Mark Mitten  0:04  
Are you about to pay more for worse cabinets? Because you aren't aware how the cabinet business has changed in the last few decades? You better call

Paul McAlary  0:18  
Third time's a charm, Steve, I guess. Can you hear me?

Steve  0:23  
Yeah. Thanks a lot, Paul.

Paul McAlary  0:24  
Oh, thank you for being persistent and allowing us to record you. Welcome to better call poll, your question that you wanted to ask, I think is going to be of interest to a lot of people. So that's why I thought it might be good for us to record it.

Steve  0:39  
Right. Sure. Appreciate it when

Paul McAlary  0:41  
you want to vocalize it.

Steve  0:42  
Not sure when the last those of looking at some camp, kitchen cabinets, kitchen designer, help us out a bit with the layout to kind of fine tune it. And so we're taking a look at the source of the cabinet manufacturing, the three that have come up out of the States and China, Malaysia and Vietnam. And I just wanted to see what your thoughts are about the quality of those. And in addition with some of the doors are made, and in some of those countries and shipped over here, and yeah, so just kind of join affiliate for this. Sorry.

Paul McAlary  1:22  
So yeah, so I think that's really a good question. And it's certainly something that people generally have the wrong impression about. And that's why I thought it was important that maybe we answered this question for everybody to hear. There's lots of different manufacturers that are manufacturing kitchen cabinets, overseas and Mexico, Malaysia, not so much China. There's hardly anything because there's tariffs that are still in effect from China. So there's really hardly anything being made in China right now. Vietnam is probably and Mexico and Indonesia, Malaysia would be the most common places. Also South Korea, all of these companies, or all of these manufacturing plants that are overseas, the companies that are going to do the best job are actually going to be generally American companies that are just manufacturing the doors and maybe the front of the cabinets and some other parts overseas in these places. But it's still an American company being sort of supervised and organized by the executives and the people here in the United States. So there's many, many, many different brands that do this. Even some very common name brands will have some of their door styles and finishes possibly made overseas. So even though they may say that they're 100% American, if you see a mitre door style, or something that's sort of generally very expensive. And suddenly, it's less expensive than it should be. We know that they've just found a better source overseas, and they're having that cabinet door made overseas. So to answer your question, many of these companies or most of these companies that are doing this, the niche in the market that they decided to fill, was to make a pretty well made cabinet. And this is even true for they're ready to assemble cabinets. The only problem with the cup, the cabinet companies that ship cabinetry unassembled is those same companies won't have kitchen designers that we'll be able to help you and be even if it's not the best Kitchen Designer in the world. Anybody that knows a little bit about cabinetry can prevent you from making lots of different mistakes. So generally, we recommend that people would never don't ever buy kitchen cabinets that are ready to assemble. Because for two reasons. One is that generally, that cabinet brand will probably assemble their cabinets for you if you want. And then if you did that, then you probably only pay $20 A cabinet to have it assembled. So it would hardly cost any more money. But secondly, once they're assembled, there'll be companies retailers that will sell you that cabinet for pretty much the same price. You probably could have bought it on the internet where maybe a tiny bit more 10% more or something like that, and having a professional help you is really just worth it. So assuming that you've gotten to this point that you're buying one of these cabinet brands, that's an American company that's having cabinetry manufactured overseas, and they're the common thing that these companies are which is all plywood construction, solid wood Dovetail drawers, soft close hinges and soft close tracks. They're mass producing inexpensively, a cabinet that already Used to, at least in the United States be relatively more expensive. It's not the lowest grade of cabinet, it's already been upgraded to sort of the best cabinet construction that you can buy. And they're just doing it all so inexpensively, because the labor and the materials are so much less, when it's all coming from overseas, I would tell you that all of these brands, if they meet those specifications, that they're all plywood construction, they're solid wood Dovetail drawers, they use soft close hinges and soft close tracks. They're all very well constructed. And then the least expensive of these brands will just have finishes that will maybe be as attractive, they'll be just as durable. But they won't be as attractive as the more expensive of these inexpensive us import combo companies. So we can talk about individual brands were their brands that you were looking at.

Steve  6:06  
Yeah, one was dice was a J and K, which has a pretty good rating on your waitlist from 20.

Paul McAlary  6:14  
So I would say j and k is one of the better of these brands. We've actually never carry J K. But we've considered it you only can carry a certain number of brands that makes sense. At one point thought about carrying JFK but the reason that we decided not to wasn't that the cabinets weren't a good value or were well made. It's just that every cabinet company has the door styles and finishes that they make. And Jaden Kay had a very attractive door style that we wanted to be able to carry, but all the other door styles and finishes that they had Fabula wood the brand that we decided to carry that's at the at around that price point had all those door styles and finishes except the really the one one that only j&k carried. And it wasn't worth carrying a whole brand just to fill one little niche and Fabbi would did more had more options just generally than j&k. So we just didn't want to bring on another brand that that was really only filling up a very small void. But it's a very well made cabinet and very reasonable. What kind of door style are you looking at or finish

Steve  7:25  
shaker and white?

