
- Soft Maple. Despite its name, Soft Maple is actually considered to be a hard wood when it comes to density (harder than both Poplar and Alder). ...
- Alder. ...
- Birch. ...
- Hard Maple. ...
- European Beech. ...
- Oak. ...
- Ash.
How to choose the best wood for your kitchen cabinets?
Money
- Inspect the Construction. Well-built cabinets have solid wood drawers with dovetail joinery instead of stapled particleboard; full-extension drawer guides rather than an integrated rail; and doors with solid wood frames ...
- Focus on Features. ...
- Consider Revitalizing Your old Cabinets. ...
What is the cheapest wood for kitchen cabinets?
“One of my go-tos is natural-grade birch,” says McDonald. “It’s one of the cheapest wood species and it’s domestic, so there’s no guilt that it’s being pulled out of the rain forest or shipped across from Europe. It’s also very hard and durable, so it will stand the test of time.”
What is the best paint for wood cabinets?
The Best Finish for Kitchen Cabinets
- Semi-gloss: This is the best choice when painting kitchen cabinets. ...
- Gloss paint: Another great option for kitchen cabinet paint, alongside semi-gloss, this will be the shiniest of your paint choices. ...
- Eggshell or flat finish paint: Avoid using either of these finishes when painting kitchen cabinets. ...
What type of wood is best for cabinets?
What Type of Wood is Best for Kitchen Cabinets?
- Oak. Oak trees are readily available all over the globe, and are, therefore, the most preferred of the natural wood options.
- Hickory. Hickory is a highly durable, relatively affordable wood that is popular in kitchen cabinetry. ...
- Bamboo. ...
- Maple. ...
- Walnut. ...
- Cherry Wood. ...
- Other Wood Options for Kitchen Cabinets. ...
What wood is used for cabinets?
What is the best wood for painting?
What wood is best for lighter paint?
Is HDF a good option for painted cabinets?
Can you paint oak?
Do woods like paint?
Is European beech good for cabinetry?
See 2 more

What wood should you use for painted cabinets?
Paint-grade wood tends to be of the tighter-grained varieties such as soft maple, hard maple, poplar, and pine, among others. Open-grained wood has a rougher look and likely needs filler to look good when painted. It's best to build out of tight-grain woods to avoid this.
What is best material for painted cabinet doors?
Soft mapleSoft maple is harder than alder, African mahogany and poplar, and is a great choice for painted cabinet doors. Paint grade poplar is typically the least expensive paint-grade material option, with soft maple being the mid price point and hard maple being the highest.
What do professional painters use for kitchen cabinets?
Many professionals now use latex paint, citing the improvements to the formula and the as-good-as finish they can get on most surfaces. We actually prefer a third type of paint for cabinets, the hybrid enamel.
What is the most popular wood for cabinets right now?
For 2022, you will probably see a return to oak wood for kitchen cabinets as vintage becomes designer, and homeowners go back to the real wood of time past. Oak has the texture and look of subtle elegance with its neutral color and design versatility.
What kind of wood do you use to paint cabinet doors?
The best woods for painted cabinetry:Soft Maple. Despite its name, Soft Maple is actually considered to be a hard wood when it comes to density (harder than both Poplar and Alder). ... Alder. ... Birch. ... Hard Maple. ... European Beech. ... Oak. ... Ash.
What is the most durable finish for cabinets?
Melamine finishes are some of the most durable and versatile cabinet finishes out there! Cabinets with a melamine finish are made by heat-sealing thermally fused melamine resin (TFM) to a hard wood substrate such as pressed wood, medium-density fiberboard, or plywood.
Is it worth it to have kitchen cabinets professionally painted?
If you're feeling anxious about painting your cabinets yourself, you might want to consider having them professionally painted. Professional painters have the skills and expertise to get the job done as quickly as possible, while making sure the final result is one you'll be happy with.
Is it better to roll or brush paint cabinets?
On the fronts and backs of drawers and doors, you can use a roller. This will apply the paint in a more smooth and even manner and is much faster than only using a paint brush. Then, use a brush for touching up small areas or for hard-to-reach spots.
Do professionally painted kitchen cabinets hold up?
With proper care of professionally painted kitchen cabinets, you can expect your newly painted cabinets to last 8-10 years!
What is the most popular color for a kitchen 2022?
0:102:49Top 5 Kitchen Cabinet Colors in 2022 - Popular Kitchen Remodel - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipGreen really depending on the incident of light try delicate green for your kitchen. Cabinets.MoreGreen really depending on the incident of light try delicate green for your kitchen. Cabinets. Number three blue if we are going for a bit of a bold contrast we tend to gravitate. Towards the blues.
What color of cabinets are in style 2022?
