Fabuwood vs Kemper
A nearly century-old Indiana name now run by MasterBrand, against a New Jersey maker that puts plywood and Blum® in every framed cabinet — what each one’s spec sheet actually says.
Fabuwood vs Kemper is a match between one of the oldest names in American kitchen cabinetry and one of the youngest. Kemper began as the Kemper Brothers wardrobe shop in Richmond, Indiana in 1926 and today is a MasterBrand brand sold only through dealers, in three series: Echo, Choice and Emerge. Fabuwood was founded in 2009 and assembles its cabinets in Newark, New Jersey. The short version: Kemper sells a furniture-board box with a genuinely good standard drawer and lets you buy plywood, inch-step depth changes and inset as you move up; Fabuwood gives every framed cabinet a plywood box at one price and asks you to stay within catalog sizes. We are a Fabuwood dealer and do not carry Kemper; the Kemper details here come from kempercabinets.com.
Fabuwood vs Kemper at a Glance
Compared on 12 points, updated September 2026.
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| Fabuwood | Kemper | |
|---|---|---|
| Roots and owner | Founded 2009 in Jersey City; independent, headquartered and assembled in Newark, NJ | Kemper Brothers, Richmond, IN, 1926; now a MasterBrand Cabinets brand (Jasper, IN) |
| Kitchen series | Allure (framed, 6 collections); Illume and Ovela (frameless) | Echo, Choice and Emerge; offering varies by ZIP code |
| Standard box | Allure: ½″ veneered plywood, natural veneer interior, ¾″ plywood shelves | ½″ furniture-board sides, ⅜″ load-bearing back, maple-laminate interior; Emerge: ½″ plywood sides |
| Plywood upgrades | Not needed on Allure; Illume is furniture board by design | Plywood Ends (PE) or All Plywood Construction (APC); standard on Emerge |
| Drawer box | ⅝″ solid wood dovetail (Allure); Blum Merivobox metal (Illume) | 4-sided solid wood dovetail on undermount full-extension guides, standard |
| Soft-close | Blum® Blumotion hinges and Tandem plus runners | Smart Stop™ on most doors, drawers and roll trays; door mechanism can be switched off |
| Sizing | Catalog widths; fillers and panels close gaps | Most wall, base and tall depths change in 1″ steps; Emerge adds custom sizing |
| Door fit | Full overlay framed; slab on frameless lines; no inset | Full and partial overlay; inset versions of Brisbane, Gordon and Martin in Emerge |
| Custom paint | Any SW or BM color on framed Allure doors | Color By Number: any SW or BM color on Choice and Emerge |
| Lead time | Galaxy 7 days–3 weeks; other Allure collections 3–5 weeks | Not published; ask your Kemper dealer at quote time |
| Warranty | Limited lifetime, original purchaser | Limited lifetime, first residential purchaser; excludes rentals, ends on resale |
| Typical 10×10 cabinets | $4,000–$9,000 depending on series | No public prices; semi-custom typically $5,000–$18,000 |
Choose Fabuwood if…
- You want a plywood box without first deciding which series, or which PE/APC upgrade, gets you there
- Your walls take standard cabinet sizes and a Galaxy shaker that ships in as little as a week suits the schedule
- You might want a frameless slab kitchen from the same dealer, or Blum® hardware by name
Choose Kemper if…
- A soffit, a shallow wall or a deep island needs cabinets resized an inch at a time
- You want inset doors, rustic hickory or quartersawn white oak, which Emerge offers and Fabuwood doesn’t
- A near-hundred-year American name backed by the largest North American cabinet maker is part of what you’re buying
A 1926 Wardrobe Shop and a 2009 Start-Up
Kemper’s own history page tells it plainly: the Kemper Brothers started building wardrobes in Richmond, Indiana in 1926, added freestanding kitchen cabinets in 1928, and moved into built-in cabinetry by 1956. The brand is now one of many under MasterBrand Cabinets, headquartered in Jasper, Indiana, and Kemper’s FAQ says its construction and quality match its MasterBrand siblings Schrock and Diamond, with door styles and colors that differ between the three. Kemper doesn’t sell direct. Its how-to-order page says the cabinets are available only through authorized dealers.
