Best Kitchen Cabinet Aesthetics

• It's hard to beat the charm of cabinets with glass fronts. This style of cabinet works with every kitchen style, so whether you're going for French Country or IKEA minimalism, glass-front cabinets are both aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate. They work particularly well if you entertain frequently and kitchen helpers can never figure out where to stash the glasses. Glass-front cabinets come in many styles: single- and multipane -- even gorgeous leaded glass -- and frames can be painted any color you like.
  
  

Best Practical Kitchen Cabinets

• Surprise! Your kitchen makeover has just bypassed the original estimate and you need to cut corners. Time for a cabinet compromise. Opting, for example, for domestic frameless laminate over European frameless laminate -- or a wood cabinet that looks great but it's not the top of the line -- are immediate solutions for your situation. You'll be relieved knowing that you've made the cut but you haven't compromised on style. You'll be amazed how unique, quirky or unusual cabinet knobs can morph your cabinets from ho-hum into traffic stoppers.
  
  

Best Family-Friendly Kitchen Cabinets

• Your house resembles the Santa Ana Freeway, absent the traffic jam. Choosing a cabinet material that's engineered for wear and tear can extend the life of your cabinets, even when kids resemble "Consumer Reports" testers assessing how many times a cabinet can be opened and shut without coming off the hinges. Pair a sturdy cabinet material with a finish that repels jelly hands, teen assaults and juice spills, and even if you have to pay a little more, you're gonna love your cabinets.
  
  

Best Handy-Hubby Kitchen Cabinets

• Buying cabinets from a lumber store and having a male member of your household commit to doing the refinishing and installation is a blessing from heaven -- as long as your volunteer is known for making good on commitments. If the guy is particularly handy, he can build them from scratch, work with ready-to-assemble cabinetry, pick up unfinished units at home improvement stores or even adopt someone else's gently worn kitchen cabinets and refinish them so they look like new.
  
  

Best Kitchen Cabinet Insurance

• Purchase your cabinets from an established, well-respected manufacturer or store, and know that you have recourse should your cabinets fail to live up to claims made by the salesman when you bought them. You may like patronizing small businesses and, of course, nothing is stopping you from doing just that. But if your new cabinets represent a huge chunk of your disposable income, you may find it easier to sleep at night if you know the source is going to be in business 10 years down the line.