Paul McAlary  7:28  
Yeah, so shaker white cabinetry, j and k is going to do that cabinet really well. The one thing you want to be careful about because I don't know J and K that well. But I'll give you an example of a cabinet line that we carry that's even less expensive than J and K and does a really good job, which is cube attack. Cube attack is even less expensive than Fabri wood that we carry. So it's a really good cabinet brand. It's very reasonable, they do a really good job. But it can be dangerous. Because they carry doors. Their cabinets are all plywood, construction, solid wood Dovetail drawers, soft close hinges. So up close tracks everything that that you want. But in a white Shaker Door, they'll carry two different kinds. They'll carry a solid wood frame door with an MDF panel in the middle, which is good, which is I think the way j&k makes it. And that's the way fab you wood makes it, it actually is sort of good to have your middle panel be MDF, it's not really doesn't take any abuse. And then it's not going to expand and contract. And it's also going to keep the door from warping. But the outside of the frame of the door. If it's your own home and you're not flipping your house, you want that and that has to be solid wood. So the cube tech line that we carry does it in solid wood, but they also do a Shaker door style that's all MDF. And now that door also looks beautiful. And it's 35 or 30% less. But once the doors are made out of all MDF, it's going to be very, very easily dinged and scratched and damaged. So if you were flipping a home, it would be a great choice because you don't really have to worry about being rough with the cabinets you're leaving. But if it's your own home and you plan on being there any length of time you want a door that's all wood. So just make sure that the J and K if you're getting J A the JNK doesn't give you a choice. I know they make a solid wood door but they could also offer you an MDF door and that you just want to make sure that that's not what you're getting.

Steve  9:42  
Okay, that makes sense. Now if I could step back for a sec to comment made with the ready to assemble our TV cabinets that are shipped over here, and they're put together over here. They're pretty solidly constructed then it'd be probably more so than if I tried to do it myself as far as your to you?

Paul McAlary  10:00  
Well, I mean, if you're doing it yourself, you could actually do a better job, you could do a better job than your manufacturer. And if you were meticulous, you're doing the glue. And maybe if it's your own cabinet, you're not going to do it so fast. Maybe you'll use braces, when you do the cabinet, you have the power to make it a better cabinet, than the manufacturer. But it's also a learning experience for you. Right. So like if you've ever put together Ikea furniture or whatever, like we've put together, we have office furniture in our offices, I'll tell you that the last desk that we assembled, was a lot better assembled than the first one, right? So we were learning so you're learning on your own cabinets. And if someone will be charging you 20 bucks to assemble a cabinet that you know how long has it taken you to assemble a cabinet, right? I'll bet you it takes at least an hour or an hour to assemble the cabinet. And then if you're going to bracket brace it or whatever you're going to do, and you're going to attach the tracks and everything else, you're going to take your 45 minutes, if you're doing a lot of work in your home, like a whole kitchen renovation, there's other things you could have done, that would have been a better investment of your time, like doing the backsplash, tile yourself, or painting the kitchen. But putting together the cabinets when someone else is willing to do it. For a small price. You know, I don't know of any kitchen designer I've ever heard of that's bought RTA cabinets, we just be too lazy, we know that it's not worth our time, we could just have somebody else do it. And there's other things we can do with our time that for you know, $20 an hour or 20, whatever it might turn out to be, it's better to have somebody that's done a few 1000 of them recently put it together.

Steve  11:56  
That makes sense. I don't know if I want to go through a learning curve on my kitchen. Yeah, I mean, it's something outside of the garage. And that's something else but

Paul McAlary  12:05  
you know, your strip, strip out a screw or something like that. And, and then the good thing too is that when they send it to you. Now, once you're buying cabinets that are assembled, if something is damaged, or something is wrong, the Catholic Company is going to replace it free of charge. And so they're just going to ship it to your home for your charge, give it to you free of charge, the ready to assemble company, you know, might send you another thing, another cabinet that you had to assemble. But you might assemble the whole thing and strip out the screws. And then you might have to fight with them to get another cabinet because your screw gun was set to high or something like that. They might say, Oh, we've already sent you one, send it back to us. And now you're packaging stuff up and trying to send it back. Whereas once the thing is all assembled, it's going to be warrantied, you're not going to really have a warranty as far as the assembly goes, when you're doing it yourself. So you're just giving up a lot. If things go wrong, you're sort of protected when you're getting them already assembled.