Fabuwood is younger by more than eighty years. It was co-founded in 2009 in Jersey City and now runs a headquarters and assembly plant of roughly a million square feet in Newark, New Jersey, building from a mix of U.S. and globally sourced components; a Tijuana plant announced in January 2025 supplies West Coast orders. It has no corporate parent among the big cabinet groups. Neither history makes a cabinet better on its own, but it explains the two catalogs: Kemper carries decades of options stacked series by series, while Fabuwood built a short menu around one standard spec.
Echo, Choice, Emerge — and Two Different Echoes
Kemper sorts its kitchens into three series. Echo is the entry point, which Kemper pitches as an introduction to semi-custom with its most popular door styles and finishes. Choice adds more doors, colors and storage pieces. Emerge is the top series, built on all-plywood construction with custom sizing, specialty finishes, and the inset versions of the Brisbane, Gordon and Martin doors. The product catalog also lists maple, cherry, walnut, oak, quartersawn white oak, rustic alder, rustic hickory, MDF, laminate and PureStyle doors, but the site asks for a ZIP code first and warns that products vary by location, so what your dealer can order may be shorter than the full list.
Watch the word Echo on any quote. Fabuwood also has an Echo, one of the six framed collections in its Allure series, and it has nothing to do with Kemper’s entry tier. A Fabuwood Allure Echo cabinet has the same plywood box and dovetail drawer as a Galaxy or Luxe cabinet; a Kemper Echo cabinet sits on Kemper’s standard furniture-board platform unless the quote says otherwise. If a friend tells you they were quoted “Echo,” ask whose.
Furniture Board With a Serious Drawer, or Plywood Throughout
Kemper publishes its standard cabinet in detail. The sides are ½″ furniture board with matching laminate outside, the top and bottom are ⅜″ furniture board, the interior is a natural maple laminate, and the shelves are ¾″ furniture board with PVC edgebanding. The distinctive part is the back: a ⅜″ load-bearing panel that runs the full width and height of the box, which Kemper says lets cabinets up to 36″ wide skip the center divider other brands use. Plywood comes as an option, either Plywood Ends (PE) for veneered plywood sides, or All Plywood Construction (APC), which moves the sides, top, bottom, back and shelves to plywood. Emerge starts on ½″ plywood sides and ¾″ plywood shelves without the upcharge.
Where Kemper earns real credit is the drawer. Its standard drawer, not an upgrade, is a four-sided solid wood dovetail box with a laminated plywood bottom on full-extension undermount guides, closed by MasterBrand’s Smart Stop™ system with an integrated hydraulic cylinder. The doors use a six-way concealed hinge whose Smart Stop™ mechanism can be switched off. Kemper adds that most, but not all, doors, drawers and roll trays get Smart Stop™, so ask the designer about exceptions. Fabuwood’s framed Allure answers with a ½″ veneered plywood box, natural wood-veneer interior, ¾″ plywood shelves, a solid wood face frame, a ⅝″ dovetail drawer and Blum® Blumotion hinges with Tandem plus runners on every cabinet. The drawers are close to equal; the box is where the two part ways, unless your Kemper quote says APC or Emerge.
Inch-Step Depths, Inset Doors and Painting to a Fan Deck
This is the section where Kemper pulls ahead, and it is worth being specific. Kemper builds walls at 12″ deep and bases at 24″, and its modifications page says most wall, base and tall cabinets can be made deeper or shallower in 1″ increments. It also lists a functional door on a cabinet end and tray-divider inserts, and Emerge adds custom sizing on top. Fabuwood builds in catalog sizes, and gaps are closed with fillers and panels. For a kitchen full of standard runs that makes no difference; for a 10″-deep wall over a window seat, or a base pulled forward to meet a thick stone top, it decides the brand.
Inset is the same story. Kemper lists inset versions of three doors in Emerge, while Fabuwood makes no inset door at all. On paint, the two are nearer than you would guess. Kemper’s Color By Number program takes any Sherwin-Williams or Benjamin Moore color on Choice (maple and MDF, all construction platforms) and Emerge (maple, MDF and quartersawn oak, with penned glazes), with sample doors available. Fabuwood’s factory custom paint program covers the same two fan decks on its six framed Allure collections, sprayed and cured like a stock finish. Neither program extends to the entry tier or the slab lines: Kemper doesn’t list Echo for Color By Number, and Fabuwood’s frameless Illume and Ovela stay on their factory surfaces.
