Link related to the above post on Scherrs' Cherry doors:

Here is a link that might be useful: Link related to the above post on Scherrs Cherry doors

I am not yet experienced in buying cabinets but I tried to help by posting the link making it clickable. In my opinion if you can afford solid, it is better in the long run since the veneer is more fragile since that is what I have on my builder grade doors now and if they were solid doors, I would be painting them or staining them a cherry shade.

What doorstyle will you be using?

If you are doing a slab door, I'd do bookmatched veneers all the way. It's a stunning look. If you are doing a recessed panel, I'd probably also choose veneer to save a bit of money. Veneer is a fine choice for either door type.

When you do a solid recessed or raised panel in cherry, a lot of people don't like the "striped" look of the many strips of wood that this will take, which includes the sapwood with the heartwood. That will go to how much you want to spend to get mostly heartwood--the premium cherry.

If you are looking for something more rustic in feel, the natural cherry has a lot of color variation, the "striped" look that I mentioned. That will be modified somewhat depending on if you choose a stain and what color that stain is.

Most people choose the select, which mixes some sapwood in with the heartwood, but not as much as the natural cherry. It gives you a good feel that you are using "real" wood without the expense of the premium. If you are wanting a fine furniture look, the premium will have little to no sapwood. It's quite a bit more expensive though.

c9Pilot, do you have pictures of your cherry doors. Maybe select is the way to go and it does sound beautiful and not as expensive.

If you are doing a recessed panel with veneer the "frame" is solid cherry and the recessed part is veneer. The two take a stain differently. The sample door I had used the veneer and it was lighter then the frame and I really didn't like that look. I got solid and don't see a stripe effect. Solid is more expensive, as GreenDesign mentioned.

"We went with the mixed-hardwood drawers because it saved money and appealed to our recycling/no-waste sensibilities. They are gorgeous, even though we're the only ones who see them and it's neat seeing the various types of woods used."

C9, can you explain this? What do you mean by mixed hardwood and what does it have to do with no-waste and recycling? Wow, that sounds so harsh but I don't mean it that way at all!! I also feel similarly but am thinking the cost seems to go way up if you try to use recycled wood. Sorry 'bout the inelegant wording.

I personally love seeing a few streaks of sapwood in cherry. But I do have a special love of beautiful wood that shows its natural character. Most people probably prefer a more uniform look.

Anyway, I thinkI used either the natural quality for my alder den cabinets from Scherr's. You can't really compare alder to cherry since alder is much more uniform in color, but I have no complaints at all with the quality or appearance.

I would post pictures if I could figure put how. Google changed their Picasa web albums so I can't figure out how to do it...help!?!
I posted them years ago in the gallery, but I see that the search won't go back that far.

Anyway, the mixed hardwood drawer boxes are made from the cast-off pieces that are too small to do anything with. Otherwise they would get thrown out. The fronts are cherry, but when you pull them out, you can see that the sides and insides are stripes of different woods...walnut, cherry, oak, maple, ash, I don't know them all. One is very dark, like ironwood. If you appreciate wordworking, you will think they are really cool. Very sturdy, dovetailed drawer boxes. All unique.

Lynn, Thanks for correctly posting the link for me.

I won't be staining the cherry as I prefer the look of the wood itself and I don't want it to be darker than it will become on its own!

Select sounds very reasonable, with grain matching requiring the veneer (and veneer is so much less expensive than solid). I do love the look of fine furniture a la Henry Build and am trying for that look using IKEA cabs.

Love the mixed wood idea! Would do that for certain were I to spend the money using Schrrs RTA instead of IKEA.

Question about the grain matching: does this happen only horizontally, or does it apply to the vertical as well in the case of drawers?

My kitchen will have only lowers for the foreseeable future.

Except for my pantry, I will have only three doors, the rest will be drawers.

And big plug, by the way, for the customer service thus far with Scherrs. They have been responsive and highly available.

Thanks all for your thoughts and ideas.

And thank you to C-9 for the explanation--that does sound lovely. I'll have to revisit this good idea when we're further along, if we ever get there. Seems like a lonnngggg road. Wish I could be of some help in the posting of pictures, but I haven't figure that out yet either. Hope I get to see them one day.

