NewAge Bold Series 9-Piece Garage Cabinet Review: 7 Months Later

I finally got around to doing a full review of my NewAge Bold Series 9-piece garage cabinet set. It has been on the wall for about seven months now, which is long enough to know what I actually think of it instead of what it looked like the day I finished bolting it together.

Before these showed up, a pile of truck parts lived in Rubbermaid totes on that wall. This set replaced all of it, and that alone was worth something.

This is not sponsored. I purchased these cabinets myself with my own money. NewAge did not send them to me, nobody paid for this review, and nobody at NewAge saw it before it went up.

Quick verdict

• Good-looking, affordable storage for a home garage.
• Plenty of space for truck parts, tools and supplies.
• The 24-gauge steel is thin, and it should not be mistaken for commercial or industrial cabinetry.
• The original countertop was the weakest part of the package.
• Shipping damage created a frustrating delay, but NewAge eventually worked out a reasonable replacement.
• I would buy the set again for a home garage at the right sale price.
• I would not choose it for a commercial shop where several people would be beating on it every day.

Product and purchase details

The $2,299.99 CAD figure is the listed price I was working from, not a promise of what the set costs today. NewAge runs sales and promotions constantly and prices change, so check the current number on the official NewAge Bold Series 9-piece cabinet set page before you budget. What I paid does not move: roughly $2,400 Canadian delivered, on the sale I caught.

Why I bought the NewAge cabinets

Before these showed up, I had truck parts stored in Rubbermaid totes. It worked, but it was a pain trying to find anything when I actually needed it. Every job started with moving four totes to get at the fifth one.

I wanted more storage, I wanted to fill the empty wall in the shop, and I wanted something black that would match my Husky toolbox reasonably well.

I already have some Mastercraft Maximum cabinets at the other end of the shop. They are heavier and very nice cabinets, but buying enough of them to fill this wall would have cost roughly twice as much.

Every time I ran the numbers I came back to the same thought. It is a shop. I would rather save that money for truck projects than spend $4,000 to $6,000 making every cabinet in the building match perfectly.

This is the same shop where I did the engine bay cleanup on my K2XX, so the wall in question gets used, not just looked at.

Price and delivery

I caught the NewAge Boxing Day and New Year’s sale and ordered the set on January 10. It was delivered January 24, so about two weeks door to door.

The total came to roughly $2,400 Canadian delivered.

One thing worth knowing before the truck shows up: everything is packed inside the two large lockers, including the lower cabinets and the wall cabinets. The shipment looks a lot smaller than you expect when it arrives, because it is all nested together on one pallet. Nothing is missing, it is just packed tighter than you would guess for nine pieces.

The damaged cabinet situation

One of the tall cabinets looked like it had been dropped during shipping. The side was dented badly enough that the doors would not sit or close properly. That is not a scratch you live with. That is a cabinet that does not work.

I submitted a damage claim through NewAge. Their first options were basically a small refund or sending a replacement cabinet in grey. I was not taking $100 back on a cabinet worth roughly $500 to $600, and I was not putting one grey cabinet in the middle of an all-black set.

It took about another month, but they eventually found a grey cabinet with black doors. I accepted that cabinet and swapped the doors over.

The doors off the damaged cabinet still need a little straightening, but the main cabinet setup was made right. The original shipping damage was a pain and the timeline was longer than it should have been, but NewAge did work with me until we found a reasonable solution.

I also managed to buy two more matching cabinets from a buddy for $100. The spare parts and doors from the damaged cabinet helped make those usable, so it worked out fairly well in the end.

If you order a set, check every cabinet carefully before you start installing anything. Finding the damage on day one is a very different conversation than finding it after half the wall is lagged up.

Cabinet quality and 24-gauge steel

Let’s call it what it is. These are 24-gauge steel cabinets. They are not industrial cabinets and they are not built like a professional mechanic’s toolbox.

The doors and panels can flex if you put pressure on them. If you are running a commercial shop with several guys constantly beating on the cabinets, opening and closing doors all day and leaning tooling against them, these probably are not the right set for you.

