why wouldnt you do durasupreme on uppers and lowers ?

Kitchen with White Oak Cabinets and Cedar Brown Marble Coutnertops · More Info

Hi. Our custom painted finish was nice and smooth but it scratches off in areas of great use. Somehow my ( very short) finger nails have marred the paint right where we grab the trash pull out cabinet. I was very careful to get pulls and knobs that had extra room to prevent that, but this one area still got scratched.🙁 Our kids are grown so it’s just me and my husband causing it. I’ve even made tiny dents here and there bumping them with a pot here and there. So I imagine the wood choice is important… maybe a stronger wood would help… although those are more expensive and a shame to paint. You aren’t wrong to be wary. We had old wrapped melamine cabinets when the kids were young. They were indestructible until the wrap started separated from the press board because they were 20 years old. The interiors weren’t very nice on those unfortunately.

@herbflavor the uppers and lowers would be Dura Supreme. I would just have rift sawn oak on the bottom cabinets and painted uppers. For custom, rift sawn oak would be too expensive b/c of the wood and custom stain.

@User I'm not sure what paint they would use, but I've had friends with custom here in CA and they need touch-ups on the well-used cabinets after a few years. It's my understanding that the paint on manufactured cabinets tend to be more durable b/c they are "baked" on. I could be totally wrong.

Why do you want custom cabinets.

I live in California and my cabinets were custom and were done by a local shop. Mine are rift sawn white oak and stained wood not painted.

I went with custom because I was able to get exactly the configuration I wanted including a door style that was inspired by Prairie.

The cost for doing fully custom was less than what I would have paid for a good quality semi-custom line and it wouldn't have been as "custom" as mine since I was able to configure every aspect including depth of drawers. Once upgrades and special stuff is added to a semi-custom line the cost soars. Since my kitchen is a small galley kitchen I was able to eke out every last square inch of space.

@ Helen where in CA are you located? Amazing that you can get rift sawn oak custom cabinets cheaper than custom. That would be another up charge for me if I went custom. But I agree that semi-custom gets expensive with every tweak you make to the design. Sigh. This process is so stressful. I had a kitchen leak so this remodel is unexpected and trying to educate myself and make decisions in a very short time period.

I am located in Los Angeles.

And I want to make it clear that I was comparing apples to apples. I have no idea what it would have cost to get equivalent cabinets in a semi-custom line with the same wood species and all of the upgrades. As I posted I have no filler and every single bit of it was customized. Until one is asked how many drawers and how high each should be one doesn't even thing about it. I have some rollouts and even those were discussed - i.e. how high did I want the sides to be and did I want them clear or wood.

Honestly I actually have no idea what my cabinets cost because the same guy did kitchen, two bathrooms, a room divider and my office which has a wall to wall custom unit as well.

I am not sure what the total wound up being since I tweaked things and added things a long the way.

I do sympathize with having to make decisions under time constraints as I had the luxury of having planned my remodel - gut remodel of my condo - for many years. I had originally planned to do the kitchen 15 years ago and came across the original renderings and estimates. That kitchen would have been very basic - i.e. Kraftmaid or Omega/Durasupreme in cherry

@bry911 I wonder why I read that manufactured cabinets have a better painted finish, even on Houzz discussions. Is it the cabinet manufacturers trying to push their product so they have created that thought?

Poly is the most durable finish which is why one needs to be very careful when choosing painted cabinets, unless one likes the "patina" of nicks and chips.

I suspect manufacturers highlight their coatings process as a sales tactic and don't mention that it is largely the same as everyone else. People largely just assume they have better coatings.

There is no such thing as a best coating. There are trade-offs with every coating and there a risk that the drawback to a particular coating is going to be a problem for you. This is why I advised that you look for someone who has made an informed decision about the coating they use rather than deciding which product is the best.

For example, a polyurethane is mentioned as the most durable finish, but polyurethanes can struggle with water miscible acids and bases,, so pour a cup of coffee down a white cabinet coated with a good poly and you are likely going to be upset. You wouldn't have any problem with that coffee on lacquer, which is generally considered an inferior coating.

The other problem is that there are so many hybrid and modified coatings at this point, it is impossible to comment that a particular type of coating is best. Even the aforementioned conversion varnish is just a lacquer with enough solids to require a bit of synthetic formaldehyde (Xylene) kicker to catalyze.