BalTra--I'm looking forward to seeing what you end up with as it sounds like we have similar tastes/budgets. I second the kudos for Scherr's who answered my many questions immediately and patiently.

I have in my hands a Scherr's sample door in select cherry with a recessed veneered panel. On my particular door, the tone of the veneer is a pretty close match to the frame. Also, the veneer has a good amount of chatoyance, if you like that. (I do.)

I "third" the plaudits for Scherr's service.

I did not know what "chatoyance" was, so I looked it up as per the link below. I like it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Chatoyance Example

I figured out the picture problem - using Chrome instead of Firefox.
Here's a couple of pictures of the mixed hardwood drawer boxes:

Also, picture of some door front when we got them...

Note: These pictures all all from about three years ago, and we're still not "finished"! It was a whole-house remodel and we jumped and skipped around on different projects as our lives moved along (i.e. had to finish another room when my mom moved in).
So we now have a SS DW instead of the black one, but decided not to get the DW Drawers that the kitchen design was for because the reviews were too mixed for the $$$. If we had planned a standard DW, that would have been raised about 8" with a small drawer or access underneath to minimize the bending over. Hope that makes sense. But you're supposed to be looking at the cabinets anyway!

I have recessed panel doors using veneer over mdf. The cabinet maker prefers this to solid door front because the mdf won't shrink resulting in gaps which will happen with solid wood.

I just wanted to comment on c9pilot's beautiful kitchen as a living illustration here. The lower left corner of the last pic (the drawer front) is what I was talking about as some people viewing as "striped". When you create doors or drawer fronts from multiple pieces of wood, you can get multiple wood tones. It's not "wrong" or "defective" to have those different tones. It's the nature of wood. And you can see how lovely it is.

Also, this kitchen is a good example of veneered center panels doors that have solid stiles and rails. You see the differing "flame" pattern of the veneer most easily on the side of the oven panel. That is what you can do with veneers that you cannot do with solid wood, which is why if you choose flat panel doors, I recommended bookmatched veneers. Some people do not like how the grain patterns differ between the solid wood and the veneer. Again, it is not "wrong", it's the nature of wood, and it's a personal preference if you don't care for that. But, you will not get solid large single planks of cherry for your doors, so you will have to pick between the veneered panel or the pieced solid wood panel.

This is the too boring premium cherry from Scherrs when new. They were finished by Scherrs and have no stain. It's a fair amount darker now.

The doors and drawer fronts have no knots or pitch streaks. The colors of every drawer front are very uniform. There are zero white streaks. I did solid wood panels and the grain matching in the panels is great.

As a side effect, we could buy some unfinished cherry stock locally and have it match. So we did cherry cut into the same crown that we have over the top of the doors and windows for a cabinet top, some fillers, a ref panel. Terrible picture, but also this table top.

Natural Cherry will have more color variation than C9 is showing and more pitch streaks. Sometimes they'll have rustic cherry which is my second most favorite wood - has knots and small defects.

Having now done two sets of Scherrs doors, their wood grades are about 1/2 grade higher than a lot of the nationwide brands.

bmorepanic- Please note, "too boring" meant for our black and stainless steel kitchen! The wood grain is all we have for "character" if you know what I mean. I still think it's a bit boring, so we're likely to put in a really, really wacky backsplash when/if we ever get around to it.
GreenDesigns- I had to go back and look at that drawer in my kitchen because I don't remember seeing such a distinctive stripe on it...and it doesn't really have it. I don't know if it's the lighting or the age of the wood, but it very nearly matches on the right side of the drawer and if I'm looking for it, I can see the stripe towards the left side. The veneer sides all blend better now - I remember thinking the side of that one upper being a little "off" somehow, but now I don't see it.

We love our cabinets and the functionality of the kitchen. We wouldn't be here without the help from GWers. At the time, Scherrs had something like a 6-month waiting period with a 50% deposit to get in line with some minimum order (5 cabinets?) I imagine with the economy that has slowed a bit. I sent a "thinking of you" email when I saw the flooding in Minot on the news, and the factory was fine, but many of the workers' family homes were under water.

I would recommend the solid cherry door in the highest grade they carry. A slab type door is a different story and usually more of a contemporary look when the grain lines up on drawer front and door. The highest grade in solid wood usually means they match the grain for color as best they can. Even with this you will get some variation.

