It's a splintery softwood. Dents will be typical. Try to round scorners wherever possible to avoid damage.
Color-wise, it tends to be very orangey-red.
Casey

My cabinets are Douglas fir...Actually the doors and drawer fronts are, not the boxes. (All the non-painted cabs in our kitchen and the island top, plus the vanities in our bathrooms, and the builtin in our bedroom.) All of our doors and interior trim are also fir. The door casings, window trim, baseboard, etc. are actually from DF trees taken down in our yard. We didn't have too much splintering problem with the material, and none on what's been installed. We have minimal rounding on the edges (1/8" roundover), because I don't like the rounded look. Yes, it's fairly soft, but with the doors and drawer fronts vertical, they don't get a lot of abuse. You know my house is wilder than yours will be. :-)

You can see in the bedroom builtin pic that the upper doors are fairly new in this photo, and the lowers had been in longer. They get a deeper, richer, redder color with time.

Rhome,
I wish I could just MOVE IN to your house!
You have EVERYTHING I am wishing for...marmoleum, fir, stainless, wood counters....wanna adopt me ;-)

Well, you just happen to have very good taste in materials. LOL Just think of me trying them out for you. I can show you anything closeup so you can see if any of them get any 'patina' after a few years of use that you won't want.

We are using vertical grain fir for our cabinets, which haven't been installed yet, but I visit them regularly in the shop. I think they are beautiful, and with an oiled finish should age well and not be all that difficult to maintain. When they are installed,sometime this month, I'll try to post pictures.
Lynn

I realize Port Townsend is a bit of a hike from Seattle, but I noticed a few, very nice looking, fir cabinets at Second Use in Seattle. They just came in but some have been snapped up already. However, it gives you another idea of how they might look after some use. You can check it out online at second use dot com.

Wallycat,
I've wanted to move into Rhome's house since she described the way she cooks and bakes but now that I'm seeing a little more of the house..........

Correct me if I'm wrong but Rhome has either 8 or 10 children, she might not notice if one or two of us just move on in! Seriously, the fir is gorgeous!

Such nice compliments!

Contrary to popular opinion, moms with 8 kids CAN tell when there are extra faces around the table, or extra bodies milling around the house. ;-) But, though I may notice, I also don't usually mind...I'm not sure about the moving in idea (bathroom and bed space gets a little tight), but visiting is fine! :-D

Very cool place, Montanapacnw! I hadn't heard of it before.

I heart rhome's kitchen!

It's almost unfair that Rohme has such a great kitchen. She is totally unable to post a picture on any thread without us immediately beginning to talk about it!

I love Rhome's kitchen too! *sigh*

Rohme, I know that you mentioned you are going to be making some alterations to the island when you get around to it. Any progress on that?

I love Rhome's kitchen too---three or four times in the past couple of weeks, I've been hunting for things on Google and up it pops with a lovely example. :)

For the OP, we are in Northern California, and vertical grain Doug fir has always been around and seems to be increasingly popular (have noticed it in several showrooms we've been in over the past few weeks---don't remember seeing as much of it when we were cabinet hunting last year). I love that it can take on either a clean modern look or a perfect vintage look---fell head over heels in love with a period kitchen done in Shaker style fir cabinets with soapstone and marble on top, and almost called our cabinetmaker to see if we could switch our frameless cabinets to fir since the doors and drawer fronts hadn't been ordered yet!

It is a softer wood and will dent if you hit it---our dining room furniture is reclaimed fir and we do have to be cognizant of not writing on the table without a pad underneath, etc. However, our current cabinets are painted fir and redwood mixed and don't look too awful for 70-95 years of wear. Of course who knows what they look like under so many layers of paint, but still...

To answer the island question from Morgne...Hope you don't mind the hijack, Wallycat.

The alterations are made for the island, in terms of adding drawers and more cabinets under the overhang, but you can see we still need drawer fronts. I also tried a new paint color, but determined I should stick with the original, so what you see that's gold will go back to the creamy color. In the side where there are open shelves, I will get boxes or baskets to store cookie cutters, cake decorating tools, etc. Things that aren't used that often and are cluttering up my baking center drawers.

What it's supposed to look like eventually (but with a matching, centered pull on the door under the sink instead of the knob):

RHOME! That looks so spectacular! I want to say that I think it's a HUGE improvement and SO beautiful!!!

I wondered because a lot of the pictures that you use to illustrate has the old island (which makes perfect sense I just couldn't tell) and I'd been waiting for the updated pics.

Definitely let us know when you have some final photos.

And, Wallycat, Rhome is totally right! I shouldn't have hijacked the thread. *shamefaced* I do not have fir cabs myself (I have fir floors that I'm in lurve with) I see fir built ins that are 100 years old in the houses in my area all the time. I think they look great.

Thanks. It was originally going to look like this, but it hadn't gotten there by the time I wanted it changed!

A famous architect lives in our town, and one afternoon a friend and I were out walking, and struck up a conversation with the painters who were finishing up a total renovation of his 100-year-old house before he and his wife were to move in. I find it interesting that this architect designs huge, modern buildings all over the world, some of which figure prominently in action/adventure movies, but he did an elegant and relatively modest restoration of an elegant but relatively modest old house when he was creating a home for himself. Anyway, the painters invited us in to see their work in the empty house, and I noted with interest that the cabinetry was natural vertical grain fir!
Lynn