 Wood Kitchen Cabinet Doors
Wood has always been a popular choice for kitchen doors. If you choose wood, you will have a choice of solid wood or wood veneer. The latter is cheaper and more stable, less prone to movement. Wood is a natural material and solid wood doors are likely to respond to weather, humidity and temperature. Wood mellows over time, becoming richer in colour and darker in hue.
Wood (or timber) doors can be given a number of finishes from traditional oiling to high gloss varnish. It can also be painted in any colour and gloss finish. There are specialist finishers who can produce a limed, colour-washed or even distressed finish.
Advantages of wood are mostly to do with the look and feel. If you like natural products and want a traditional feel to the kitchen then wood could be for you. Wood can be subject to damage of course but it can be easily repaired. Scratches for instance can be sanded out and touched up with furniture oil or varnish. An older kitchen can develop a very homely look as the timber mellows and the natural signs of wear and tear give it the distressed appearance that some people actually pay for at the outset.
The disadvantages of solid wood are that, if poorly made of inadequately seasoned timber it can move or split. To keep its looks over time wooden kitchen cabinet doors need to be cared for as you would your timber furniture. Wood veneer on a stable substrate such as MDF will not move or split but lacks the quality appearance of solid natural wood.
Laquer Kitchen Cabinet Doors
Lacquer doors are denerally made from MDF or preferably moisture resistant MDF. The can be plain or profiled. Profiling means shaping, or more accurately cutting into shapes with a computer controlled router. The raw door is sanded and painted, usually with a 2-pot Acid Cat lacquer.
The resulting paint coating can be in a variety of gloss finishes or matt. 2-pot lacquer is quite tough but it is still only paint. The hardness and durability will be much higher that polyurethane but less hard that that of your car.
Advantages of lacquering are that you can have any colour you like to fit in with your overall colour scheme. You also get a choice of gloss finishes from high gloss to satin. Disadvantages are that it can suffer scratching and damage, which is expensive to repair, and it might be tricky to match the colour in future, especially after fading.
You might not choose a lacquer finish if you have small children running about with their toys or even clumsy teenagers.
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Melamine kitchen cabinet doors are the standard at the lower end of the market but they can also look good in a better appointed kitchen. Melamine doors offer huge choice of colour and pattern choices. A careful choice of handles can really set a melamine faced kitchen off.