It's ok c9, it was just a little smite! :) I'm not upset.

I'm still trying to learn how to express a preference without dinging someone else's love.

C9 -- holy smokes! I love love the look of those mixed wood drawers. Too bad mine will be IKEA inside ! And your kitchen is lovely.

Bmore, more pictures of your kitchen please please please. Wow it sure looks pretty from the little I can see. The cherry looks very very light; is that a photo of new installation? How old is the wood? And, what is supporting your cabinets? Feet? I don't see a toe kick and am myself considering having an under cabs open furniture look.

GreenDesigns, your insights are so helpful. Exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for with respect to 'flames' and veneers / hard wood and grade.

Cabsbyalan - do you mean that the solid wood slab drawers will look less contemporary than the veneer slab? And that the highest grade wood will be well matched in color but not so ultra modern?

My kitchen will be almost all drawers! Unless I go back and put in uppers.

Thanks everyone. Seeing your pics and reading this discussion is getting me very excited about my cabinet choice! Now, if I could just make up my mind about countertops!! I think it will be Caesarstone in a shade of grey. (objections welcomed!!)

We also went with the mixed hardwood drawers. I am really looking forward to them! Nice to see yours, c9. (BTW, Nightingale or Skytrain?)

The lead time on Scherr's was about 12 weeks when we placed our order about 10 weeks ago.

Beeeeautiful, C-9!!! I really love those drawers; it's almost a shame they don't show. How did you go about asking for drawers to be made of different species? Did it save you some money? They are just too cool for words.

Bmore--your cabinets are also very lovely! I really like the door design and might have to rethink my insistence on slabs.

I too appreciate all the helpful information on this thread and am bookmarking it. I hope GW doesn't make the thread and especially the pics difficult to access at some point, because we don't even have our set plan done yet.

bmorepanic- I've know you're a frequent poster so I was pretty sure you were okay, but I just wanted to be sure! Getting the right tone can be so difficult online. I really like that 1/2 round table, BTW. Is that Scherrs or DIY?

Angie- Skytrain, US Navy retired! Went on to fly GIII, but the handle is stuck.

Mixed hardwood drawer boxes are one of the Scherrs options that's less expensive than the solid cherry.

Here's one of the coolest things about working with Scherrs: I wanted that micro/convection combo wall oven lower than standard because I didn't want to be reaching up and over a hot oven door to pull out a heavy pan, like at my SIL's house. So I talked to Leon and told him about how high I wanted it, and then said, I want the cabinet above to be able to hold full-sized sheet pans (it's got those dividers for sheet pans and pizza trays and a pizza peel and cutting boards), and then make the cabinet above the size of whatever is left over. Then, however high that top cabinet above the wall oven turns out, the ones on top all along the left side have to match that height, whatever it is. Dang, I just remembered that I still need to get glass for those glass-front doors. Obviously I never use anything in there.
Also, FYI, if you couldn't tell, the cabinets are all 30" deep with 27" pullouts, uppers 15" deep and set higher off the countertop than normal, 22", so that stuff would fit under them, such as mixer and coffee maker. The customization you can do with Scherrs is wonderful!

Thanks. The kitchen is ikea with Scherrs doors and a bunch of homegrown woodworking stuff. Even tho I knew I wouldn't have to wait a long time for nice color, it a little scary when they come out of the box as salmon pink. In case this helps, our wait time on doors only was about 10 days or so until they arrived at our front door.

I like the doors. I wanted something that looked a little bit georgian but didn't compete with the floor.

The table - well, I'm not that good with wood! The table base is an unfinished kit from tablelegs.com. The top was with assistance from the people who cut all of the mouldings plus the cabinet guys who sublet from the moulding people. The top is solid cherry. The cabinet guys did the glue up. Apparently, they all had a great time playing "match the cherry" and from the sound of it, there was beer involved. Plus, now the cabinet guys order from the tablelegs.com women.

The destroyed kitchen was from Scherrs, I loved their cabinets and was sad not to be able to afford to get them again! I could spec just about anything and just pay for the difference in materials.

We have a couple other small things to complete and a relative to catch before there's more pictures.