Their standard specs aren't horrible. Just that they fit that niche between builder grade and mid grade. (They are not a mid grade line without offering most of their upgrades as standard construction.) So, they'd better have an exceptional price point if they are going to stand out from the crowd. Or an exceptional finish. Something. Their past would not lead me to believe that to be the case.

Can anyone add more information about Echelon now that they've been around for a few months? My contractor is recommending them, but I can't find any reviews since the relaunch and am wondering how good they are. In particular, I'm considering the "Summit collection." Any experience with these cabinets would be appreciated.

What I've found is that their top specs (all wood, dovetail drawers, full overlay fronts) are quite good and reasonably priced. Time will tell on the finish, which looks good right now.

Thanks for that! We're going with those top spec options, in shaker style (white). Fingers crossed.

Here are the specs from a local dealer. We got a custom built quote that is only $3K more than a lower end door Echelon Cabinetry quote. It looks like there is particle board involved in construction. My sister has the cabinets and they look great and she is very happy with them, however it looks like custom would be worth it for our older house. Our local dealer said this info is directly from her spec book:

-Drawer guides are not full extension but they can be added as an upgrade of $65 per drawer.

-Drawer guides are high-quality epoxy coated steel.

-Drawers are ½” thick hardwood front, back and sides. Drawer bottoms are ¼” thick multi-ply hardwood.

-Drawers without the full extension have 100lb. rated load capacity. The full extension drawers have 75lb. rated load capacity.

-Box: Front frame is ¾” solid hardwood, end panels are ½” thick wood based composite, top/bottom panels are ½” thick wood based composite, shelves are 5/8” thick wood based composite.

- I don’t have the information on the shelf brackets.

-Tops and bottoms on cabinets are set into grooved end panels and front rails glued and stapled. Bottoms are supported at rear of base cabinet by ½” thick wood base composite panel.

-Standard hinges are heavy-duty, high-quality steel, concealed 6-way adjustable hinge with self-closing feature. They can be upgraded to Gentle-Touch (soft-close), heavy-duty, high-quality steel, concealed 6-way hinge with adjustable levels of soft-close resistance.

Are there any updates kitchenredux? Do you like your cabinets? Our contractor is suggesting them and we aren't sure...

I've had them now for about 6 months and they're pretty good. Here is what I can tell you.

Pros: they seem solid and both the doors and drawers close well (the self-closing thing is a bonus). I went with the 42" high upper cabinets, a lazy-susan corner cabinet, and one cabinet that has 2 sliding shelves (otherwise all just normal stuff). These features are all great. So, yes, I do like them and they were reasonably priced. However, there are things to know about them.

Cons:

-I have solid wood painted white. The paint is only so-so; in some spots it doesn't look fantastic, and it can get dinged rather easily. They gave me a touch up pen but it doesn't really do very much. Don't know how the wood finishes wear.

-I also have hinged doors on the two upper corner cabinets - there is a double door that hinges in the middle so that the corner is still at 90 degrees. These doors are a little odd. They don't seem to me to hang quite true, perhaps because the weight of the door? Anyhow, it's fine and no one notices but me, but they're not absolutely perfect. I still prefer this option though to the cabinets with doors at a 45 degree angle.

-Finally, you need a good contractor to make them work. My contractor recommended them with the caveat that he could promise to do what it takes to make them look good. They sent several damaged items, which he sent back. That delayed completion a bit and while I appreciated his making sure it was right, I can imagine contractors who wouldn't bother. He also said it can be tricky to hang them well. I think that if he had been less picky, I would have ended up with some banged up cabinets and they might not have fit well. So it may depend on your contractor too.

Bottom line, they are not top of the line cabinets. What the difference would be if I had been able to afford true custom cabinets (other than doubling the price) - I don't know. These are fine for me.

Hope that helps.

No, you wouldn't have needed to double your budget. Just add about a third more and you could have gotten mid grade.

