Your KD never should've told you that the factory has control over their finishes. Thomasville, I believe, is a mass-produced, semi-custom cabinet manufacturer. Even with a CUSTOM manufacturer....anything different than spec, must have a special finish sample made, approved and signed off on.

This sounds like a newbie mistake...how long as the KD been designing/ordering? Was this thru Lowes?

Did you see a door sample prior to ordering? I would think you would have some trouble getting them replaced...as the finish will probably look the same if you re-order. Unless Thomasville goes above and beyond....and does a special finish for you.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
KOMPY

We ordered from Home Depot. The KD has been at it for 8 years, so hopefully she knew what she was talking about. Actually one of my close friends is a former HD KD, and I asked her opinion before contacting my KD. She said she definitely dealt with this issue when she worked there and that the KD should do exactly what she ended up doing. (Contacting the Thomasville rep, having the doors replaced if necessary.)

I did see the sample beforehand and that's exactly why I said if I would only do a glaze if it could be ordered light.

If I did send them back, it would be to have them replaced with doors with no glaze - since it was free (due to the sale) we won't be out any money. I wouldn't ask them to try to re-do it light - especially after your advice. ;-) The KD said that the rep would "make us happy" so if that means re-doing or replacing the doors in the end, I hope he means it.

Hopefully though, I'll like it when it's all put together. Right now I have reservations.

That's so disappointing to expect one thing and get another. Does your copy of the copy say light glazing on it? If so you have two options. Either get them to redo it it, or get them to give you a substantial discount on the cabinets. If it doesn't say that, it will be a he said, she said situation ;-(. Call the person you gave those instructions too as see what they say. I would call them to see what could be done first, and then give yourself a few days to live with them. Try to find photos of other kitchens with glazing like that on the net so you can see the overall effect on a finished kitchen. It definitely isn't light glazing and that's not right or fair if that's what you specified they wanted.

It is a pretty look and looks great with the soapstone, but if it wasn't what you had your heart set on and you won't be happy with them you need to get this some how fixed. Please keep us posted.

You'd be nuts to install those cabinets as is. What if they can't change the doors? (Which is highly likely...they're mass produced cabinets). Then you're stuck, and you paid the cost to install. They're just hoping you don't want the hassle of returning them and waiting again. I was told the same thing about some cabinets i received that were out of spec. I absolutely refused to install them (doing wall damage, etc). and cancelled my credit card charge. The factory took them back and we ordered from someone else.

Sarah you posted your response before I was done writing mine. The soapstone pics - this stone darkens after being oiled. The first picture was right when it was oiled, taken so you can see the movement in the stone. The second pic is what it looks like after the oil has sat for a few hours - it will stay that dark, but IRL you should see the movement. It's green when it's first oiled but then darkens to black with hints of green in the veins. It's hard to imagine, but I posted both so maybe you could get an idea of what the stone really would look like once it's black. (the pic of it black was taken without a flash by the counter guy.)

Igloochic, I was told only the doors would be replaced. The cabinet bodies don't have any glaze, only the doors. Is that opening a can of worms with the finishes potentially not matching? Gawd I hope not.

No stock or semi custom line has individual control over the amount of glazing on an order. If you like the sample in the showroom, fine, but don't expect to be able to customize the amount to a lighter glaze. It's not possible on an assembly line production of stock or semi custom. That's why full custom cabinetry exists.

It would also be extremely rare for a cabinet rep to approve new doors for the whole order. There would have to be wholesale manufacturer's defects, which there are not. This is a case of buyers remorse. Buyers sign off on the door styles and finishes and acknowledge that each glzing is different. That's in writing with your signature in a file somewhere. It's definately a case of he said she said, but what's in writing with signatures will be what prevails in the end.

I agree with igloochic, I would resist installing them. If you decide to go ahead and install them, read the fine print in your contract and make sure that installing them does not constitute acceptance of the finish. Ask them to put something in writing from KD or manufacturer that clearly states that the glaze is unacceptable to you prior to installation and that post installation you have a right to request replacement of all the doors if they are not acceptable to you.

