Assessing the quality of a custom kitchen is easy if you know what to look for. I hope this guide will help you with your kitchen buying journey.
Door & Drawer Build.
If the kitchen doors are miter cut ensure that they are perfectly 45° and the two pieces of wood match up with no space in between if they are mortise and tenon joints the same rule applies they should line up perfectly. This helps greatly increase the longevity of the door when the temperature and humidity of the surrounding area changes each piece of wood expands and contract and having tight joints ensure that all the pieces of the word expand and contract evenly preventing warping or bowing. The same rules apply for dovetail drawers.
the gap between the two pieces of wood is what we want to avoid.
Kitchen finish.
The quality of the finish is another factor that affects the longevity of the cabinets, The finish needs to be uniform and smooth to the touch.
A quick tip feels the edges of the kitchen door, it’s a quick way to judge the attention to detail of the finishing crew.
The lacquer is the topmost layer of the door and it creates a transparent film around the paint or stain protecting it from humidity, water, and scratches.
Hardware.
Next, we would assess the hardware like the drawer slides and door hinges, when looking at these we look for how smooth it is when opening and closing, how little effort it takes to close it when it’s fully extended. The next thing I’d look at is how the door sits when it’s closed, is there a gap between it and the cabinet, a quick way to check is to push on it when it’s closed and see how much give there is, it should be minimal. This tells you two things, first is how precisely the doors are constructed and how precise is the cabinets.