Steve  13:12  
You've explained that well fall, and I appreciate your clarity. And it's very informative explanation of the, you know, the foreign made, made out of the states. And it's because as you all know, when you're talking to different cabinet people, sellers and buyers, and so on, some of them have their own agenda about you know where to buy it for various reasons be it should open or not. Didn't agendas are open. So, so there's so you explaining it clearly really helps

Paul McAlary  13:45  
you win. That's sort of our philosophy, it's like we're reading a lot of these cabinet companies, you know, we're reading 100 cabinet companies, and many of them very well. And we only carry seven. So we're rating cabinet companies, you know, sometimes even higher than the cabinet brands we've decided to carry. And it's not, you know, the reason we're carrying a brand, maybe that there's another brand that gets a higher rating might be just the fact that it's not that much different. That's not that much better of a finish, or it's not that much better at Avnet. But this brand that we have offers a whole lot more. We're had, there's another compelling reason why I picked it to be one of the brands that we carry, but there's lots of good brands out there. And if you're talking to other people, I think it would just be generally a salesman's kind of thing to talk down other people's cabinetry and Lord their cap and how great their cabinetry is, and a lot of the times even the designers don't even know what they're talking about. They're just parroting the information they've got from the manufacturer's rep that is giving them information and they don't really they don't know the industry as well as you know I happen to and most of the people that work for us, you know, we're going to the national kitchen show and looking at all these cabinets and trying to learn stuff about it. Whereas a lot of kitchen designers aren't taking aren't really taking any interest in any of that stuff. And the information, they're being fed by the manufacturers, they're just parroting back to the customers.

Steve  15:23  
You've got a lot of good information, Paul. And I really appreciate that and sharing it with the public and sure appreciate it. So

Paul McAlary  15:29  
yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Is there any other brand that you're considering other than j&j, which I think is a great round?

Steve  15:38  
That was kind of that's really kind of the other one we are we do consider the TPC the other fab you would have explained well how that is and and so that's appreciated there and it's not just narrowed down to those two brands. We have looked a little bit at Yorktown it looks a little higher price range, and it's

Paul McAlary  15:58  
gonna be a lot more expensive Yorktown, New York, China used to be an inexpensive brand, but they just got bought by a more expensive company. And the company is making the cabinet's now much nicer and much better than they used to. So Yorktown should be way more money than February j&k. Is that like 40% more or something like that?

Steve  16:19  
It's Yes, that's a good estimate there from what I've delved into a little bit there. So yeah. So So again, when you say that February and j&k are pretty similar, and I know this different, as far as the quality of construction,

Paul McAlary  16:32  
it's not the quality and the quality of construction is not less than the Yorktown or town is more expensive, because Yorktown is an American company, and it's going to offer way more stuff. And the finishes in New York town. I don't know if you really looked at all the things that they offer. If you're getting a stained cabinet from Yorktown. Nowadays, it's since it's a more expensive cabinet line. It's a really nice finish if you're getting a white Shaker Cabinet. The paint is all the same for all of these brands. In you know the Yorktown isn't going to really be any nicer probably than the fab you would or the j&k. There's even brands in between Yorktown and j&k and Fab you would like we sell Timberlake, which is the same thing as American Woodmark. If you happen to be at Home Depot, which is the same thing as Shenandoah, if you happen to be at Lowe's, in the cabinet world, many cabinet companies are rebranding themselves under different names. So those three lines are the same thing. And they're right about in between the price of Yorktown, which is nice, has nicer stained finishes, and fabric wood. But if you were getting a white Shaker Cabinet, and you got Timberlake from us, the finish on the Timberlake even though it's 20%, more, isn't anywhere near as nice as the J and K and the fabulous. And the reason it's not as nice looking as this now it's 100% made in the United States, and the cost of sanding that door smooth and getting everything as perfect as they did where labor was Solon inexpensive, is too high. So you're actually for a white Shaker Door going to get an inferior product and spend 20% more. So the reason that we carry Timberlake is because they do all the other things that fab you would and and J and K don't do. They have beautiful some stains, they have green colors, they have cherry wood, they have maple wood, they have different kinds of wood, they have boil finishes, they have a some door form is what it's called finishes that are really interesting and durable. But they do a whole lot more, which is the reason we carry them. But if a customer of ours wanted a white Shaker Door, I would tell them they were crazy. You're spending 20% to get more to get something that's not as nice. By the time you've spent the 40% more to get the Yorktown you just got back to where you were right, that the finish ends up being just as nice. But you're spending 40% more and the 40% that you're spending is because they're offering all the things that you're not taking advantage of the different kinds of models and the and the different sizing maybe that you're designed the ability to put custom panels and some other things that may your kitchen design probably doesn't have.

Steve  19:36  
That makes a lot of sense, Paul, you know, he'd been in our house over 40 years and we thought it was time to make a change in the cabinets amongst other things. And we didn't know if that things had changed much in 40 years, so we thought we'd do some homework.

