No.

Wow, that's a lot of money. I guess, I will retrain to finish carpenter. ☺
In my opinion this could be easily avoided. So I voted for NO.

This is a natural wood, I personally think as a designer that all these things people complain about on a natural material only adds to the beauty of it. Now at least everyone can see its a solid wood and not a veneer. You have a very beautiful unit there.

No! It would be the only thing I would see and I should be seeing the beauty of the cabinet, not the knot.

I voted no,
Believe me it will be what you will look at everytime you go into you bathroom, I had our kitchen done for 25000 and the installer used two different tones of chalking around the tile.( he had run out of the first color) so now every time I go into my beatyiful kitchen all i see if the place where the chalking don't match. and it looks awful.

If it bothers you, then I also vote for changing that piece of wood.

Are you looking for perfection ? if yes then remove it ,but if you are looking for a natural process and a touch of character then I say keep it , me I like to keep it if this is to be kept only stained and not painted ,the stain would only enhance it showing the natural process of wood..

Hi falknerlpp,

I'm presuming by the price this was a custom made cabinet. If so, then the cabinet maker has made a poor judgement call by incorporating that piece. However, if your cabinet is from a semi-custom line then hand selection of pieces isn't typically done.

While wood grain is natural and therefore varied and unique, etc, an experienced cabinet maker would select stock to give visual consistency, whether that be a certain amount of knots on other sections of the cabinet, (if the client likes them) or very few/very small knots if they don't.

Fwiw, this cabinet will most likely have to be rebuilt in order to replace that piece, I highly doubt that that piece alone can be replaced.

Steve

Its not a big deal to pop out the face frame and replace with a new one. This will of course involve taking the whole thing down.

I agree with Steve! (Again!). Why didn't he just turn that piece around, I wonder?

I woted NO; it is not acceptable. It really is part of the natural wood rather than a defect but it stands out a lot and catches the eye. Think of it this way; mole above the lip might be cute but might bother some if it is on the forehead or on the tip of someone's nose which would be hard to avoid.

If we would have received this for our client, we would have told the supplier to send it to auction and try again.....NEVER is that acceptable when you are paying that much!!!!

Ive blended more knots than i can count. A professional furniture repairer can blend the knot in less than an hour.

It would drive me crazy everyday looking at that! I understand that knots are part of the natural beauty of wood but that's in bad place.

For a quick fix, you might be able to apply a thin matching veneer to the piece. At the same time, part of the beauty of wood are the inconsistencies.

Because it bothers you and it does "stick out", I would ask the finisher to fix it.

Part of being a good woodworker or cabinet maker is choosing the best pieces of wood for conspicuous portions of each piece you build. If you were looking for rustic knottiness, then this would have been on-point. Since the rest of the piece is quite clear, this is unacceptable.

Removing the face frame is by no means an easy task and probably will not be done. I would agree the cabinet maker could have used better judgement. The cabinet may well have been made within the spec provided. While there is a knot, it does not appear to be failing, and can be considered to be a natural part of the wood. If the spec had called for clear and no knots from the architect or designer, that would be a different story. It is not cut and dry that this person has failed to do what they were asked to do. If I knew a client was this dissatisfied I would probably eat this one. In the end the budget was sufficient enought to cover better material selection and care regarding orientation. Hopefully there is a workable solution.