Perhaps. I did loads of research and in my particular area, my choices seemed to be very limited. Maybe in other regions this is not the case, but not everywhere. Same thing applied to other decisions - there are only so many options readily available in a given market and while I could have spent yet more time and energy (and money) traveling hither and yon to look at and possibly order other items (at enormous delivery cost), it was simply not practical while working a full time job and being merely a homeowner, not a professional designer. There are limits to what is feasible.

Thanks for the updates on this. Everything starts to add up and with our space we need to do some 12" depth cabinets, which seem to add to the cost fairly quickly.

We would also do the white painted shaker door so it's helpful to hear your experience on that.

Right now we are waiting on another quote from Merrilat but everything I've been reading on them is very so-so. Sooooo I don't know why we would spend more for the same result, since we can't keeping upping the budget.

Good luck Lauren. I really am quite happy thus far.

Thank you kitchenredux, I really appreciate your feedback and taking the time to comment!

I have done dozens of kitchens with Armstrong and now Echelon. By far the best value of any company I've used. Any damage issues, which were few were resolved with no hassle. They offer nearly all upgrades(often unnecessary) that other higher priced companies have. Pick the right dealer and you'll never find a better value. If you simply want to brag how much you spent on your kitchen use another brand.

We recently opted to place a microwave wall cabinet, with matching base cabinet, near our kitchen table, in lieu of an over-the-range type microwave. A local retail cabinet store recommended the Echelon Premier Series.

While we love the cabinet quality in general, there were several issues:

1) The opening for the countertop type microwave, is only 23", in a 30" wide cabinet. This detail was not in the specs available to the retail distributor, who had to manually cut into the side rails to expand the opening for a standard 24" wide microwave (most 2 cu. ft. microwaves are at least that wide). They are supposed to be returning with a "trim kit" to cover the cuts.

2) The more serious issue are the doors and drawer fronts. Being solid wood, one would expect to experience wood knots. That is only natural. However, boards with knots that fall on an edge should be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, one door and one drawer front on our base cabinet have such knots, with sizeable gouges, ragged edges, and chunks missing.

Our dealer acknowledged that these two parts were unacceptable, and contacted Echelon, whose response was "Sorry, these were special order cabinets with solid wood doors. Live with it."

Nice "customer relations", Echelon! You can bet I, and everyone I can contact, will NEVER deal with this company again!

I would love to hear feedback about the echelon cabinet line now that some time has gone by since this other reviews. We are considering going with Echelon’s all wood series versus a local custom cabinetry company. The Echelon cabinets are $3-5k cheaper and I’m wondering if they can match up to the plywood construction of my local custom manufacture? I would love to save some money on this project but not at the expense of long term quality. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I have echelon cabinets. They came totally damaged with nicks everywhere. They agreed to send me some new ones and those were damaged even more. My carpenter is excellent and was able to fix them so they look great. But he spent a lot of time doing that and charged me an extra 2000 dollars. Echelon refused to reimburse me to pay him that money. I have been trying to call them and they won’t return my calls. These are just a few of the mess they sent us.

We have had the same experience as Lori Wienrich above.

We ordered their top end cabinets with solid maple doors. About 20 total base and 8 wall for our kitchen.

When the cabinets showed up, over half of the doors were WARPED and many had knot holes on the outside face!!! These were not cheap cabinets, we spent over $22,000 and got top end features.

We complained and they sent replacement doors -- almost ALL of the replacement doors were warped and had dents or knot holes!!! Echelon has not responded to our complaints. We have now paid to have the doors installed twice, and still do not have a complete set of cabinets with flat doors.

DO NOT BUY THIS BRAND. THESE CABINETS ARE GARBAGE AND THEY DO NOT HONOR THEIR WARRANTY. WE HAVE WAITED 4 MONTHS NOW TO GET DOORS THAT ARE NOT DAMAGED OR WARPED AND THEY STILL HAVEN'T MADE GOOD ON THEM.

Hello, need your expert advice about echelon vs Kraftsmaid Vintage line furniture. I was told that they both are in good quality and same standard cabinet. From the price stand point kraftmaid vintage line is $5k more as compare to echelon furniture. I am looking into a painted gray cabinet in shaker style. Which brand would you choose and why?