Kitchen Cabinets Cost Is Affected by Cabinet Finish
A lot of people don’t understand how much kitchen cabinets cost is affected by cabinet finishes. There are several aspects of cabinet finish that affect the price of a kitchen. Lets take a look at them.
Unfinished Kitchen Cabinets Usually Cost Less
The least expensive cabinet finish is none at all. Cabinets with no stain or clearcoat at all cost less than their finished counterparts. If you are getting unfinished cabinets though, make sure you know whether they are ready to take a finish. Some cabinet manufacturers get them all ready for you as far as sanding and wood prep, and some don’t.
Stained Kitchen Cabinet Costs are Reasonable
The next cheapest finishes are usually stains and clearcoat (natural) types. These are the run of the mill stains; shades of brown in general dominate this category, but sometimes there are reds, blues, whites, and greens you can get too. Some stains cost more than normal, either because their an odd color, or hard to put on. If you ever wonder why stained birch costs less than the same stain in maple, it’s probably because maple can be funny about taking a stain sometimes.
Paint Usually Raises Kitchen Cabinet Costs
Paints usually raise kitchen cabinet costs, probably because staining is a little easier. With stain, there’s a bit of fudge factor; the grain of the wood will hide some uneven application. With paint though, manufacturers are essentially creating a new surface on top of the wood. Any blemishes in a paint job will stick out like a sore thumb. This fact justifies the extra price in a painted set of cabinets.
Glazes? You’re Going to Pay
Glazes affect kitchen cabinet costs, usually to the tune of 15%. Glazing is a process that takes time, hence costs money. A person must apply the gaze, then wipe it off, and must do this to each door and piece of wood on the cabinet. Distressed finishes are as the name implies, distressed. They are cabinets that have been “pre-beat” (for lack of a better term) for you. Again, this process takes time. SOMEBODY has to beat these cabinets with a chain, but with a finesse that won’t destroy the cabinet. I generally see this costing an extra 30%.
These are the basic finishes and how they affect kitchen cabinet costs. Get lots of samples (color chips or whole doors) when choosing a finish for your new kitchen. Good photos of unfinished cabinetry are a bit difficult to find in google, and we’ll try to find more for later articles. Many thanks to the folks at Longhorn Remodeling (LonghornRemodeling.net ) for providing us with one. If you’re in the Fort Worth TX area and need some cabinets finished or refinished, be sure to give them a call.
Written by:
Craig
No Comments »
No comments yet.
Leave a comment
Other Finishes Articles
-
Kitchen Cabinet Knobs
You’ve picked your cabinets out finally. Different door styles and color options might still be swimming around your head, but the worst is over. Or is it? Do you want kitchen cabinet knobs? These are almost as difficult to choose than the cabinets themselves. How do you go about it? What looks good with a [...]
Yellow Kitchen Cabinets
We recently got an email from someone who wanted to know where they might find a set of yellow kitchen cabinets. Well, they’re hard to find from the regular kitchen cabinet manufacturers, and nice pictures are even more difficult to get hold of. But here’s our best attempt… A whole room full of [...]
Glazed Kitchen Cabinets
One of the features lots of people like in their kitchen is a set of glazed cabinets. Some cabinet doors are better suited for glazing than others though, and folks should make sure they understand this when shopping for a new kitchen. Glazing is done after the cabinets are either stained or painted. In a [...]
Kitchen Cabinet Finish in a Nutshell
There are three basic types of cabinet finish. These are, in no particular order, None, Stain, and Solid Color. None is a pretty self explanatory cabinet finish (although you can get cabinets ready to take a finish, or in a state where you have to prep the wood yourself) so I won’t talk about that [...]