Unfinished Shaker Kitchen Cabinet Doors Online
Unfinished Shaker Kitchen Cabinet Doors Online
Reprinted with permission from PaintGrade.Com
Unfinished kitchen cabinet doors in the Shaker door style are very popular and make an almost perfect paint-grade door.
The design is simple and attractive, It's extremely durable, and is a reliable and dependable door in all climate regions of the United States.
As the market for paint-able cabinet doors has matured, manufacturers have increased production into paint-grade doors and are offering the Shaker door style in woods that are easier to paint and require less preparation time.
One of the companies offering a shaker kitchen cabinet door in paint-grade is cabinetdoorfactory.com
Their Shaker Kitchen Cabinet Door page can be viewed here...The CabinetDoorFactory.com Shaker door.
How to measure for new cabinet doors and avoid measurement errors
Measuring for new kitchen cabinet doors or replacement cabinet doors requires a little thought about the hinges you plan to use. If you intend to use your existing hinges simply measure your existing cabinet doors and order doors of the same sizes. If you plan to use our Blum Inserta, Clip-top hinges with 1/2-inch overlay, your hinges will ship with your order. To insure your new doors are perfectly sized for use with our hinges, the door size measurements are figured as follows: On single doors simply measure the opening size and add 1-inch to both the width and height. For instance, if the cabinet opening size is 12-inches wide and 24-inches high, the door size will be 13 x 25. On wider cabinets with two doors (butting in the center), measure the width of the opening, add 1-inch, then divide by 2. Height is figured the same as for single doors. Just add 1-inch to the opening. For instance, if the opening is 28 inches wide and 30 inches high, each door width would be 28 + 1 = 29 divided by 2 = 14 1/2-inches wide. The Blum hinges have plus/minus 2 millimeters of adjustment which will allow enough side adjustment to have a gap of up to 1/8-inch between the butting doors. If you live in a high humidity climate you may want to subtract an additional 1/16″ from the width of your Butt Doors. So, don't be intimidated into thinking it's difficult to figure door sized from openings. Just take the measurements and order the door style of your choice…of give us a call and we'll talk you through the entire process.
Using new Paint-Grade doors to replace your old kitchen cabinet doors is easy.
Thinking about replacing your kitchen cabinet doors with a new and different look?
Replacing your old cabinet doors with unfinished, paint-grade doors can give your kitchen a bright, new look you are after.
And, repainting the existing cabinets and adding new painted cabinet doors is actually not that difficult if you follow a few simple rules and select the right wood for your painted doors.
The woods typically used by professionals on their paint-grade cabinet doors are the tighter-grained woods like Poplar, Soft Maple, Alder, Pine, Birch, Hard Maple, and MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard).
Woods like Oak are rarely painted because of the "Orange peel" look the open grain causes.
If an open grain wood like Oak is the only choice you have, it is recommended that the grain be filled with Drywall putty or a similar thick sealer then sanded to a smooth surface before painting.
The prices for the recommended paint-grade woods run from Poplar (cheapest), Soft Maple, Alder, Pine, Birch, and Hard Maple being the most expensive.
Each of these woods have their own advantages and disadvantages, but there are a few practices that will apply to whichever wood type is chosen to paint.
- The first is the "prep-prep-prep" rule. That means that every hour spent preparing the cabinet door for painting saves two hours in repainting.
- The second is the 5-F's rule. This rule is "Fine Finishers Finish Firewood First". It simply means that experimenting with your finish on scrap wood can prevent ruining a door with a failed finishing attempt.
- The third is always break all sharp edges with fine sandpaper before painting. Sharp edges will not hold paint and will give the dried paint an unpainted spot to absorb moisture.
- The forth is to keep in mind that all wood types will expand and contract with changes in humidity. The paint will slow these humidity-caused wood movements, but no paint is totally moisture-proof, and paint will not stop the movements. This humidity-movement of wood presents another potential issue for the painted cabinet door. When the paint dries, it will no longer have the elasticity to move with the wood; so it will crack, usually along the glue joints where the Stiles & Rails join.
- The fifth relates to the hardness of the paint-grade wood. The softer the wood, the more easily it will dent, if hit with a pot or frying pan. The dent in the wood may be slight and hardly noticeable, but dried paint doesn't dent without cracking. The weakest link in any painted cabinet door is not the door. Regardless of the wood type used, the weakest link is always the paint.
