinet. I can add blum soft close to the drawers and have the same lifetime warranty of any semi custom line with Blum.

To me the overall flexibilty out weighs the benifits of plywood from an RTA cabinet. The lower cost american cabinet lines offer particle board box only. Lets face it RTA cabinets are being bought by individuals who think the cost is less then the semi custom route. TSG, IKS and JSI for example assemble their cabinets for dealers for approx $20 each as a flat rate. Fabuwood, River Run,and Interstock change the product cost which is usually an increas of 5 - 7.5%. It does not cost that much to have the assembled for you. Now wether the dealer tries to make more money on top of that is a different issue.

People buying cabinets on line in some ways are not well educated on what they are truly buying. For example most of the replies to this post named the website names of companies selling cabinets. Most of those individuals have no idea who actually made the cabinets.I think in terms of the name of the importer of the cabinets as that is the brand name of the product for the US consumer.Even if you know the name of the cabinets from my posts on Garden Web you do not know what online store is selling what as most change the name of the door styles and do not give the importer name to be able to say it is a direct sale. Of course you are buying direct from someone like me who made a website. Lilly Ann is the exception. They sell direct at close to what the comperable dealer cost would be of the companies I get my cabinets from.

The supply chain of RTA cabinets selling on the internet does not want you to know where the cabinets come from so you can not compare prices. The online marketing tries to create monopolies by limiting your true product knowledge of the cabinets themselves. J Mark cabinets are sold all over the internet for example. There is a guy in DC who sells them as 10 x 10's where he buys a random list of cabinets, assembles them, and puts pictures up on Craigs list.He sells the original set and then orders what you need to make it fit.

I sold J Mark cabinets to a friend a few years ago where now the cabinets exposed to a lot water around the sink no longer have a painted finish left on the wood over all the drawer fronts and the doors. The paint did not stay adhered to the wood after exposure to the water. To be fair they are not the best house keepers so I imagine there is a lot of water all the time from being care less when using the sink with the young kids.

I have never had that happen to any of my American products I have worked with thru the years. Of course J Mark cabinets only come with a 1 year warranty. I am buying him new ones to replace what needs to be done. Of course it is bound to repeat itself over time.


Dealers with Debut or Legacy cabinets sister companys have a line that is similar to the Americana also. I looked into Debut last year and after messing with it a bit gave up on it.