On another note, I have very light glaze on my cabs. The finish was custom and it was specified as "feather light glaze with no/minimal hang-up". I don't have Thomasville cabs, but at least with my P&F cabs the term hang-up is used to denote the amount of glaze left in the crevices. I don't know if using terms like that might help you. And I did have to sign off on a door sample that was acceptable so there was no question exactly what I'd be getting.

Great. It is noted on my order that I want the glaze light. Believe me, I asked about this specifically and never would have ordered the glaze if I knew this would be an issue. I'm pretty ticked that if it's as impossible to specify levels of glaze like you say it is, I was told that it wouldn't be a problem. I had no reason to think otherwise since our closest friends specified light glaze for their cabinets (different manufacturer) and got exactly what they asked for.

I do not consider this buyers remorse since I was specifically told it could be ordered light, and it is noted on my order as such.

though you may be right that they will refuse to rectify it. It's not the end of the world - If we absolutely can't live with it, we buy the paint from them and have them done ourselves. I just don't think we should have to do that. I am in the customer service business myself, if I thought this were our mistake I would suck it up.

I don't think this is your fault. I believe the blame falls on the kitchen designer mostly, then home depot's order expediter and the manufacturer's order entry department (if the KD wrote 'light glaze' on the actual order).

Ask to see a copy of the cabinet order and factory confirmation. This is where 'light glaze' should've been noted (as well as your invoice). But again, I highly doubt that Thomasville does special glazing applications. I've been told that some semi-custom glazed finishes are applied just like regular stain....but the special finish then separates the glaze and it seeps into the nooks and crevices of your door. There is not a second glazing application. This is what I was told by a rep years ago.

If Thomasville's stain process is like this, there is no way, they could control the amount of glaze hangup.

Hope this helps.
Kompy

Someone else answered as I would. You want to read the fine print of your contract...sit down and read it ALL right now and then make your decision. Yes I think it's the KD's fault...but you also signed a contract, so you have to deal with that as part of your future. If it has a glaze clause (they normally all do) just having the "light glazing" written on the contract won't necessarily save you. So, if that's the case, you have to decide...will I take these cabinets with the glaze as is? Take them with unglazed doors? or do I want them at all? And make that decision AFTER reading every letter on your contract...even the stuff on the back :OP

Custom cabinet orders do allow for glaze changes, and that might be what your friends have, but when you order a mass produced cabinet, it's just not going to be simple to make changes like that. I have glazed cabinets and because they're all custom, I was sent doors for review (which was a funny delivery since we were in the hospital LOL normally guests get cookies...I got doors). I then signed a contract specific to those doors. It's a big deal in the cabinet world because of issues just like yours.

When I was shopping for cabinets, I had wanted a natural maple with a light nickle glaze. I went to 6 different showrooms, not big box stores. Fieldstone, Omega/Dynasty,
Brookhaven, Kraftmaid, Diamond, and Wellborn. Every single one of them told me the same thing, they could not predict how much glaze would be on the doors. Every order, even from the same manufacturer, can come in different. It depends who is doing the glaze.

I was afraid to take the chance, so I ordered mine without glaze.

Thanks everyone. Igloochic, DH and I will go over the contract tonight and see what it says in the fine print. I'm not going to do anything until I see them myself, which will be this weekend. Like I said, maybe i'll end up liking it. I've certainly changed my mind on other things I thought I was set on during the course of this renovation.

And even if I have no recourse, they can always be done by us. We have family members that do this sort of thing. :-)

I am going thru the exact same thing right now!! I did not want a dark glaze. Was going back and forth whether I should do it at all and was convinced that it would be the best thing. My KD showed me several sample doors in the color and glaze that I was ordering (we could not order a door (big mistake) b/c we were running out of time before construction started and my contractor had another job to do after mine, etc.. She assured me that although the glaze will be inconsistant, that it shouldn't be dark and not to worry. When the cabinets came out of the box I nearly died. The glaze was darker than I even imagined and sloppy with pooling in the corners everywhere looking IMOP like blobs of dirt. I have no recourse with the cab company but my KD is trying to figure out a way to make me happy. She is looking into having an artist remove the glaze (on a sample door first). Not sure how I feel about that yet, she tells me that the doors will still be under warranty, only the part that the artist touches will not (but she is insured and will guarantee her work. Ugh.. total nightmare. BTW, my molding looks just like yours.. I don't think it looks like it should be for the same kitchen! Sorry, the pic is a little blurry.. I would love to know what you end up doing with yours!