0:202:49Top 5 Kitchen Cabinet Colors in 2022 - Popular Kitchen Remodel - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipBlue is timeless and will also make a statement. Number two gray gray continues to be a favorite forMoreBlue is timeless and will also make a statement. Number two gray gray continues to be a favorite for kitchen cabinetry.
What is on trend for kitchens in 2022?
Black accents and appliances Brass and copper cabinet handles and hardware have been all the rage, but now sophisticated black accents are leading the way in stylish kitchens. “While natural, subtle colors and warm tones in the kitchen will continue to trend in 2022, black accents will be the exception,” says Vernazza.
How do you make painted cabinets scratch resistant?
You can do so by sealing your painted cabinets with a polyurethane or epoxy sealant. Just as sealing a garage floor will guard the concrete from impact, spills, and other threats, a cabinet sealant will protect your paint job from moisture, scratches, fading, and more.
Which material is most durable for kitchen cabinets?
Solid natural wood cabinets are the gold standard when it comes to strength and longevity. Woods like maple, oak, birch, walnut, and cherry will last you decades.
How do you make painted cabinets more durable?
5 Tips to Make Your Painted Kitchen Cabinets durableThorough Prepping.Thorough Cleaning of Cabinet Surfaces.Prime the Surfaces Well.Select Quality Paint.Finally, add a Clear Coat. After going through the whole process of painting, it is advisable to apply a clear coat as the final touch on the surfaces being painted.
What's the best finish for painting kitchen cabinets?
Semi-glossThe Best Finish for Kitchen Cabinets Semi-gloss: This is the best choice when painting kitchen cabinets. Because it has some sheen, semi-gloss paint will help reflect light and be more durable in the long run, which is important in a kitchen environment.
Best Wood for Paint Grade Cabinetry
Cabinetmakers discuss the relative merits of Soft Maple and Poplar for paint grade work. September 8, 2008
Birch vs. Maple Cabinets: What's Best For Your Kitchen?
Birch. Material: Hardwood that grows in forests in Canada and throughout the Northeastern United States.; Durability: Durable hardwood with a high tensile strength rating.; Appearance: Birch cabinets are typically light brown or golden, honey-colored.; Price: Birch kitchen cabinets cost between $2,000 and $4,000.; Maintenance: Birch has an uneven texture, and its surface often yields blotchy ...
What's The Best Wood For Painted Cabinets? | PTR - Pro Tool Reviews
When it comes to painting, not all wood varieties are created equally. Read further to find out what's the best wood for painted cabinets.
What wood is used for painted cabinets?
Poplar wood (Image: Associated Fabrication) Over the years, poplar was the preferred choice of wood for painted cabinets. Maple is a strong competitor, though. The reason for this is that poplar tends to “fuzz up” during sanding.
What wood is best for cabinetry?
Soft maple is another favored wood in cabinetry. Unlike alder, there is no tendency to fuzz up with soft maple as you sand it. You will also find this wood an easy one to sand and paint. The rate of paint absorption is even less than other wood, and you get an excellent and smooth finish on painting it.
What is plywood in cabinets?
Plywood. Plywood (Image: Wikimedia Commons) Plywood is a combination of different layers of wood veneers glued together into boards. You get different grades of plywood, namely, structural, exterior, interior, and marine. For making cabinets, we use interior plywood. The grain of each layer of plywood is at right angles to each other.
What is the most expensive wood to paint?
Hard maple is the most expensive paint-grade wood that you can get. However, it also costs the most. The National Hardwood Lumber Association does not monitor hard maple color, so you are likely to get some off-color wood.
Can you use plywood for painted cabinets?
Now that you have had a good look at the various types of wood that you can use for painted cabinets, you may wonder about the comparison between plywood and solid wood. Plywood is an extremely versatile form of wood for making cabinets. It is tough, cuts easily, and you can get huge sections of it. Moreover, you can shape plywood, and it also ...
Can you paint cabinets with wood?
However, if you are going to use wood to make your cabinets, the choice of wood is critical. Different types of wood take on paint differently. With the right kind of wood, you can get a smooth, painted finish.
Can you paint birch plywood?
Birch is suitable for painting, and you can also get it in the form of birch plywood. It is sturdy and durable, so this wood can take a beating from kids around the house as it is less prone to scratches. It requires less sealant or primer that the other varieties of woods, but costs more.
What is the best wood for a cabinet?
Poplar and soft maple are popular for most parts of a cabinet—face frames, end frames, and door panels—mostly due to cost and workability. However, some carpenters find that poplar dents easily. It can also absorb the first coat of paint quickly.
What wood is used in cabinets?
Here’s a quick breakdown of the woods typically found in cabinets: Hickory. Characteristics: strength, hardness, and durability; Reddish brown to white. Grain: typically straight and coarse. Soft Maple. Characteristics: medium density, hardness, and strength, paint grade. Grain: close-grained, fine textured.