- The sixth practice covers the method of application of the paint. The desired look from painting a cabinet door is usually a high gloss finish, similar to the finish on a piano. A finish of this quality will certainly require a highly experienced finishing professional, and a dust-free spray booth. This doesn't mean you can't achieve an excellent finish, but it does mean you won't get this piano-finish with a paint brush in your driveway. To get a professional looking finish you will need to spray-on the paint. Not from a Krylon can, but from an compressed-air, or airless, spray painting system.
So which woods are best for Paint-Grade Kitchen Cabinet Doors?
Here is a brief summary of our experience with the various paint-grade woods.
Poplar, for years has been the paint-grade wood of choice for furniture makers and cabinet shops. It has Soft Maple as a competitor because Poplar tends to be more labor intensive to sand and finish, but Soft Maple is more expensive. Poplar has a tendency to "fuzz-up" during sanding, and if any of the fuzz is missed before painting, it certainly is never missed after painting. Both woods tend to be absorbent and require more sealer or more paint that harder woods. The finish obtained on Poplar and Soft Maple is excellent, and both woods remain the most popular paint-grade woods.
Soft Maple rivals Poplar as the wood of choice by Custom Cabinet Shops for their Paint-Grade Cabinet Door jobs. Both are low cost. Both are available over most of the country. It sands easier than Alder and it doesn't "fuzz-up" like Alder or Poplar while sanding, and it sands faster. It doesn't absorb sealer quite as much as Poplar and finishes very smooth, and doesn't telegraph it's grain through the paint, like Pine.
Alder makes a good paintable cabinet door but tends to absorb primer at a high rate and is among the "softer" of the hardwoods. It grows in the Northwest and may not be available in all parts of the country and it is more expensive. Painted Alder is used more in the West, where it is more available, than other parts of the country, and it gives an excellent painted finish look.
Pine is available everywhere and is widely painted in furniture applications. It is reasonably inexpensive and is carried by all lumber yards and Big Box Stores. Furniture grade Pine is different from Frame grade Pine, like framing 2×6′s. Frame Grade Pine is typically not kiln dried to the 7-9% moisture levels required of furniture Grade woods. While Pine paints well the prominent grain can "telegraph" its texture through the painted surface, and knots and pitch pockets may bleed through the paint.
Birch is an excellent wood for painting and is starting to be carried by the Big Box Stores. Birch plywood is also available as 9-ply in 5′x5′ and 4′x8′ sheets. Birch is harder than Alder, Pine, and Soft Maple, so it will stand up better to "Kid abuse" than the softer woods. It does tend to be more expensive but will require less sealer or primer than the softer woods.
Hard Maple is the best wood available for paint-grade cabinet doors. Unfortunately, It's also the most expensive of the paint-grade woods costing about 2 1/2 times the price of Soft Maple. Because "color" is not an inspection criteria under the National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA), heartwood and mineral are not considered defects and lumber buyers purchasing the highest grades still receive some of this off-color maple. Because of this, cabinet door manufacturers often have Hard Maple with dark heartwood, or mineral streaks, which they have sorted out. Custom Cabinet Shops that purchase our doors depend on the cabinet doors for the overall appearance of their cabinets, so door manufactures cannot use this off-color Hard Maple for Select Maple Cabinet Doors. If we have a sufficient stock, we will use this off-color Hard Maple for our Paint Grade doors if it is requested by the customer, and we will make the substitution at no additional cost. When painted, off-color Hard Maple requires less primer, sands smoother, and is significantly harder that any of the standard paint-grade woods we offer.
Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibers. MDF is used as the panel in all of our Recessed Panel Paint-Grade Cabinet Doors, and is used as the Raised Panel in some of our Raised Panel doors. MDF paints well and it is a good idea to coat all sides of the finished piece in order to seal in the urea-formaldehyde. Formaldehyde resins are commonly used to bind MDF together, and testing has consistently revealed that MDF products emit urea-formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds that pose health risks at sufficient concentrations, for at least several months after manufacture. Most cabinet and furniture manufacturers have been using MDF for several decades and the risks of Formaldehyde resin emissions, when the products are painted is considered negligible.
Save 30%-50% By Ordering Replacement Cabinet Doors at Cabinet Door Factory
Where you buy your replacement cabinet doors has a significant impact on the cost to replace cabinet doors. Replace your cabinet doors through Cabinet Door Factory and save yourself 30-50% off big box store prices. Cabinet Door Factory is proud to offer high-quality, custom-sized
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