For my use, they are completely fine for what I use them for. I store truck parts, tools, supplies and general garage odds and ends. I am not hammering on the doors and I am not using the countertop as a fabrication table.

They look good, they keep the shop organized and they hold a pile of stuff. That is what I needed them to do, and after seven months they are still doing it.

Why I replaced the original countertop

My biggest complaint about the whole package was the original bamboo countertop. It was thin, it was shallow, and it did not feel like it belonged with the rest of the set.

I replaced it with a six-foot piece of butcher block that is about 1½ inches thick. I ripped it down to fit the cabinet depth and it made the entire setup feel much more solid. The new top is something I can actually work on without worrying about drilling through it or wrecking it the first time I set something heavy down.

If NewAge improved one thing on these sets, it should be the countertop. A better worktop would make the Bold cabinet package much better out of the box, and it is the one upgrade I would tell anyone to budget for up front.

Installation experience and advice

Installation was not terribly difficult, but getting everything level, straight and properly spaced takes time. Plan on a day, not an afternoon.

I started at the toolbox end and worked across the wall. Once the first tall cabinet was level and lagged into the wall, I used it as the reference point for everything else.

The lower cabinets were positioned next. Two of mine are on casters and the centre cabinet uses adjustable feet. Once the lowers were spaced properly, I installed the upper cabinets.

The uppers were the hardest part by a wide margin. I installed them myself, but it was a little sketchy trying to hold everything in position, bolt the cabinets together and secure them to the wall at the same time. Get a second person for the uppers. It will be much easier to keep everything straight and square, and you will not be balancing a wall cabinet on your head.

The cabinets have several mounting holes, which made it easy to hit the wood framing behind my metal shop walls. I used three lag bolts in each tall cabinet. Depending on how your wall is built, you may need longer or different mounting hardware than what comes in the box, so look at your wall before installation day rather than during it.

Main advantages

• Good appearance for the price. Black finish, clean lines, and it looks like a real cabinet wall rather than a budget setup.
• A large amount of enclosed storage, so the shop is not full of open shelving collecting dust.
• The black works well with the rest of my shop and my Husky toolbox.
• It eliminated the Rubbermaid totes full of truck parts, which was the whole point.
• Straightforward wall mounting once you have a level starting point.
• Several mounting holes per cabinet made it possible to hit the framing behind my metal wall.
• Good value for a normal home garage when you buy it on sale.

Main drawbacks

• Thin doors and panels that flex under pressure.
• Not suitable for heavy commercial abuse.
• The original bamboo countertop felt too thin and too shallow for the rest of the set.
• The upper cabinets are awkward to install alone.
• One tall cabinet arrived badly damaged.
• The replacement process took about another month to sort out.
• The supplied mounting hardware may not suit every wall.

Final verdict after seven months

Overall, I am happy with them.

The steel is thin, the original countertop was disappointing, and dealing with the damaged cabinet took longer than it should have. Those are the real negatives and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

On the other hand, the cabinets look good, they match the rest of the shop, they hold plenty of parts and they completely cleaned up that side of the garage. For roughly $2,400 Canadian delivered, they were worth it for what I needed.

Would I put them in a commercial shop? Probably not.

Would I buy them again for a home garage at the right sale price? Yes. I would just plan on upgrading the countertop and checking every cabinet carefully for shipping damage before I completed the installation.

The forum thread on these cabinets

I posted a shorter version of this on the FSC forum, over in the Shop Talk (Garage Life) section, and that is where the back and forth is happening.

Anyone else running the NewAge Bold cabinets? Jump into the forum discussion on the NewAge Bold cabinets and let me know how yours have held up, especially if you have the Bold 2.0, Bold 3.0 or Pro cabinets.

Your turn

If you own a set, I want to hear the parts I cannot see from my own shop. Did yours show up without shipping damage, or did you end up in a claim like I did? Did you keep the original countertop or swap it for something thicker? And if you spent up for the Bold 2.0, Bold 3.0 or the Pro cabinets, is the heavier steel worth the difference in a home garage?

Post it in the thread. The more owner experiences that pile up in one place, the more useful this is for the next person deciding whether to spend the money.