Here is a link that might be useful: glaze

I know it differs by door, but I swear I look at all the pics of kitchens with amaretto creme on Thomasville's website and they are all lighter than mine! Ugh so frustrating. But this is why doing this long distance sucks - i'll go see them on Saturday and will probably know how I feel about them immediately after seeing them IRL, but meanwhile this whole week I've been stressed out about it! Add to that the stress from other things pertaining to this reno, my husband stressing over our ballooning budget, my cat's newly diagnosed cancer....seriously I need a massage. ;-) A passerby stopped in the house while our GC was there a couple of days ago and asked if the owners wanted to sell...my husband considered it before I thwacked him over the head LOL.

Oh and this is the second time we've done major renovations. We're gluttons for punishment.

Jojo your cabinets do have blobs in the corners! That doesn't seem right - it seems sloppy. Do you have no recourse b/c you didn't do a sample door first? Are all the doors pooled in the corners like that? if not would the cabinet company replace just the worst offenders?

Yeah,you do have your hands full! I am doing a bathroom at the same time.. put on a second floor 4 yrs ago. I'm a glutton for punishment as well.. : ) Most doors have that pooling in the corners. With or without the blobs, I just don't like the glaze.. It's just too dark. I don't have a recourse b/c of their release that I signed stating that glazing is not uniform and it can and will be inconsistant. They have themselves completely covered. They have already said that the doors are not defective in any way, it's just a matter of me not liking them. It is very sloppy though! And that is defintely a factor that I didn't get a sample door. My KD actually ordered a sample (before we said anything to the company) b/c she wanted to see how it would look. That is suppose to be delivered today. We'll see how they send out their samples. This is a ton of $ to spend on something that you don't like. To top it all off I paid a fortune for the glaze that I may have to remove!!

If I were going to get them redone, it would be without any glaze at all. I can buy the paint from Thomasville and have someone do it. So it's not the end of the world. However we got our glaze for free so our only cost would be to have them redone. Like you I was hesitant - I should have played it safe - and stuck to my gut. Lesson learned.

I'm pretty peeved at my KD actually - because of this (telling me "sure, no problem!" when she knew I was nervous about it, other things pertaining to how we arrived at the final design - but I guess what do I expect from HD.) I just have to keep reminding myself that we saved a ton of money buying from them. Looks like we're getting what we paid for LOL.

We have ordered glaze on our medium maple cabinets and threads like this make me very nervous about what we are going to get. We saw sample doors and the glaze looked good. But like Jojobee1 said they make you sign a release about the inconsistence of the glazing process. But to me this should not excuse the glazing when it is sloppy and poorly done. Hopefully you all will have a successful resolution to this problem, and hopefully mine will come out looking good. All things being equal it seems like the best thing to do is to skip the glaze entirely- it just seems to be one more big thing that can go wrong. Too late for all of us though.

This is one advantage of going with a local custom cabinet shop. I have each customer come to my shop in North Carolina when we are staining and glazing their cabinets in order to get exactly what they want. You can't do this when all the company does is fax in the order. I have even had customers that helped glaze just to get it "perfect" for them.

Unless you've seen a live sample of light glazing, its pretty hard to tell a factory what to do. But also, the reason I don't think they could even do it with this door style is because from your picture, those 2 outer grooves look really deep. Once the glazing is applied, I don't know how they would get in there to take it out. I can see on the innermost groove how it is lighter because it is easy to get to but not the others. If your contract says light glazing, and your KD and cabinet rep are nice, you might be able to get them to give you a discount but again, without a live sample, its a subjective word. I'm just not sure replacing doors will help due to what looks like deep grooves. Also, even though you say your cabinet frames are not glazed, are you sure? i think without glazing (even though there is no place for the glaze to hang up) they would look white--a totally different color than, say, the center of the door. When a piece of painted wood gets glazed, even if its wiped off, a thin coat stays that changes the base color. I hope you think it looks beautiful once installed. Good luck.

