My parents contracted with Home Depot to do their kitchen and they had a horrible experience. HD told them it would be three days – one to tear out, one to install cabinets and one to put in the tile backsplash and other features. A month later and they were still working on it. The problem was, the guys would come over for an hour or two and then they’d get called to another job and they’d leave for the rest of the day. It was only after my stepfather called them up, screaming that they must have read the guys the riot act and then they were at my parents’ house at 10 pm on a Sunday night, doing the work while my parents were in bed.
Other friends had the same experience with HD.
I recently put in a new bathroom in my house and I had a guy do the work and he took a week from start to finish. I got the vanity from HD online and the tiles and bath fixtures were from HD. The good thing about getting the tiles from the store instead of online was that if I needed more (which I did due to unforeseen circumstances), it was easy to get more, whereas if I had to order them, it would hold the job up waiting for them to be shipped.
A friend had a private contractor do two new bathrooms for her and she had a contract that specified that they would complete her job before they left to work on someone else’s job.
My point about the above is that HD might not have such an incentive to do a good, yet speedy job since they contract the work out and much is pre-paid.
Friends in my area just bought beautiful cabinets from a local cabinet company (Danbury CT). They said the company (a manufacturer) wasn’t much to look at on the outside but once inside, they did it all on the computer and since they were local, I guess it was easier with the work being completed in a timely manner and getting any fixes rectified.
There was recently an article in the NY Times about IKEA kitchens. They said IKEA uses really good quality hardware, and some people take the IKEA box part of the cabinet and put on different doors, using the hardware. I love looking at IKEA kitchen cabinets. You can go to the IKEA warehouse and see their various kitchens to get some ideas. When we went away to Cape Cod for the summer, for the past ten years, the summer house had IKEA cabinets. They looked good and seemed to be good quality.