What the Two Lifetime Warranties Leave Out
Both brands say “limited lifetime,” and both are tied to the original buyer. Kemper’s written terms, issued by MasterBrand, are worth reading in full before you sign. The warranty covers the first residential purchaser in a primary or secondary home, does not pass to the next owner when the house sells, and excludes rental property, including part-time vacation rentals. Warping that shows up after the first 365 days isn’t covered, MasterBrand can defer a warp or joint-separation claim for up to 12 months while the cabinets acclimate, and rooms outside 50–85°F or 30–55% humidity count as extreme conditions. Vent hoods and decorative hardware carry one year. Fabuwood’s limited lifetime warranty covers the original purchaser and runs through the selling dealer; if you plan to rent the home out, ask either dealer for the written terms.
Timing is harder to line up because Kemper publishes no lead times. Semi-custom options such as depth changes, Color By Number and inset usually add time, so ask the Kemper dealer for a written ship date on your exact door and platform. Fabuwood’s Galaxy collection ships in 7 days to 3 weeks and the other Allure collections in 3–5 weeks, with custom-paint orders quoted at 2–6 weeks. Prices behave similarly: Kemper doesn’t post any, while Fabuwood kitchens typically land at $4,000–$9,000 for a 10×10, with a Galaxy B12 base at $560 as a benchmark (Desert Oak and Natural Oak run about 20% more). Semi-custom 10×10s generally fall around $5,000–$18,000, so a standard-platform Kemper Echo quote can come in close to Fabuwood, and an Emerge inset quote usually will not.
Fabuwood vs Kemper: Signing the Right Quote
Start with the room, not the logo. If the plan uses standard depths and overlay doors, the useful comparison is a Kemper quote written on APC or Emerge against Fabuwood Allure, because that is where the boxes match. At that point Fabuwood usually wins on price and speed, and you keep Blum® hardware and a plywood box without having to specify either. If the Kemper quote is on the standard platform, you’re comparing its furniture-board box and good dovetail drawer against a plywood box at similar money.
Kemper is the better buy when the kitchen needs what a stocked line can’t build: depths changed an inch at a time, inset doors, species like quartersawn white oak or rustic hickory, or a long-established brand name. Kemper’s own FAQ says its construction matches Diamond’s, and we sell Diamond, so if that build is what you are after we can quote it next to Fabuwood. Send us your Kemper drawing and a designer will reply within one business day, with a free 3D design and itemized Fabuwood quote on the same layout in 24–48 hours.
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Fabuwood vs Kemper FAQ
Common questions about how these two compare.
It depends on the Kemper series and platform. Kemper’s standard box is furniture board with a ⅜″ load-bearing back, though its standard drawer is a solid wood dovetail box with Smart Stop™ soft-close. Plywood comes with the PE or APC options or the Emerge series. Fabuwood Allure has a ½″ plywood box, ⅝″ dovetail drawers and Blum® hardware as standard. Kemper wins on inch-step depth changes and inset doors; Fabuwood wins on standard box material and published lead times.
Kemper is a brand of MasterBrand Cabinets, headquartered in Jasper, Indiana. The company began as Kemper Brothers in Richmond, Indiana, where it built wardrobes from 1926 and kitchen cabinets from 1928. Kemper’s site doesn’t say which MasterBrand plant builds today’s cabinets, so ask your dealer if origin matters to you.
Kemper’s FAQ says the three are MasterBrand brands with consistent construction and quality, but door styles and finish colors vary from brand to brand. We carry Diamond, which ships nationwide, so if you like the Kemper build but can’t find a local Kemper dealer, a Diamond quote is a fair comparison.
No. Kemper’s limited lifetime warranty covers the first residential purchaser only, lapses when the property is sold, and excludes rentals, including part-time vacation rentals. Warping after the first 365 days is also excluded. Fabuwood’s limited lifetime warranty likewise covers the original purchaser.
Not the way Kemper does. Kemper says most wall, base and tall cabinets can be made deeper or shallower in 1″ steps, and Emerge adds custom sizing. Fabuwood builds catalog sizes, and designers close gaps with fillers and panels. If your plan needs non-standard depths, tell us early and we’ll say honestly whether Fabuwood can handle it.
No. We are an authorized Fabuwood dealer and don’t carry Kemper. We do carry Diamond, another MasterBrand brand. Send us a Kemper quote or drawing and we’ll price the same layout in Fabuwood, and in Diamond if you want to see both.