Materials Guide
What actually goes into your kitchen
Most quotes hand you a single number and leave you guessing what's behind it. Two kitchens can look identical on paper and be built from completely different parts. This page walks through the real choices — the cabinet boxes, the stone, the faucet internals, and the plumbing nobody ever sees again — so you can tell the difference for yourself.
When our estimator asks you to pick Good, Better or Best, this is what those levels mean.
Cabinetry
Boxes, doors, and wood species
A cabinet is really two things: the box that hangs on the wall and the door you see. They can be upgraded independently, which is why refacing works so well — a sound box with new fronts gives you a new kitchen without a gut.
Box construction
Boxes are built from particleboard, furniture-grade plywood, or occasionally solid wood. Plywood holds screws better, handles moisture better, and is noticeably lighter — it matters most under a heavy stone countertop and around the sink.
Framed vs. frameless
Framed cabinets have a face frame across the front — the traditional American look. Frameless (often called full-access or European) skips the frame, giving wider drawers and easier reach into the box.
Wood species
Maple is tight-grained and takes paint beautifully. Oak has a strong open grain that shows through finishes. Cherry darkens with age. Hickory and walnut bring dramatic variation. For painted doors, MDF center panels are genuinely better than solid wood — they don't expand and contract, so paint lines don't crack at the seams.
How custom it gets
Stock cabinets come in fixed 3-inch increments. Semi-custom lets you change sizes, depths, and interior fittings. Full custom is built to your exact layout — odd walls, a taller-than-standard island, a specific interior for the way you actually cook.
How we group it
Sturdy boxes in standard sizes with durable, hard-wearing fronts. Clean, current styling and a finish built to take daily family use.
Plywood box construction and real wood doors, sized to your kitchen. Soft-close hinges and full-extension drawer glides throughout.
Built to spec in your choice of hardwood — your layout, your details. Dovetailed drawer boxes, undermount soft-close glides, and interior fittings designed around how you cook.
Countertops
The surface you actually live on
Countertops take the most abuse in the house — hot pans, spilled wine, knives, kids. The differences between surfaces come down to how they handle heat, stains, scratches, and whether they need sealing.
Engineered quartz
Ground natural quartz bound with resin. Non-porous, so it never needs sealing and shrugs off stains. Consistent pattern from slab to slab. The resin is the limitation — direct heat from a pan can scorch it, so trivets matter.
Granite
Natural stone, so every slab is genuinely one of a kind. Very heat tolerant. It's porous, so it needs periodic sealing to keep oil and wine from soaking in.
Marble and quartzite
Marble is the classic look, but it's soft and reacts to acids — lemon juice and vinegar etch the polish. Quartzite looks similar and is far harder, making it the practical choice for people who want that appearance in a working kitchen.
Porcelain and sintered stone
Large-format ultra-compact slabs. Extremely heat, scratch, and UV resistant. Thin profiles and continuous veining that can run up a backsplash or over a waterfall edge.
Butcher block and laminate
Wood is warm and repairable — you can sand out damage — but it needs oiling and does not love standing water. Modern laminate has come a long way in appearance and is genuinely durable, though seams and edges are its weak point.
Edges and thickness
Standard slabs come in 2cm and 3cm. A mitered edge glues a return piece on to make the counter look thicker than the slab. Eased and bullnose edges are easy to clean; ornate profiles collect more.
How we group it
A hard-wearing, easy-to-live-with surface with a wide range of colors. Sealed where it needs to be, with clean simple edge detailing.
Non-porous surfaces that never need sealing and resist staining — the choice most families land on. Deeper color range and thicker edge profiles.
Premium natural and ultra-compact slabs with the most character and the highest heat and scratch resistance. Mitered edges, waterfall ends, full-height backsplashes.
Sinks, Faucets & Disposals
Where builder grade and commercial grade really differ
This is the area where two things can look almost identical on the shelf and be completely different products. What separates them is what's inside — and whether it can be serviced instead of replaced.
Faucet bodies
Entry-level faucets often use zinc alloy or plastic bodies with plastic internal waterways. Higher-grade faucets are solid brass all the way through, with metal handles and metal mounting hardware. Brass resists corrosion and holds threads, which is why commercial kitchens have used it forever.
Cartridges
The cartridge is the part that actually controls the water, and it's the part that eventually wears. Quality ceramic disc cartridges last for years and — critically — are replaceable. On cheaper faucets the cartridge is often proprietary or not serviceable at all, so a drip means a whole new faucet.
