panda kitchen reviews?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone used Panda Kitchen for kitchen cabinets?

Someone recommended them to us and the price seems so inexpensive that I'm assuming something must be up....I mean, you get what you pay for, right?

[Anonymous]

I've heard decent things. I had no interest in paying a lot for cabinets, because we didn't want a solid wood look cabinet but something either modern or fancy wood veneer. So there was no reason to go to a high end option when ikea exists and does what they do beautifully. however, I had a couple contractors mention Panda as a good option at a close price point if I wasn't committed to Ikea. I gather they are really cheap because they are fully made in china and then shipped here. So in theory the cost difference could be because of being made in china, and not quality issues.

[Anonymous]

How much are cabinets from IKEA?

[Anonymous]

You can go on their webpage and price it out just like any other piece of furniture. Just click on the kitchen cabinets page and then click on whatever cabinet you're interested in for a sake of comparison, and then you can choose the door style and it will tell you the exact price. Ikea cabinets come standard with all inserts, so no extra charges. The price is what it is. We've done 2 similarly-sized kitchens - 14 feet square -- one whole wall of 14 feet is floor to ceiling pantry, built in oven etc, and the other wall is uppers and lowers, plus a handful of cabs in the island, and we did the highest price door style, and with their (frequent) 20% off sale, it was around $5500-$6500 both times I believe.

[Anonymous]

You're talking about the one on Tyco Road in the Tyson's area?

I had them put in a granite countertop (on top of IKEA cabinets) in our second home.

Pretty good work, for a great price.

I did have to go and recaulk the sink after a year.

If I had to do it over again, I would have bought the sink from them too (got a designer SS sink prior to hiring them) - and if I knew they were price competitive with IKEA on the cabs perhaps I would've had them do the entire kitchen. This is mainly because my IKEA installer kinda sucked.

[Anonymous]

One of the contractors I used for our kitchen reno suggested Panda. Go take a look: the stuff is just awful. I could have lived with something made in China (YMMV, others definitely can't) but the cabinets I saw at their showroom in Tysons were of such low quality that it wasn't even a consideration.

Full disclosure, I didn't use Ikea, in part because I wanted "real" wood (although I know there's a debate about how important that should be). But I think Ikea cabinets are very high quality for the money, especially if you have the skills to assemble them in a durable fashion and install them properly. I have neither, plus no time or space to do all that. But I'd still do Ikea before Panda.