Pence is correct about the glaze on the frames- When I glaze I glaze everything that is exposed or it would be too white...even if I wipe off what appears to be all of the glaze it still makes a difference.

I can vouch for the 2 above posters about the boxes being glazed too. I always order the paint and glaze from the cabinet company just to have in case I add on trim or something years later. My base coat is actually oyster white. After the glaze was applied, it changed the boxes to a yellow cream color. So you will have to do more than the doors if you want to lighten them. Your best bet is to return them without installing.

I'm sure you're right - DH said there wasn't glaze on the body but he might have thought that since they don't have grooves to catch the glaze.

I think we're going to just live with it. I am hoping once it's all together I'll like it - but it wasn't the look I had in mind. It's causing issues with other things in the room - how to match the dining room wainscoting, which won't be glazed, and will run into the cabinets. We're building up the cabinets to meet the ceiling crown with filler and molding, and since the cabinet co. doesn't make anything that is big enough (we have 12" to span) we're going to have to glaze them now, most likely.

That's why I wanted the glaze light - but with this cabinet door style, and the grooves, and the fact this isn't custom, that was probably impossible. I'm a glaze newbie and learned a big lesson here.

I am going thru this exact problem with my Diamond cabinets. They sell them thru Lowes, but I bought them from A KD. I also wanted a special amount of the glaze, in my case we wanted heavy. Our cabinets are maple with a palomino glaze that makes the edges darker, almost dark brown /black.
We were told it can't be ordered that way, so we ordered a sample door and it looked great. We placed the order and when they came in, we loved them. The appliance panels came in later and they didn't match at all. They were much, much lighter in the maple color as well as the glaze.
I was upset after spending so much money to hide my refrigerator, it now stood out like a sore thumb. My KD had the Diamond Rep come to our house and she agreed they looked very different, She said that it didn't matter that they weren't ordered at the same time ( I didn't believe this at all). She has sent in one our cabinet doors that match and they are making the new appliance panels right now. They are due to be done any day now. So, it can be done right if you get the Rep involved. I will post here when they come in so you can know if it worked or not. I am hopeful that it will. She promised me that I would be happy.
It's funny how we wanted the darker glaze at first and now that they are all in, I like the medium glaze that we got. The darker would have outlined the cabinets too much for me.

mario, it's true what the rep said. It shouldn't matter that the panels were ordered later. I won't order appliance panels without the specs that come packaged with a customer's appliances...so often they are ordered later. I've never had a problem with the finishes matching. Cabinet manufacturer's have tight variances as to what's within spec. If there are differences, it should not be noticeable.

Think about all the people that need a door replacement.

I would not install the cabinets without a resolution with the cabinet rep first.

What would need replacing is every door, toekick facing, millwork (items like hood cover, moldings, legs or corbels), skins and applied panels received on the original order. You may also need to add on to order skins or panels to cover exposed sides that are now glazed.

Yeah, it's probably just one of those things we're going to have to live with. It's not the look I had envisioned but I'm hoping in the end it will look good - worst case scenario, we can have the whole thing painted if we decide we can't live with it. I know now it's not as simple as having the doors replaced and I'm definitely kicking myself for not just sticking with my gut and forgoing the glaze altogether.

Short of attempting to have the entire thing sent back and replaced (and I'm sure paying the restocking fee, assuming they'd even let us do it) I think we're stuck. We'd rather live with it and as is and have them redone later than start down that road. It would probably be cheaper, too.

We ended up having to cancel our trip up to Newport this weekend because of our sick cat (cancer.) So I won't get to see them in person any time soon. (Couple of weeks.) My GC is putting in the floors for the kitchen this coming week and since there will be a walnut border running around the cabinets, the bottom cabinets will be installed. With everything else going on both here and there, neither of us have the energy to fret about this anymore. It is what it is. ;-)