What woods look good when painted?
Blame It On The Grain. Paint-grade wood tends to be of the tighter-grained varieties such as soft maple, hard maple, poplar, and pine, among others. Open-grained wood has a rougher look and likely needs filler to look good when painted. It’s best to build out of tight-grain woods to avoid this. Poplar and soft maple are popular for most parts ...
What do carpenters need to decide on wood?
The appearance, color, price, intended use, workability, and aging behavior are all considerations. But so is a wood’s paintability or ability to take a stain.
Is hard maple a good wood?
Some of the other tight-grain woods are a little easier to work with, but their availability or cost isn’t considered enough of a trade-off. Hard maple can be another good choice, although it can move slightly more than other woods with changes in humidity. Wood isn’t the only choice to make.
What wood is cheapest for cabinets?
When it comes to cheap woods for your kitchen cabinet doors, it all depends on the style you're going for.
What type of wood is best to paint?
Different cabinet doors require different types of wood depending on their style and the aesthetic you're going for with your kitchen overall.
What paint do cabinet makers use?
As you may have guessed, cabinet makers use many different paints depending on what they're doing.
What wood is used in a kitchen?
For example, more traditional-style kitchens will often use Red Oak wood because it's cheap, strong, and gives a rustic look. However, as mentioned earlier, this is an “open grain” wood species which means that it has a rough finish and it's difficult to paint over. It works for that rustic, rough finish.
Is MDF good for kitchens?
MDF ( medium-density fiberboard) is endlessly popular in kitchen designs because it's cheap, stable, and relatively durable if you take care of it. MDF is also pretty easy to sand and repaint if you want to freshen up your kitchen's look further down the line.
Is hickory wood good for cabinets?
Hickory is a strong, hard, and durable wood that will last for years if treated correctly. Prime d and painted the right way, this wood can look stunning on your cabinets.
Can MDF be painted?
Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) is a type of manufactured hardwood that’s engineered for performance. So, not surprisingly, it can be painted easily and delivers a nice finish even for novice painters.
Is birch good for painting?
Like most of the entries on this list, birch offers an excellent surface for painting with good absorption and a nice finish. Unlike other entries on this list, birch is a plywood with more complicated grain patterns, so it hides scratches better than maple, and other woods.
Can poplar be painted?
This is one of the most popular woods for painting, mostly because it’s inexpensive but produces a lovely smooth finish when prepared right. If you use poplar, make sure the surface is well sanded, and cleaned of any debris before applying paint. Luckily, when you order paint-grade doors from CabinetDoors.com they come fully sanded and paint ready.
Is it easy to paint alder wood?
Painting alder wood is especially easy thanks to the soft density of the material. Alder is not as plentiful as some of the other wood species on this list and is a little more expensive as a result, but it remains an appealing option for anyone that plans to paint their doors.
Can you paint maple cabinets?
Painting maple cabinets is fairly straightforward regardless of whether the maple is hard or soft. The hard variety is considered by some to be the best wood for painting in terms of how good the finished doors look, but hard maple is expensive as a result.
What's the Best Cabinet Wood for Painting?
Cabinet painting remains a very popular trend among homeowners who want to rid their kitchen of the dark stained wood look and replace it with a modern white, or gray, paint color. This never-ending design trend is so popular that I often paint cabinets white for my customers more than I paint walls.
1. Maple (Soft and Hard)
Maple, both soft and hard, is the best wood for painted cabinet doors and frames and my personal favorite to work with. Maple is a hardwood with a very smooth profile and no grain other than a few random pin knots here and there. The super smooth and grain-free profile makes maple an awesome candidate for paint and solid lacquer colors.
2. Cherry
Like maple, cherry is also a durable hardwood species with a closed grain that looks really smooth when painted, but not quite as smooth as maple due to the tiny knots and pits that appear in the wood. These knots are easy to remove with wood filler so they don't show through paint.
What is the best wood for cabinets?
Cherry. Cherry wood comes under the head of hardwoods, but it is a much softer wood in its class. Due to its vibrant color that tends to darken with age and easy workability, it tends to appear in high-end woodworking projects. The timeless, classic look that cherry imparts makes it a popular choice for kitchen cabinets.
What wood is used for kitchen cabinets?
Oak. Oak is a hard and sturdy wood, and a popular choice for making kitchen cabinets, especially as it comes in a wide variety of colors. This wood makes some nice traditional modeled cabinets, but today some woodworkers are using it to create more contemporary designs.
What type of wood is used for furniture?
We all know cherry wood as a popular type of wood for using to make various types of indoor furniture. Cherry wood enjoys wide popularity…
What is the difference between Rift Oak and regular oak?