Finishes
Standard electroplated finishes can wear through at the handle over time. PVD (physical vapor deposition) finishes are bonded at a molecular level and are dramatically more resistant to scratching and tarnishing.
Sinks
Stainless is measured in gauge, and lower numbers mean thicker steel. A 22-gauge sink feels tinny and dents; 18-gauge and 16-gauge feel solid and quiet. Better sinks add sound-dampening pads and an undercoating to kill the drumming noise. Fireclay, enameled cast iron, and composite granite are the other common choices.
Garbage disposals
Entry-level disposals use galvanized steel grinding components and a smaller motor — they're louder, jam more easily, and the grinding parts can corrode. Commercial-grade units use stainless steel grind chambers and components, larger motors, multi-stage grinding, and real sound insulation. The metal internals are the difference between a unit you replace and one you keep.
How we group it
Reliable, name-brand fixtures with ceramic disc cartridges and a solid stainless sink. Everything serviceable, nothing exotic.
Solid brass faucet body, thicker-gauge sound-dampened sink, and a stronger disposal with stainless grinding components.
Commercial-grade construction — all-metal internals, PVD finishes that won't wear, heavy 16-gauge sinks, and a multi-stage stainless disposal built to run for decades.
Behind The Wall
The parts you'll never see again
Once the drywall closes, this work is invisible — which is exactly why it gets cut. It's also the only part of a kitchen that can quietly cause thousands of dollars of damage. We treat it as the part that has to be right.
Supply lines
Copper and PEX are both accepted and both perform well. Copper is rigid and long proven. PEX flexes, resists freeze damage better, and needs fewer joints — and fewer joints means fewer places to ever leak.
Shutoff valves
Old multi-turn stop valves seize up, and you find out the day you need one. Quarter-turn ball valves move cleanly years later. Replacing these during a remodel costs almost nothing and saves a real emergency later.
Drains and traps
Thin-wall plastic tubular traps are the cheap standard. Heavier-gauge traps hold up far better, especially with a disposal vibrating against them. Proper trap arm slope and correct venting are what keep a sink from gurgling and drying out the trap seal.
Supply connectors
Braided stainless connectors with proper fittings instead of plastic compression lines. This is one of the most common failure points in a home, and the upgrade is trivial.
The details that get skipped
A dishwasher high loop or air gap to stop dirty water siphoning back. A proper recessed ice maker box instead of a hose stapled to a stud. Water hammer arrestors where fast-closing valves bang the pipes.
How we group it
Everything brought up to current code, with new quarter-turn shutoffs and braided stainless supply lines at every connection.
New supply runs where the existing ones are aged or undersized, upgraded trap assemblies, and correct venting throughout.
Full replacement of accessible supply and drain lines, heavy-gauge traps, hammer arrestors, and a recessed ice maker box — all pressure-tested before the wall closes.
Hardware & Finish
What you touch a hundred times a day
Hinges, glides, and finish are the difference between a kitchen that feels new for a decade and one that feels tired in two years. They're also the details that get quietly downgraded to hit a number.
Hinges and glides
Quality European hinges are adjustable in three directions, so doors can be brought back into perfect alignment years later. Undermount, full-extension, soft-close drawer glides let you reach the very back of a drawer and carry far more weight than side-mounted epoxy glides.
Drawer boxes
Dovetailed solid-wood drawer boxes hold together under real load. Stapled particleboard boxes are the first thing to fail in a busy kitchen — usually the utensil drawer.
Cabinet finish
Factory-applied conversion varnish and catalyzed finishes cure far harder than anything brushed on site. When cabinets are painted in place, modern waterborne alkyd enamels sprayed rather than brushed give the closest thing to a factory finish — no brush marks, and a surface that actually cleans.
How we group it
Soft-close hinges and solid drawer glides throughout, with a durable sprayed finish and a clean selection of pulls and knobs.
Adjustable European hinges, full-extension undermount glides, and a wider range of hardware finishes to match your fixtures.
Dovetailed drawer boxes, top-tier hardware rated for heavy daily use, and specialty storage — spice pullouts, tray dividers, deep pan drawers — fitted to how you cook.
You don't have to become an expert — that's our job
You just need to know what you're paying for. At your in-home visit we'll bring real samples, walk through these choices with you, and put every selection in writing before anything is ordered. Nothing goes into your kitchen that you haven't seen.