Another Pennsylvania cabinet company Solid Wood Cabinets went bankrupt and closed last week. The Solid Wood Cabinetry bankruptcy followed Wood-Mode Cabinetry’s closure last year.
While both companies occupied completely different ends of the cabinet market both companies had several similarities as well.
Among the similarities was that both of these cabinet lines made well-constructed cabinets in their price point. Solid Wood was a very inexpensive RTA cabinet line but still made well-constructed cabinetry. Wood-Mode Cabinetry was a well-respected high end custom cabinet line that offered the highest quality cabinetry.
Both cabinet companies, probably because of their niches, were favored by contractors who generally considered them a good value.
Unfortunately, both companies also closed without warning. Leaving their customers, contractors, and employees stuck in a financial and logistical mess. Paid for cabinetry was suddenly unavailable often only a few days after being purchased or just prior to delivery. Paychecks and jobs vanished.
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There were similarities that both companies shared that may have led to their problems. While both occupied opposite ends of the cabinet market they were both not inexpensive for the product that they offered. There were very beautiful less expensive custom cabinet lines than Wood-Mode and better values in inexpensive cabinetry than Solid Wood Cabinetry.
One similarity between both companies that magnified their bankruptcies was that many of the cabinet dealers and showrooms that sold these lines, ONLY sold these lines. So once the line went out of business there were no other cabinet lines for their dealers to offer. This short-sighted approach to the cabinet industry points towards other short sighted business models that made both of these cabinet companies vulnerable.
Wood-Mode made designing kitchens more difficult and time consuming for kitchen designers. They operated the way they always had with little accommodation to our changing culture. Solid Wood offered almost no design services at all. It was simply “selling boxes”. Both companies had terrible websites. These issues expose a lack of innovation that may be at the center of why both companies failed.
We live in rapidly changing times and so the companies that will excel will be the companies that can adapt rapidly and be willing to change. Investing in the future requires at the very least having an up-to-date website.
This is why Main Line Kitchen Design is a Blue Ocean Company and tries to stay current and cutting edge in the kitchen world. For example, our team just returned from The National Kitchen and Bath Industry Show KBIS and the International Builders Show IBS held in Las Vegas last week. I’ll post some of what we learned in the coming weeks. Our industry continues to change and fascinate.
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Who says designing kitchens can’t be fun!
Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
Main Line Kitchen Design
12 Replies to “Solid Wood Cabinets Goes Bankrupt”
carmita
Hi, I received part of my cabinets from Solid Wood Cabinets, 5 missing doors in Devon Raised cream are missing and I don’t know where or what company sell the same. HELP PLEASE
pmcalary[ Post Author ]
Hi Carmta,
Unfortunately no inexpensive company will sell exactly the same cabinets. Custom cabinet lines can color match and make very expensive doors that will be almost an exact match. Other than that you will have to bring a door to many different locations to find a reasonable cabinet line that can sell you a style and color close to what you want.
Bill
I got my cabinets just in time (last summer) and was worried at the time that they would not last. I dealt with three reps -two were awful. I went to a second location after the first rep really couldn’t care less about my project. The 2nd rep and 2nd location was amazingly good and I loved her help and she did my design. Then she left the company, her replacement was well meaning, but made a lot of mistakes and was pretty incompetent. They did try hard, after wrong items were delivered (delivery guys didn’t care) Extra items were sent, they didn’t want returns, which I though was wasteful. I’m sad to see them go, because I needed solid wood (not IKEA junk) and the products are good -happy with the kitchen. Sorry for people who got stuck. If/when hinges break I might be stuck too.
pmcalary[ Post Author ]
Hi Bill,
Yes Solid Wood cabinets were infinitely better than IKEA. The hinges and tracks should be easy to replace if they ever fail. You can call us and we can walk you through ordering online.
Mary Neubauer
I am very impressed by your website! We are currently in discussions with a designer that has given us a Wood-Mode pamphlet (possibly for getting ideas) and the proposal stated Lauriermax cabinetry. Hearing that Wood-Mode has closed is very concerning. Also the proposal also mentioned a 5/8″ malamine box construction. I was under the impression that all wood was better. Can you possibly help clarify any of this?
pmcalary[ Post Author ]
Hi Mary,
Sounds like your designer used to sell Wood-Mode and when they went out of business switched to Lauriermax cabinetry. I don’t know Lauriermax cabinetry at all but they are a custom line and will sell cabinetry any way you choose. They will be an expensive like Wood-Mode and certainly not getting all plywood construction in an expensive cabinet line is a poor investment. I don’t know that I would feel safe working with this designer. Their company is probably struggling financially after recovering from the Wood-Mode bankruptcy. Not even having literature in Lauriermax cabinetry, and designing a custom kitchen in a terrible frameless 5/8″ melamine box all sets off alarm bells to me.
Arturo
Need response who is now responsable for items order and already pay
pmcalary[ Post Author ]
Once a cabinet company goes bankrupt usually everyone that has paid them money loses all of it. We heard that there were customers that had their cabinets loaded onto a delivery truck to deliver the next day that still lost everything once Solid Wood closed.
Mustafa
I look forward to reading your 2020 update on cabinet ranking/review. When will it be published?
Keep up the good work 💪
pmcalary[ Post Author ]
We are working on it now and hope to finish in the next two weeks
Paul McAlary
Hey Pete,
Nice to hear from you again. I agree. I’m a big fan of those books as well as Freakonomics and some of the profanity laced marketing observations made by Gary Vaynerchuk. He was a great opening speaker a few years ago at KBIS
Pete Walker
Blue Ocean Strategy and Blue Ocean Shift -best business books ever.