Need ideas for cabinets, well, the wife does......

[Justin Jump]

OK, any and all advise is appreciated here.

I have been planning to build some cabinets, well, just about 2 years now. In the meantime I have been building stuff to build my skills. Shop cabinets, small projects, picture frames, of which all during the same time I have been adding equipment and dust collection.

I am now at the point where I am getting ready to build some cabinets that are for the house, just not the shop.

Here is the dilemma....

I want to build a bathroom vanity and some upper cabinets for the bathroom (kids bathroom) basically as a dry run to build some kitchen cabinets. All the while I was planning on 3/4" or 1/2" of pre-finished for the boxes and shelves, and cherry for face frames and doors.

THEN, all of a sudden, my wife changes her mind, and decides she wants white cabinets.

If we go white, I basically have two choices, stick with the pre-finished and have white face frames and doors with natural interior (which I like) or go with melmine for an all white cabinet. I dont want to have to add in finishing sheets for the boxes.

I have some questions......

1.) I wanted to use the bathroom as a dry run, should I count out the melamine for bathroom use?

2.) Finishing...I feel comfortable with a nice stain and poly approach, but white paint for a finish look I have never done, well, not counting walls and trim work which was brushed on. I do have access to spraying (my brothers auto shop), looks like Sherwin Williams and Taget EM6000 are the leaders in finishing, anyone out there try a simpler approach?

3.) Adding the edge back onto melamine? Just gluing/ironing on? Is this durable for shelves?

Feel like I am starting from scratch on this.........

[Mel Fulks]

She probably has a particular type of "white" in mind. I would start with finding out if the color of the melamine is ok. A
good job can be done with brush painting.

[Orion Henderson]

I would second Mel's point. Her white dream kitchen is not just white. There are a million varieties and finishes beyond that. Answers there are step 1. I don't know about melanine.

Some kinds of whites and paints work very well brushed on-and would look wrong sprayed on. Milk paint would be an example of something that should be brushed on (and may only be possible as a brush finish). Sprayed and catalyzed finishes are generally more durable and are what most major kitchen manufacturers use. How you finish will likely be dependent on her vision of a white kitchen. Good luck.

[Jery Madigan]

Doors/Frame should be painted wood and the interior natural wood as you planned. White melamine looks cheap on the interior - even on white cabinets. Besides, your whites won;t match.

[John Bomment]

white face frames and doors with natural interior (which I like)

That's how I do it.
Instead of white paint I use white pigmented lacquer.
( I use M.L. Campbell pre-cat Magnamax but Sherwin Williams has a water based white lacquer I've been wanting to try out.)
Sherwin Williams KEM Aqua
http://oem.sherwin-williams.com/products/wood/pigmented-wood-finishes/water/sherwood-kem-aqua-plus-whit

[Michael W. Clark]

I wouldn't do melamine unless you are doing melamine doors too and planning to use it in the kitchen as well, especially since this is a "dry run" for the kitchen.

I like the natural interiors too, if you do that, you could go with pre-fin plywood or clearcoat the boxes before attaching the face frames.
If you do painted interior, I don't think you want pre-fin plywood?

Of course, we all have opinions, but in the end, you have to make your customer happy.

[John TenEyck]

I disagree that Melamine looks cheap, but it does look sterile compared to painted cabinets. Unless that is the look you want I wouldn't use it. I have Melamine cabinets in my bath that I built 20 years ago, and they look as good as the day I installed them. But I'm ready to move on to something with more design flair. For insides, however, I still consider Melamine a perfect material in the bath or kitchen. The stuff is inexpensive, is beautifully flat and uniform, and when you're done building, you're done. The Melamine coating is very easy to keep clean and more chemically durable than most products we have access to. Melamine inside, real wood outside makes a great combination, IMHO.

Which brings up painting. If you've never painted cabinets before you are in for a real adventure. Every defect shows on painted cabinets, 10X more than on natural wood ones. It's sand, sand, sand, prime, sand, prime, sand, prime. Build something smaller first to work out the kinks before you tackle the bathroom, and especially before you tackle the kitchen.

John

John

[Jim Matthews]

The pews in my church were refinished using a white lacquer.

It looks "deep" and pearlescent.
Seems to be nearly impervious to scuffs, too.

If you build with full overlay doors, you can paint them outside.
That will keep the odor of curing paint out of the house awhile.

I would paint as much as possible before hanging the cabs.
I'm still finding "cream" colored paint in the oddest places.

PS - Floating panel doors will pull latex paint right off when they shrink during Winter.
If you're using latex paint, paint the panels before you assemble the doors.

