Kobalt Garage Cabinet Review

Kobalt Garage Cabinet Review **UPDATE**

Hey everyone. Due to my progressive neurological disorder, I ended up selling all my old kitchen cabinets to a guy restoring a 50's home (they were cool aluminum).

So I decided to look for some replacement cabinets that I could just assemble. I was on a tight budget so no Lista's.

Anyway I decided to purchase the Kobalt cabinets from Lowes. Just the base cabinets seeing as I had a pile of the Lowes clearance Gladiators from a few years back.


Metal is of decent thickness, but don't expect Lista quality. Overall the dimensions are good. Nothing out of whack. Some of the panels had some small bends, but they were easily bent back.

Paint is just OK. Easily smudged and marked up. Nothing like the Gladiator cabinets which have a superior finish.

Fairly easy to level out. There is a lot of room for raising up the cabinets. They are 20" deep, which is more than the Gladiator lowers (18") but not as much as something like the Sabre cabinets (24"). I like the 20" depth as I have a 6" stem wall with 2x4 construction. So I can place the base up against the stem wall and use a standard 25" counter. Fills the space and still has a nice edge. I will add photos once I have finished the whole row.They are 30" wide.

The drawers are very easy to assemble and put into the cabinet. Both the latches (sort of like a grip-latch) needed to be bent a bit so as not to stick. They are fairly strong, but I don't know about 100 lbs in them.

On the 2 drawer model, the middle shelf is supposed to hold 75 lbs, but it is very flimsy. It is only supported across the back and front. Not the sides or corners and there is no stiffener down the middle. Just light pushing caused some significant deflection, so I don't think more than 15 lbs on it. I might see if I can come up with something to support the sides.

I need to put some wood on the tops and mount the main countertop to those. The tops have a lip all the way around the front and sides. Should be fairly easy.

These pair of cabinets took me about 2.5 hours to fully assemble. That is with me taking breaks and such. My condition has pretty much eliminated my fine motor skills and I am MUCH weaker than I used to be along with other issues. So I have to give them a big thumbs up. In comparison, the Gladiator Lowe's special seen on the far wall in the first photo took me over 3 hours to assemble.

Overall, I think they are a decent cabinet at a decent price. I was able to get 20% off by using the In Stock Cabinet sale from a couple of weeks ago. It was supposed to be only on Kitchen, but it didn't say that and the sign was right near the garage cabinets so.... Hehe. The 2 door ended up being $120 and the drawer version was about $150.

look like nice cabinets

agreed, they look great, I plan on using them in my garage (roughly 20 feet of cabinetry). I will be using lowers, upper wall cabinets, one or two of the 72x30s.

Funny thing is- at the Lowes near me, the 2 drawer they had on display was broken...that cabinet in particular seemed flimsy, but all the other cabinets seemed sturdy. I am seriously questioning using any with drawers on my build out. Also agree with you on the paint. every one i've seen has smudge marks. But the price is really nice, and i think they "look" better than the gladiators. Thanks for sharing, you've helped me alot!

Very sharp looking cabinets. Nice design.

Every display at the various Lowe's seem to have beat up cabinets. I am guessing they are just not put together correctly.

The drawers seem to be pretty sturdy. I don't know if I will drop 75 lbs in them, but I think they will last. Time will tell.

So after assembling 4 of the 5 cabinets I purchased, I decided to return the cabinets.

The 5th cabinet had some damage to the back panel with rust, the wrong rails (all for the left side of the box) and something was rattling around in the small drawer front.

I then started looking at the cabinets I had finished and was just disappointed with the finish and the way they worked after assembly. The doors didn't fit right, numerous abrasions and scratches on many of the panels, and they were a bit wobbly when leveled no matter what I did.

I called Kobalt customer service, they were great. I ordered up the replacement back panel, drawer front and rails. No questions asked, no problems. They told me 3-5 days to my door.

After 2 weeks or so I called again to see where they were at. The CS person did some checking and talked to the warehouse manager to learn that they CS inventory and warehouse inventory weren't sync'd and that there was no date for receiving the parts there or getting them to me. That made the decision easy to return.

So I took 4 assembled cabs, boxes etc and the one un-assembled cab back to Lowes were they refunded my money without issue.

Final word, thumbs up to Lowes and Kobalt customer service. They were great all the way around. It is hard to blame the CS folks for the shipping snafu due to Lowes having the worst inventory system in the world.

Sorry for the multi post.

If anything the info you have given about the cabinets will lead people in a correct direction. We all need these inputs about products and thanks for taking the time to reflect your decisions.
To bad it did not work out for you.

You betcha! I have gotten a ton out of this great group of people so the least I can do is repay the favor as best I can!

What the hell happened with the pics??? Some really weird stuff up there?????

Ya, not sure what happened. I deleted the photos by accident so I think they reused the generic file names.

I have 5 of the Kobalt Cabinets and I think they are great. The assembly is super quick and easy and they are plenty sturdy for me. I am not thrilled with the exterior finish (a few splotchy looking places) but they are in a garage and they look much better then nothing.