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michelle_rice90

antique kitchen cabs?

4 years ago

We are buying this beautiful 100-year old colonial style house. We are planning to redo the kitchen before moving in. Someone told my husband that the current cabinets are made out of a wood that is extinct and that we may be able to sell them for quite a bit of money. Anyone recognize this wood? Where would I even go to sell something like this? Google has no good answers for me. Thanks!

Comments (14)

  • 4 years ago

    Is it Amercian Chestnut?

  • 4 years ago

    The insect marks make me think wormy chestnut, though I generally think of chestnut as having more distinctive grain.


    American Chestnut trees were ravished by a blight in the early 1900s that killed most of the mature trees, and left them to be damaged by insects, thus creating wormy chestnut ... The American Chestnut tree survives through propogation and breeding for resistance ... so not extinct, though certainly endangered. The wormy variety only comes from insect damaged dead trees, and there aren't really mature chestnuts to become diseased and insect infested in order to create more wormy chestnut, but it isn't its own species to be deemed extant or extinct.

  • 4 years ago

    I don't know what the wood is, just wanted to say they're beautiful!

    You could try listing them on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. 
    There are salvage places in my community (Houston) that sell antique cabinets and other building supplies at high prices, but they are nonprofits, and I think most of what they sell is donated in exchange for free demolition services, so that sort of organization wouldn't be much help for your situation. Unless you decided to just donate them for the tax writeoff.

  • 4 years ago

    Thanks! Here is another view. It doesn’t seem like there is a ton of grain but I know nothing about wood!

  • 4 years ago

    No clue of the wood but the cabinets are absolutely lovely!!

  • 4 years ago

    sure you don't want to keep them?

  • 4 years ago

    Those are wonderful, I wish I could have them. :)

    Have you thought of keeping them and how great they’d look with updates around them? They have so much character.

    Congrats on your new home!

  • 4 years ago

    We are planning to redo the kitchen before moving in.


    I understand the appeal of this (living onsite when renovating is a pain) but feel the need to ask: what's motivating the redo? Is it a layout change? The cabinets are lovely and look well-made. Don't know when you're planning on redoing your kitchen but I'm sure you've been cautioned about supply chain shortages hindering renos right now. Might be obvious advice but worth stating: don't gut anything until you have every new element onsite ready for the build.

  • 4 years ago

    Thanks, all. I also think they’re lovely. It’s just a small galley-style kitchen, which we have in our current house. We are a family of 5 and I already know from our current house that we just need more space! We are planning for the Reno to start in the spring, so hopefully enough time to get supplies.

  • 4 years ago

    If you're planning on hiring out the work, make sure you secure the labour for your project timeline as well. Depending on your location, labour might be scarce or unavailable for a long while. (Many contractors in my area are fully booked for 2022 and concentrating on large-scale reno projects. What a homeowner considers a large-scale project and what a contractor does are often different things...:/)


    But back to those gorgeous cabinets! Fwiw, I'd also want to find a way to reuse some of them somehow. An antique wooden piece in a more contemporary kitchen can be such a lovely accent. Perhaps you can repurpose some of them in an island, a standalone coffer bar or a pantry? Or a bath vanity? The ideas are endless, I'm sure. An homage to a house's history can be a nice idea.


  • 4 years ago

    Sad to see them go. Looks like worm chesnut, inset cabs. I doubt they are original but some owner was able to get the wood & have them made. Sure hope they can be removed without damage.

  • 4 years ago

    I had the same idea about the coffee bar! Good idea on the bathroom vanity too, I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for the feedback!

  • 4 years ago

    @Jilly I wonder that too, what they would look like wirh some other updates in the kirchen!

  • 4 years ago

    I would definitely try to keep them in the house if possible- the value in quality cabinets that work in the house will be much more than the amount you could get selling them. The inset style is not common, is more expnesive, and matches your house well.


    If used in the kitchen still, would it work to have them as the long piece, with a contrasting island, maybe in black or in a dark wood? If that makes sense? (Without a floor plan, I'm just guessing that maybe you are ripping the front out of the galley kitchen to make it open).


    I love the idea of moving them into a pantry or butler's pantry, too, or a coffee bar. WIthout knowing how many there are and what your spaces are, it's hard to guess. But definitely try to keep them.


    They are absolutely gorgeous- you won't get cabinets that nice without spending LOTS of money!