[Mike Nguyen]

Hi Justin,

I am building my garage cabinets using baltic birch plywood with glue on edge tape for frame less cabinets and poplar for doors right now and I choose white color so it looks brighter. I am using General Finishes white under coat as primer and white poly as top coat and I like the result. This stuff is a little thicker than EM6000. I use 2.0 tip on an Earlex 5500 for this GF White Poly. Hope this helps.
Mike

[Erik Christensen]

melamine has its uses - shop jigs, fixtures, garage cabinets but anything for the house it is not a good choice - just my opinion

if you have access to a sprayer I would use good ply (BB if you can easily get it) for the case, poplar for the face frames and spray it when done.

[Ken Krawford]

I would vote against Melamine. You will invariably get some chips from your cuts and then are faced with trying to find a paint that matches to cover them. Not to mention that its also heavy !!

[John A langley]

Justin when we do paint grade cabinets in the shop will use Poplar & MDF paint inside and out. However the finish plywood would work well and look good The drawback would be that you either have to finish the face off of the cabinet or mask off the inside of the cabinet , sprayed finish works much better than a hand brush painting you can buy an inexpensive gravity fed gun with gages straight to your compression i'd suggest a waterbase finish if you're going to finish it in your garage

[Jay Radke]

then she should be the one doing the finishing to get the color she really wants.

[Dennis McDonaugh]

then she should be the one doing the finishing to get the color she really wants.

That cracked me up!

[Dennis McDonaugh]

My wife wanted white cabinets in our new house and I wanted true custom cabinets that used every inch of available room with no spacers. That eliminated plastic coated semi-custom cabinets. Ours are plywood cases with poplar shaker style doors. That opened up a whole range of options. We weren't constrained by the nominal 30" or 42" cabinet height. These are sized for the ceiling height and have a wide apron on the bottom to hide the under cabinet lights. We also incorporated faux doors instead of flat panels on the cabinet ends and back of the island. All the bottom cabinets, except for one, have drawers instead of doors and that one has vertical dividers instead of shelves. Once you decided to do it yourself it really opens up a lot of options. We designed these like furniture with unique toe kicks which you can see in the pictures. The only thing I don't like about them is the drawers are not dovetailed. I like to hand cut the dovetails, but because interest rates had started to rise we need to finish quickly and I didn't have time. I will replace the drawers when I get the time.

Finish brought up some compromises I really didn't want to make. I like oil based paint for woodwork, but it tends to yellow over time so I didn't want to use it for these bright white cabinets. We went to Sherwin Williams and selected their new Pro Classic latex interior trim paint. I wanted to go with high gloss because its more durable and easier to clean than flatter finishes, but I was out voted (my house isn't like the US where each vote counts the same!) and we went with a satin finish. They must have had about 100 different whites and we bought six quarts of different colors and painted some boards and viewed them in the kitchen at different times of day and in different light. It's the only way to select the right color in my opinion. Colors that look good in natural light can look greenish in fluorescent lights and colors that look good in fluorescent look gray or yellow in natural light. We ended up with a good compromise in the end.

One more note on finish--I used an airless sprayer and the tip recommended for latex paint was way too big. I had a problem with runs. I ended up going down two sizes and it worked a lot better.


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[Mark Blatter]

I have used the Sherwin Williams product called Opex and it seems to be pretty nice. It is a lacquer based product, but you have to reduce it 1:1 with lacquer thinner. So buying one gallon gives you to for spraying.

I personally disagree with many and say that using white melamine works well. The only place I might consider not using though is in your exact situation, namely a white paint. If the whites conflict, then I would likely not use it. I would either go with a natural as has been suggested, or more likely spray the entire insides white. You could prefinish insides before attaching the sides / backs etc. Or spray it before putting on the backs.

Another consideration is if the outsides are visible or not. Meaning does it need to have finished ends or will the cabs go between walls so only on the fronts show? If it needs finish ends, then definitely go with ply insides, painting the outsides and either paint of natural finish the insides.

When you are sanding, get some Seamfil (http://www.kampelent.com/seamfil.php) to use on every joint, crack, gouge, etc. Any place where wood was joined, with the white paint, it will show and look shabby. The Seamfil will make all the joints disappear. When I was producing cabs commercially, a white paint was our most expensive option. We marked up the job 50% due to using clear hard maple, plus the time, as others have said, for filling joints, painting, sanding it all off and redoing it.

Good Luck

[Justin Jump]

Thanks for the input......

I have counted out Melamine, if I am going to build these, I want good ply.

I am still debating my other post about trying the Menards 3/4' pre-finished. At $55 a sheet, I still can't bring myself to pay the $115 I found around here for the pre-finished.

@ Dennis - great pics, almost exactly what I am looking to do. I hope you don't mind, I may hit you up for some details.

@ John - is that a Weim in your profile pic?