Paul McAlary  19:50  
The biggest thing that changed in 40 years is that these cheap cabinet brands are being made as well as the custom cap Good brands were made. And they actually the hinges and the tracks and all the hardware is way better than anything that was available 40 years ago. This is turning the whole American cabinet market upside down, that when these import brands decided to mass produce things cheaply, they decided not to mass produce cheap constructed cabinets, I think it was a brilliant marketing strategy is mass produced a well made cabinet that way the American companies can't really Melania as much as they might be able to. And then you're underselling them in something that now if they want to be price competitive, if you want to try to get close to the prices from the import American lines, you have to get a crappy cabinet you have to turn your cabinet into old article board and not soft close hinges and everything else. So if you're going to a dealer that selling the Timberlake or you know any of these other brands, you would have to downgrade them to pretty much be terrible cabinets just to get to the same price.

Steve  21:03  
Wow. What a difference.

Paul McAlary  21:08  
It's all good for the consumer.

Steve  21:12  
really sounds like you've slept well.

Paul McAlary  21:16  
We've since we're talking about this, I'll give you one other piece of information. That is the one of the things that people freak out and worry about the most with anytime you mentioned something important is that they worry that you're going to get more off gassing and formaldehyde and things like that from these imported brands. But these brands that are American companies that are important things like j&k, like fab, you would, they have to use the same finishes and the same materials and have to jump through the same control hoops were off gassing, as all and meet the same standards as all the other cabinet brands. And they're tested and they're monitored. They all have to meet the what used to be part two is called California's strict compliance. The federal government stepped in in 2019, and made every cabinet company that sold in the United States meet these requirements. Now that's step one. Here's the funny part about step two is that they have to meet these requirements. But if you get really expensive custom cabinets from us, or any of the expensive brands that we carry, when your cabinets get shipped to us, and then we give them to you, they'll just have been made. So the paint will be brand new. The glue and the adhesives that are used are brand new, the wood often is just right out of the lathe and right off the sander and everything else. And so you start to meet the same requirements, what that requirement. Your cabinets are at the high end of that spectrum with the expensive cabinet companies because they're still drying and curing. And you know, they're going to be off gassing much more than the j&k cabinets they were probably made. I'm not sure if j&k is Mexico or Vietnam. But they might have a plant in each place. Probably the parts were made six months ago, or three months ago at least. And most likely, if they're coming from Vietnam six months ago, they all got shipped in containers to the United States. They got unloaded they got shipped via truck to the plant. They sat in the plant until finally they started getting pulled off the shelves and assembled and by the time they come to your house, everything's been dry and sitting there except for the glue everything has been dried and sitting in storage for six months. So in reality these cabinet brands we can tell the difference when they get sent to our offices if we get a brand new cabinet in the Custom Cabinet company and we bring it in the whole office smells like new cabinet that you know like a new like a new car right that new cars you get will new car smell means your car is off gassing when the fab you would stuff comes into the office of the Cuba tech stuff. There's no smell on them, because their stuff is all been made, you know, months and months ago.

Steve  24:17  
Wow, that's a great consideration there. Yeah.

Paul McAlary  24:21  
And if you really want it to when you got one of these expensive brands, well then you just have the cabinet's delivered and you haven't sit in your garage for three months. And if you really want to you can open the boxes and take them out and let them really air out in the open air just straight out of the box when they arrive. It's the less expensive the brand probably the less off gassing you're going to get

Steve  24:41  
Okay, that's a great thing to consider here. You know, and I bought when I brought up our cabinets, you'll be over 40 years old. We had a Maytag washer that died last year that was over 40 years old to kind of been on a not less than 40 year plan over here. Are

Paul McAlary  25:02  
those Maytag washers and the KitchenAid washrooms, the KitchenAid dishwashers and the Maytag dishwashers? You know, I've seen KitchenAid dishwashers that still work from like 1960s. So that's like, what 716

Steve  25:21  
We had four kids run through ours and still kept going. Yeah. So well, gosh, Paul, you've been really helpful with the information and share. Appreciate it again, sharing your experience. Yeah, that's really generous. So

Paul McAlary  25:37  
yeah, no problem. Great. Great question. By the way, thanks for helping us out and letting me answer it. I mean, it's certainly going to answer a lot of people's questions when they're if they happen to listen to this podcast.

Steve  25:47  
Sure. Appreciate it there, Paul, and keep up the good work over there.

Paul McAlary  25:51  
Okay. Have a great good luck with your kitchen. Thank you. All right. Take care. Bye bye. Bye.

Mark Mitten  25:59  
Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with nationally acclaimed Kitchen Designer Paul Macelleria. This podcast is brought to you by Brighton cabinetry, high quality custom cabinetry at competitive prices. For more on kitchen cabinets and kitchen design, go to www dot mainline kitchen design.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai