These are painted. They get bashed or dinged you touch up the paint. @BeverlyFLADeziner

Of course I don’t have any idea what is standard fabricating practice - hence my question. Table legs and stair newel posts are solid wood and in 20 years haven’t split or cracked. My design brief was wanting an island like an old piece of furniture. Mine looks like it will be thrown in a dumpster in 15 years @BeverlyFLADeziner

If you wanted an old buffet or sideboard converted to an island ? You should have said that and found one to convert. If you want a functional kitchen that will last for twenty years or far more? You HAVE it.

Unless you sought a local wood craftsman to custom build your kitchen? There is no such "wood" kitchen to be had in a factory order. Not here, and not in Calgary.

You CAN have a painted plywood kitchen

( a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated ...)

But the only way to get the vision you had in your head? The one you assumed ? A local craftsman. So ..........move on. It will be fine and lovely and it will last.

Standard Euro cabinet construction. The globe at large uses frameless construction with foils or veneers over high density particle board. Also known as furniture board. Framed cabinet construction virtually does not exist in Canada, or the rest if the world. England has some inset cabinet crafters, with wood face frames, but that is it. Just the face frames and parts of the doors are wood.

Ckaila…….just ignore all the snarkiness here on Houzz. This forum requires a thick skin most of the time. It seems you got answers to your questions….and more than you wanted probably! Good luck with your kitchen!

I'm in Wpg and I got the same response from all the high end cabinet makers when I asked for solid wood for our new kitchen island (like you, I wanted a traditional English look). I get the arguments made above for the stability of engineered wood, but that type of island just didn't appeal to me. I found a paint your own furniture place that has someone make their pieces out of all wood and will basically do whatever you want (for less money). We've had ours for 7 years and it's been fine. Also our 16 year old stained lower cabs are solid wood (door frames and panels, drawers) and they look like the day they were installed. I don't think the cab company we used even offers this anymore.

Having said that, all of my friends are super happy with their cabs made like yours (these are high end homes) and they look beautiful and don't seem to have chipping or other issues. I think you will get the look you want once it is stained and topped with a counter. It does look like they are doing good job and it's been put together well.

@ckaila - Take the comments about wood vs. engineered products with a grain of salt. Wood is sometimes a poor choice especially for boxes and panels. However, there are times when wood is a great choice and people, who are rightly fighting the wood bias, often lose sight of the specifics.

Wood is great for posts, which I believe was your question, I really don't like furniture board posts unless they will be protected. If I can't do a solid wood post I would prefer a good MR plywood. I would be reluctant to make a post out of MDF or furniture board unless I was sure it was protected from being kicked or bumped and was away from moisture.

Can you take a picture inside that post that shows how the miter is joined together? I can see the screw on the butt joint side, but I can't see how the miter was connected.

My first impression is that the construction seems midrange at best. There are certainly things that are concerning here, this is obviously PBC (particle board core) plywood and it is the cheapest plywood available. I suspect that PBC was chosen because it is the common core for U.S. melamine. Note, just because that is my first impression doesn't mean it is true, it could be fine.

----

This is not standard high quality European construction. Just because it looks the same, doesn't mean it is the same. In Europe, cabinets are often made from infused furniture board (usually melamine). In the U.S. melamine infused furniture board is difficult to find (I have only ever seen it at marine lumber suppliers), we use melamine covered furniture board here. The two look similar, but they are not.

If you build a box out of melamine infused furniture board and throw it in the lake, it is called a boat. Jump in and have a row around the lake, it might be an ugly boat, but it is going to float for a good while. Build that same box out of U.S. furniture board and throw it in the lake, it is called an anchor. Jump in and have a swim.

I would not be happy with those corner posts framed up out of veneered particle board. At the corners, they are more susceptible to damage.

Nor would I be happy about the particle board being in direct contact with floor, an idiotic choice of material for that part of the cabinet. As you probably know, particle board is a sponge. Swells up when wet and crumbles to sawdust when it dries out. And it does not require a full fledged flood to ruin it.

I completely agree with @ci_lantro about the problem with particle board touching the floor. Mentioning that completely slipped my mind.

I had an apartment with the "crappiest" particle board and laminate kitchen and it was indestructible. Insides were hideous.... like saw dust. But truthfully , after forty years from the build? It was solid as a rock and had survived I would guess ......about ten thousand floor mops. Lot's of things get a bad rap, such as the thermofoil white vanity that was in that apartment bath. A "million" or more wipe downs later? You couldn't kill that, either. Just sayin'.....It looked like the day it went in. Not a mark, chip, not a rub off of paint. Nothing.

Shall we move on to Corian?.......: )

I looked for last 2 years for a piece of furniture to convert - old shop counter etc. Went thru 2 kitchen manufacturers. I settled of course. Paid extra to have frames built around drawers, extra to have thicker legs and detailed toe kick recessed. Apparently I’m an idiot to assume any actual wood would be involved. lol @JAN MOYER

No trees were harmed. And virtually impossible to find an antique store counter to reuse thst’s 9.5’ long. Im sure it will look nice…..not sure it will last a decade. @JAN MOYER

Thanks for all commenters. Been an education : )

Too expensive I guess…..

@JAN MOYER said, I had an apartment with the "crappiest" particle board and laminate kitchen and it was indestructible. Insides were hideous.... like saw dust. But truthfully , after forty years from the build? It was solid as a rock and had survived I would guess ......about ten thousand floor mops.

The particle board of the 60's and 70's was made differently. Here is a picture of a particle board core from the late 1960's.

That is a lot different than the particle board we see today. These old cores were amazing because they were basically marine grade glues completely encasing wood particles. Even though the European particle boards look different than this, they maintain some of those properties. In this U.S. we haven't maintained that. What the OP is showing is not the particle board that you would have gotten in the 70's and was still widely available in the U.S. through the 80's.

It was the introduction of crappy particle board that killed the market for quality particle board in the U.S. Good particle board is expensive to make and the prevalence of crappy particle board tanked the demand for good quality particle board and so there was no reason to continue manufacturing a superior product that couldn't compete with the inferior alternative with the same name.

I was thinking the same. If it lasted 40years made before built in obsolescence! @bry911

I agree about wood in Calagary I designed kitchens there for 20 + yrs. Why did you need legs on the island at all? You have veneered cabinets this is the best way to construct them to keep the wood from expanding and contracting . I have kitchnes in Calgary that were all Ikea some are 25 yrs old and still look aweosome the attitude that solid wood is superior is an old idea with no real merit. You need to tallk to the cabinet shop whoever that is and you needed to ask many questions about what you were getting . How much was the cabinetry I often find budget is the diving force for kitchens so where did you get the cabinets is the first thing I would need to know.

I dont want to name the cabinet outift but cupboards alone $40k @Patricia Colwell Consulting

@ckaila "Now to choose a stain and varnish." For the island, or for something else? That looks like a plastic laminate surface on the particle board. Are you sure it will accept any kind of additional finishing?

The corner posts built of carefully mitered particle board look like way too much effort spent on faking the real thing. And if it gets nicked or wet, it can degrade quickly. Impressively precise work, though.

One suggestion to make the best of what you have would be to put shallow feet on it. Like 1/4 thick hard rubber or something like that. At least that way, you can mop without fear of moisture sitting against the carefully constructed posts and destroying them.

Thanks for that, Steve! i was thinking something similar - adding a hardwood baseboard to the legs maybe? Apparently it takes stain - we’ll see. @Steve_M in PA

It will finish fine, it doesn't look like a printed paper/vinyl laminate.

I would love an explanation of this detail, but I haven't seen a printed laminate look like that.

ETA: If that is PBC plywood I really want some of that. If it is a thin veneer someone has some skills.

Yeah, maybe it will finish fine. I guess you can test on a surface that will be hidden after assembly, and then go from there. It looks like it will be quite pretty when complete!

I don't like site finished cabinets. No way can they be the quality of a climate controlled, dust and silicone free shop with explosion-proof lighting.

I prefer site finished cabinets. Dust is just as controllable in a home, it is just a lot less convenient.

It's a move out, hermetically seal the house from all traffic . Frankly? They look finished on my monitor.

You don't have to move out or hermetically seal the house... please just stop with the misinformation.

A negative pressure room means plastic and tape over kitchen area entries, some fans and filters.

Negative pressure will prevent paint fumes and particles from being pushed out into the rest of the house. If you are using proper equipment, you are not going to have enough overspray to clog the filters in a single job.

If the house is empty, just switch to positive pressure. The particles will settle in a few minutes but leave the pressure for a couple of hours to be safe. Either of these options will likely have less dust than shop spraying.

You should be particular about the coating to reduce offgassing.

It is certainly more trouble to spray in a home, but there are advantages also.

Site finished:

@Joseph Corlett, LLC - Do you think maybe you have a base rate fallacy there?

I strongly suspect that an individual who sprays cabinets with the doors attached wouldn't get better results even if I invited them to use my spray booth. You can certainly find examples of poor quality site finished cabinets, however, you can find the same thing in shop finished cabinets.

You are never going to get good results from someone who isn't going to take the time to do the job right. It doesn't matter where they do the job. There is no advantage to adhesion or durability in a coating sprayed in a shop environment, nor is a shop likely to be less dusty.

There is some advantage to spraying cabinets on an elevated turntable... My spray table has a foot pedal to move it from 12" to 48" in height, it tilts some, and it spins. I literally stand in one spot and spray, I don't move at all and that is certainly a lot easier than spraying in my kitchen. Which is why when I am doing work for anyone else, they get shop sprayed items. However, when I am doing work for my own home, easy takes a back seat to quality.

Other than being able to move the cabinets around, there is no other advantage to shop sprayed cabinets. There are some advantages to site spraying cabinets as they are topcoated after all adjustments are done, after any spacers are cut, after trim is mitered and installed, etc.

ETA: Are those really site sprayed cabinets or are they cabinets that have been recoated by an aftermarket cabinet painter/refinisher?

bry911:

I took those pictures in Texas several years ago. They were sprayed on site.

It is inconcieveable that a finisher taking over the garage for several days on site is going to get a result that a finishing shop is. Dust, weather, other trades tromping in and out, holding up those trades...

In Ottawa. Just ripped out kitchen from 1985, particle board. Solid Solid, very difficult to remove, it didnt want to let go lol. But too ugly for my taste! New cabs from Raywall, also particle board. Im sure they will he here long after im gone.

It is inconcieveable that a finisher taking over the garage for several days on site is going to get a result that a finishing shop is.

This is just a lack of understanding. There are no cabinet "finishing shops," it is a completely made up thing. Many custom cabinet shops have finishing areas, very few of which have any significant dust control. OSHA is the driver for most cabinet finishing areas, specifically compliance for fume extraction is what shops are going for and the most common solution is a powerful exhaust hood. At least 85% of custom shops will just put a a commercial extraction hood in a space and call it a day without any specialized equipment. Most of the shops that do more are going to use open sided spray booths in their shop, which look like this...

There is really no dust control! In the standard custom cabinet shop there is less dust control than you have on your air conditioner. Both of the systems above are required to pull air from the rest of the shop, which means they are going to pull dust from the rest of the shop. It is incredibly difficult to create a dust controlled area inside a dusty environment, it can only be done with a balanced system and it costs a lot more money than a custom cabinet shop is going to spend.

You can get better dust control in a home with five box fans and a dozen furnace filters than 99% of all cabinet shops. That is not hyperbole, it is just a function of the different drivers and the environment. In fact, you can get far better dust control in a garage because you can use positive pressure in a garage.

So why are finishes still acceptable in dusty finishing rooms? Because reasonable amounts of dust has never mattered that much. We just accept that you lightly sand between coatings to remove any dust that has settled into or onto the surface between coatings (which is really why we sand... I assure you that practically every coating will adhere to itself, in fact, that is the entire purpose of a coating). I have a fully enclosed automotive spray booth with cross ventilation. The doors all have rubber gaskets and it seals much tighter than anything I have ever seen in a custom cabinet shop and it makes no discernable difference in finish quality.

@Joseph Corlett, LLC - How much paint have you actually sprayed? How much time have you actually spent in a negative or positive pressure booth? Because your understanding is flawed.

Let me be clear, the pictured spray booth in a cabinet shop is worse for dust control than a typical home and even worse than a typical garage. You are literally sticking a negative pressure booth in a sawdust factory. It is essentially a giant shop-vac hose... This has nothing to do with weather control (neat trick), safety, or efficiency (I have already said it was less efficient), as those are separate discussions.

I understand why you have the misconception, it is a useful tool for cabinetmakers, but it really is a misconception. It is a lot more work to spray in a home. It requires extra effort and costs to alleviate safety concerns, and it will never be as efficient, but the coating will be just as durable and with some attention to detail look the same as shop sprayed cabinets. I feel like I am repeating myself and I am not sure that we are getting anywhere, but here we are.

@plf12652 - there is a way to flag posts that you feel are not appropriate. I know it will be difficult for you to take time away from all the help you provided in this thread to flag a post, but I recommend that you pause your selfless commitment to helping others to do so.

Warning: this post is mostly a point of order about logical arguments... So if you are not interested in that, just don't read the post. It is not like you are being forced to read it.

"Logical fallacy of relevance, ad hominem circumstantial (you must address my arguments, not my circumstances)"

This is incorrect for many reasons. An ad hominem fallacy irrelevantly attacks the arguer rather than their argument.

An inquiry on the credentials of a person making a statement can't by definition be ad hominem because it doesn't follow the formula of A because of B. If I said that you are wrong because you specialize in sink installations, that is a logical argument and arguably a fallacy. However, if I asked what someone who specializes in sink installations knows about painting, that is not a logical argument and therefore can't be a logical fallacy.

Furthermore, an ad hominem doesn't have to be fallacious. For an ad hominem to become an ad hominem fallacy, the argument must be irrelevant. This is why you don't have to give the medical opinion of a doctor and a mechanic the same weight.

---

After graduating with a degree in chemical engineering (with a double major in accounting) I began work in a clean room working on coatings research. I have half a dozen sprayers all with hundreds of hours of use. I built a rather expensive garage around an even more expensive fully enclosed spray booth just so I could use positive pressure. To offset the cost, I rent the booth out and will assist with classic car spraying. I also spray all my furniture in the booth. However, I also site finish wainscoting all the time and it is the same quality as the booth.

We are going to have to agree to disagree.

@Joseph Corlett, LLC “eco-weenies, hillbilly setup in the garage, illegal alien painter.” Is this really how you talk to people?

I can’t comment on what is best here - will leave that to the many experts that have already opined. I do think they look nice on my screen. But I am curious about what your documentation said when you purchased it. If they said solid wood and/or wood veneer, then that’s what should have been installed. If not, then there’s not much more to say - regardless of whether you think the price is right or not.

John Henry:

The value of the Houzz brand is honesty. If you want confirmation of your design choices, talk to your mother please. If you want to know if that splash goes with that countertop, come here.

I am completely comfortable with my word choices here and I don't break the rules. Your likeing what I say or how I say it is irrelevant to me.

@elisejames

@elisejames I did post part of contract above. It just says ”rift cut oak” i think. I didnt ask enough questions obviously and assumed the extra framing and legs would be solid. We’ll see! I think it will look nice - i signed off on the design- I just dont think this material will hold up to vacuuming & cats & mopping . : (

In my opinion there are quality issues here aside from the wood/furniture board debate. That last picture makes me suspect they are well below average.

@jemimabean I love your inset cabinets!!! Is it by a local cabinet maker or from a manufacturer?

"After graduating with a degree in chemical engineering (with a double major in accounting) I began work in a clean room working on coatings research. I have half a dozen sprayers all with hundreds of hours of use. I built a rather expensive garage around an even more expensive fully enclosed spray booth just so I could use positive pressure. To offset the cost, I rent the booth out and will assist with classic car spraying. I also spray all my furniture in the booth."

That isn't remotely close to a guy taking all the doors off a kitchen and heading out to the garage in the new house. I'm sure your finishes are very nice.

That isn't remotely close to a guy taking all the doors off a kitchen and heading out to the garage in the new house. I'm sure your finishes are very nice.

Again, I site spray finishes regularly. There is no discernable quality difference between finishes on wood sprayed in a booth and those sprayed in a home. I often apply Rubio Monocoat 15' from my table saw.

The reason that shops don't have better dust control is that it doesn't matter. Which is the real problem with your position. It doesn't matter if a shop could have better dust control than a garage, because it doesn't matter for the finish. Cabinets are sanded between coats in finishing areas, because the quality improvement is not worth the trouble to move them. I am not trying to convince you, I am arguing against your position so that homeowners can make a properly informed decision.

@ckaila - Your last picture is considerably more concerning than any of your other pictures and I had some concerns over them...

I circled some of the issues I see below.

I don't know if you understand these problems, but I believe they are significant warning signs and call the quality of the entire job into question. If you can pause the project while you pay another professional to look at the job, I would advise it.

I really don't know what I am looking at, but it looks a bit like a mess to me. Honestly it looks like someone modified cheap frameless cabinets by sawing off the front of the box so that a face frame could be added.

ETA: I was going to dip out of this thread as it has become a largely irrelevant discussion on paint, but will hang around for a bit more in case you have questions.

@bry911 Thank you! I agree completely. Our contractor is coming to look on Monday. It’s obviously not finished & other parts not glued on but I completely agree & back to my original concern you can’t sand this mess down. Feeling rather sick & nervous at this point. It’s a cheap facade.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write - I really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

charlotte

@ckaila - You can sand and resand 1/64" veneers if you use a sander with a 2mm stroke. Sanding isn't the problem. The construction is the problem... it is a bit of a mess.

First, face frames shouldn't be built on site unless there is no other choice and even then the face frames should be assembled and then mounted to the cabinets. They should not be assembled on the cabinets. Here is a simple video on face frames (this is just a quick video, I am not recommending it or anything)

There is a way to modify frameless cabinets to get something similar to an inset look. You do this by mounting a frame around the outside of the cabinet boxes but the frame never covers any of the cabinet frame. Below is an example.

However, if you are going to do this, the frame is only constructed around the outside of the boxes, which is similar to how your stiles (vertical frames) appear to be constructed. The end result should look like this...

Notice there are no stiles between drawers (horizontal frames). This method is only a way to make inset boxes and can't be used to make traditional inset cabinetry. I have a theory of what happened with your cabinets, but it is only conjecture.

I would strongly advise some independent advice. If you can find someone to speak who doesn't have a hand in this mess I think it would be of some benefit. I am concerned that the contractor is going to try to make this OK and I am not sure it can be made OK.

How the devil are those hinges going to be able to work being set back so deep into the box because of the face frame addition? Is there a hinge plate available to compensate for the extra depth?

The face frames look like they were built in 8th grade shop class and I may be unfairly disparaging 8th graders at that.

The only way that I can see that might work in attaching a face frame to the front of a pre-made frameless cabinet box is first--wider stiles between the boxes. Wide enough to cover the entire front of the box, flush with the inside edges. (Not seeing how the narrow stiles can be secured to the boxes.) And then only for drawers. Unless there is a hinge plate available that will work. (Don't know all the ins & out of Euro hinging.)

Thanks, @gyppsy! I tried to post last night, but it looks like it didn’t go through. Our cabinets were made by Jay Rambo, who happens to be local to us, but has distributors nationwide. Link to dealer locations: Jay Rambo dealers

I can’t say enough about how pleased we have been with the quality of the cabinets and the decency of the folks who work there. They have a steller reputation in town (in real estate listings you’ll see prominent ”Jay Rambo cabinets” as a prime feature of a home) and from our experience, they go above and beyond at every turn to make sure that you’re happy. We even got to tour the factory and see our cabinets mid-build, which was so cool.

We walked into their showroom and made it as far as their first display before saying, ”yep, that’s it.” We didn’t do the beaded line (name escapes me right now), but I think that everything else is the same. They’ve had the same display for something like 27 years and keep talking about updating it, but too many people walk in and fall in love the same way that we did.

Display:

I collect antique teacups, so the custom china cabinet in the corner was a really inspired design idea of theirs. Our house is also 100 years old and pretty wonky, but they somehow managed to pull off making everything look straight. The wall with the white cabinets seen here has almost a half inch difference in floor to ceiling height from one end of that run to the other. In the background you can see our tiny, cramped main entrance into the house. they managed to create a really useful mudroom/butler’s pantry space that we use the heck out of.

@jemimabean Thank you for sharing the name of the cabinet maker/manufacturer. I found 2 places close to me (Pasadena, CA) and will be calling them tomorrow. The only question now is whether I could afford the cabinets : ).