CHOOSING A FINISH

Deciding on what finish to use can mean the difference between a typical kitchen and your dream kitchen.

Painted – Painted finishes offer a wide variety of advantages over stained finishes. Ease of maintenance and cleaning, as well as the finish not darkening over time like some stained finishes, will keep your new kitchen looking new, longer. The down side to painted finishes is that the finish may crack in some areas like mitered corners. Real wood cabinets expand and contract with the change in humidity due to the wood absorbing moisture and then releasing it when the humidity goes back down. Over time, this expanding and contracting can cause the seams to crack slightly.

Stained –Clearly the most common, stained finishes provide a protective finish that allows the natural beauty of the wood to shine through. Stained finishes are subject to light however and will darken over time, as in the picture below. This “sun tanning” effect is more prevalent in cheaply made cabinets that use particle board sides where the particle board is covered with a wood grained paper or laminate designed to look like wood. The real wood face and doors will darken but the paper or laminate will not, leaving a very noticeable difference in as little as a few months.

This picture shows the effects of the sun on the real wood face frame and the distinct color difference common with particle board constructed cabinets, commonly referred to as "Viraguard" where the sun cannot penetrate the paper laminate, thus leaving it the original color or sometimes even bleaching it

No Glaze

Glaze

Glaze – Glazes are applied to doors and moldings to enhance the contours. The example to the left shows the Bristol Toffee door (Left) and the Bristol Toffee Glaze (Right). The doors are identical and have the same finish, but once the glaze is applied, the doors take on an entirely different look.

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