The grain pattern and color make this wood a popular choice for contemporary designs, but you cannot rule out traditional or transitional designs. Rift oak is marginally more expensive than regular oak.
Which woods show the most aging?
However, aging will ultimately occur, and it is species like alder, maple, and cherry that show up the effects of aging the fastest. Now that you are more aware of the types of wood for kitchen cabinets, you will be in a better position to create some great ones.
Can you use wood for kitchen cabinets?
Owing to the complex nature of kitchen cabinet construction, you may end up using a combination of woods for making them. For instance, you might use one type of wood for the doors and another for making the frames. So, let’s get right into the types of wood that you can use to build kitchen cabinets. Contents [ show]
Is oak cheaper than rift oak?
The fact that oak is more readily available and cheaper than rift oak makes it a popular choice. The traditional choice for the surface of oak cabinets used to be to stain it. However, today with advancements in wood paint technology, some interesting paint finishes are also emerging. Salient Features Of Oak.
Which Woods Are the Best Wood for Kitchen Cabinets?
The first four of the most popular woods used for wood kitchen cabinets include alder, oak, maple, and paint grade. Cabinetdoors.com is committed to using the best wood for kitchen cabinets so that we can produce a high quality product for our customers.
Choosing the Best Wood for Cabinets from CabinetDoors.com
Ready to explore what’s available to you? The Door Stop has hundreds of cabinet door styles, where you can get high quality, custom-sized doors for your wood kitchen cabinets at a great price.
Contact CabinetDoors.com and Enjoy New Wood Kitchen Cabinets Today
At Cabinetdoors.com, we believe in making every step of the process as easy as possible for you. We work hard to ensure you can get a custom look with a high quality product, without the hassle or high cost of working with a big box retailer. You get a great product at a great price, and it all comes right to your door.
What is the best paint for kitchen cabinets?
While oil-based paints make a case for themselves with their reputation for easy application and a long-lasting finish that can be scrubbed and cleaned regularly, latex paint is widely regarded as the best choice for most kitchen cabinets, since it offers lower levels of VOCs and is quicker to dry.
Why is it important to choose the right paint finish for kitchen cabinets?
Choosing the right paint finish for kitchen cabinets is important since it affects how durable your cabinets will be in the long run. Cabinet doors and drawers are subject to touching, pulling, slamming, and more, while shelves routinely have objects being slid in and out.
What are the effects of oil based paint?
Oil-based paints release volatile organic compounds, also known as VOCs, in higher numbers than other paint options. VOCs can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, as well as shortness of breath, dizziness, headaches, and other long-term effects .
How to paint flat doors?
If you have flat doors on your kitchen cabinets, you can make quick work of paint application by using a roller with ¼ nap (for the evenest application and smooth finish).
How long does it take for oil based paint to dry?
For one thing, while it goes on smoothly, oil-based paint takes a long time to dry in between coats—up to 16 hours. Without good air circulation (which can be hard to come by in a kitchen), you may end up waiting days for the paint to dry.
Which is more durable, glossy or gloss paint?
This will be the shiniest of your paint choices and is a great option for especially bold cabinet colors or super modern kitchens. Gloss paint will also be the most durable, due to the fact that more resin and binders are used in formulating glossy paint, giving the paint more of a hard "shell.".
Can you paint MDF cabinets?
It's easy to paint MDF kitchen cabinets as long as you know how to properly prep them. You have two priorities when prepping MDF cabinets for painting: seal the edge and use an oil-based primer. The edge of MDF is more porous, and if it doesn’t already have a finished surface, then you’ll want to use some drywall compound to seal it and keep moisture from swelling the material during the painting process.
What wood is used for cabinets?
It also exclusively grows in the Northwest, so it's not always available in all parts of the country and because of that can be more expensive. 3. Birch. High-density and highly durable, Birch is a great wood if you anticipate any hard use or abuse with your cabinets (sooo... kids.)
What is the best wood for painting?
Considered to be the best hardwood for painting, Hard Maple delivers a smooth, rich, refined finish. The only downside? It might break the bank a little since it's one of the most expensive options.
What wood is best for lighter paint?
Low-cost, sustainable, and easy to finish, you can't go wrong with Soft Maple. 2. Alder. With its naturally light tone, Alder is a great wood to use for lighter paint colors since it won't show through.
Is HDF a good option for painted cabinets?
We know, we know. We're talking about wood here. But HDF is one of the best, most cost-effective options when it comes to painted cabinet doors.
Can you paint oak?
If you take anything away from this post, take this: Do not paint Oak.
Do woods like paint?
Some woods like paint and some don't.
Is European beech good for cabinetry?
European Beech. Beech is not a cabinetmaker's first thought when it comes to woods that look good painted, but we're big fans over here. It's a high quality hardwood that's easy to work with and machines, glues, and finishes really well.
